Updated · Angel Wallace, Advanced QuickBooks ProAdvisor
Cleaning company books get tangled in three places: tips mixed in with client payments, helpers paid without a record by person, and supplies bought on personal cards. Record tips apart from the cleaning fee, track every helper's pay by name and keep supplies on a business card, and the rest gets simple.
How should a cleaning company record tips?
Record the tip on its own line, separate from the cleaning fee, every time. That way your income shows what the job itself earned and your records show what went to the crew. How tips are taxed depends on who receives them and how they are paid out, so that part is a question for your tax preparer. Your job is to keep them separate and dated.
Do I need to send my cleaners a 1099-NEC?
If your cleaners are independent contractors, a 1099-NEC is required at $2,000 per payee for payments made on or after January 1, 2026 (it was $600). Whether someone is a contractor or an employee depends on how the work is controlled, and the IRS has a guide to that question. Your tax preparer makes the call.
Either way, the bookkeeping is the same: record every payment to every helper by name, with dates, and collect a W-9 before the first payment. At the end of the year, the totals by person are already done.
How do I keep supplies from getting lost?
Buy supplies on one business card or from one business account, and nothing else. When supplies go on a personal card, they either get missed as deductions or they mix with groceries and turn into guesswork in March. If a personal card gets used anyway, snap the receipt that day and log it as an owner-paid expense.
Can I deduct the miles between houses?
Business driving between client homes generally counts, and for the 2026 tax year the IRS standard rate is 72.5 cents per business mile from January 1 to June 30, 2026, and 76 cents per mile from July 1 to December 31, 2026. Keep a dated log, because trips before and after July use different rates. Which trips count for you is your tax preparer's call. The log is what supports it.
Does a cleaning company need QuickBooks Online?
A solo cleaner with a few regular clients can run well on a custom Google Sheet. Once you pay helpers or take payments through several apps, QuickBooks Online saves time. Many owners have tried it and bounced off. One cleaning business owner wrote on a public forum, "I tried Quickbooks but it was so complex I gave up." A file set up for how a cleaning company actually works is a very different experience.
What does a clean month look like for a cleaning company?
- Every job's payment recorded, with tips on a separate line
- App payouts matched to the client payments and fees inside them
- Every helper's pay recorded by name
- Supplies on the business card, with receipts saved
- Mileage logged with dates
- Each account reconciled, and a short report you can read
That is what I keep for cleaning companies every month, and it is what turns tax season into a handoff instead of a scramble.
