Most landscaping business owners I've talked to can tell you their revenue to the dollar. Ask them what they spent last month and you get a pause, a squint, and "I'd have to check."
Revenue is the easy number. It's the money coming in, and it feels good to count. But without a budget that tracks where it all goes, revenue is just a number that makes you feel busy. Profit is the number that matters, and you can't know your profit without knowing your costs.
Here's how to build a budget spreadsheet for a landscaping business. Not a theoretical one from an accounting textbook, but one that matches how landscaping money actually moves.
Why landscaping budgets are different
Landscaping businesses have two problems that most budget templates don't account for:
Seasonal revenue swings. In most of the country, you're making 60-70% of your annual revenue between April and October. Your expenses don't follow the same curve. Insurance, truck payments, and loan payments are the same every month whether you're slammed or sitting at home watching it snow. A budget that uses flat monthly averages will be wrong every single month.
Variable costs that shift with volume. Materials, fuel, labor hours, dump fees, these all scale with how much work you're doing. In July, your fuel bill might be three times what it is in January. Your budget needs to reflect that or it's useless for making decisions.
The layout that works
Set up your spreadsheet with 12 monthly columns plus an annual total. Rows are your expense categories. Here's a framework with realistic numbers for a 2-3 person landscaping operation doing about $180,000-$250,000 per year.
Revenue section
| Category | Jan | Apr | Jul | Oct | Annual |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maintenance contracts | $1,200 | $6,800 | $8,400 | $5,200 | $62,000 |
| Install/project work | $0 | $12,000 | $18,000 | $8,000 | $115,000 |
| Snow removal | $4,500 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $18,000 |
| Total revenue | $5,700 | $18,800 | $26,400 | $13,200 | $195,000 |
Notice January vs. July. If you budget based on the July number, you'll run out of cash in winter. If you budget based on January, you'll never invest in growth. You need both.
Fixed costs (same every month)
| Category | Monthly | Annual |
|---|---|---|
| Truck payments (2 trucks) | $1,400 | $16,800 |
| Equipment loan payments | $450 | $5,400 |
| Insurance (liability + vehicle + WC) | $680 | $8,160 |
| Phone and software | $185 | $2,220 |
| Storage/yard rental | $400 | $4,800 |
| Licenses and permits | $50 | $600 |
| Total fixed | $3,165 | $37,980 |
These hit you every month regardless. In January, when you're bringing in $5,700, over half goes to fixed costs before you buy a single bag of mulch.
Variable costs (scale with work volume)
| Category | Jan | Apr | Jul | Oct | Annual |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Materials (mulch, plants, stone, etc.) | $0 | $3,800 | $5,600 | $2,400 | $36,000 |
| Fuel | $280 | $950 | $1,300 | $750 | $10,200 |
| Labor (crew wages) | $1,800 | $5,400 | $7,200 | $4,200 | $58,000 |
| Equipment maintenance | $150 | $350 | $500 | $300 | $4,200 |
| Dump and disposal | $0 | $280 | $420 | $200 | $2,800 |
| Total variable | $2,230 | $10,780 | $15,020 | $7,850 | $111,200 |
The bottom line each month
| Jan | Apr | Jul | Oct | Annual | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $5,700 | $18,800 | $26,400 | $13,200 | $195,000 |
| Fixed costs | $3,165 | $3,165 | $3,165 | $3,165 | $37,980 |
| Variable costs | $2,230 | $10,780 | $15,020 | $7,850 | $111,200 |
| Net profit | $305 | $4,855 | $8,215 | $2,185 | $45,820 |
January you're basically breaking even. July you're printing money. This is the reality of landscaping, and your budget needs to show it clearly so you can plan for the lean months.
The cash reserve problem
That $45,820 annual profit looks decent. But here's the trap: if you spend July's profits in August, you won't have enough to cover December through February when revenue drops off a cliff.
The fix is simple in concept, painful in practice. During your peak months (May through September in most markets), set aside 20-30% of your net profit into a separate account. Don't touch it. That's your winter fund.
I know a landscaper in Ohio who went under his third year in business, not because he didn't have enough customers, but because he bought a new truck in August with his summer profits and couldn't make payroll in February. A budget with seasonal cash flow projections would have told him to wait.
Budget vs. actual: the part everyone skips
Building the budget takes an hour or two. The value comes from comparing it to what actually happens.
At the end of each month, fill in a "actual" column next to each budget number. Where are you over? Where are you under? The first few months will have big gaps because you're guessing. By month six, your estimates get much closer to reality.
Things to watch for:
- Materials running over budget usually means you're not pricing jobs with enough markup, or you're wasting material on-site.
- Fuel consistently over might mean your routes are inefficient or a truck needs maintenance.
- Labor higher than expected could mean jobs are taking longer than you estimated. That's a pricing problem, not just a budget problem.
How to actually set this up
You can build this in Google Sheets or Excel in about an hour. Start with last year's bank and credit card statements if you have them. Go through transaction by transaction and drop each one into a category. Tedious, but you only have to do it once to get your baseline numbers.
If you don't have last year's data, estimate based on what you know. Your truck payment is your truck payment. Insurance is insurance. Fuel, you can estimate from your fill-up frequency. Materials, look at your recent supply house receipts.
The free ProTradeOps toolkit includes a budget template already set up with landscaping-specific categories and seasonal columns. If you'd rather start with something pre-built instead of staring at a blank spreadsheet, grab that and customize the numbers.
Get the free landscaping budget template
Pre-built with seasonal revenue tracking, expense categories, and cash flow projections for landscaping businesses.
Download free →Three budget decisions that actually matter
When to hire. Your budget tells you how many billable hours you need to cover an employee's cost. If you're turning away $4,000/month in work during peak season because you can't get to it, and a crew member costs you $3,200/month fully loaded, the math is obvious.
When to buy equipment. A new mower costs $12,000. Your budget shows you clearing $8,000 in profit during peak months. Finance it and make payments from peak-season surplus, or save through the summer and buy in the off-season when dealers are more flexible on price.
What to charge. Your budget shows your total annual costs. Divide by the number of jobs you expect to do and you know your minimum per-job cost. If you're quoting under that number, you're paying the customer to let you work on their property.
Start this weekend
Pull up your bank statements from the last three months. Categorize every expense. Plug the numbers into a monthly budget. See where you actually stand.
It's not exciting work. But every landscaping business owner I know who takes their budget seriously makes more money than the ones who wing it. Not because they work harder, but because they see the problems before the problems see them.
Beyond the spreadsheet: Spreadsheets are great until you forget to update them. QuickBooks Self-Employed connects to your bank account and categorizes expenses automatically. Less manual entry, fewer mistakes at tax time.
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