A roofing company lives on two calendars: the one on the wall and the one the storms keep. Insurance jobs pay in pieces, on the carrier’s schedule. Crews scale up and down with the weather. A good storm year can make the books look better than the business is, and the tax bill that follows can land in the slow year after.
Zero Tax keeps the books for roofing companies. Claim jobs are booked at the right time. Estimates follow the season. Crews are classified the way Florida will classify them. Bookkeeping, tax preparation, and planning come on one flat monthly fee.
An insurance job arrives as a deposit, then a first check, then a supplement, then the depreciation holdback months later. Each piece hits the bank on a different day. If every deposit is income the day it lands, the job’s real total is never in one place and the year-end number is wrong. We track each claim job as one job with its stages, so income lands when the work is done.
A storm quarter can triple revenue. Quarterly estimates set from that quarter will drain cash in the quiet months that follow. We set estimates from the season and reset them when the weather does.
Roofing crews that work your jobs, on your schedule, with your materials, are employees under Florida’s workers’ compensation rules whether or not they have an LLC. Getting it wrong is a stop-work order, not a paperwork fix. We review crew arrangements before the season starts.
roofers run AccuLynx, JobNimbus, Roofr, and CompanyCam. Those tools track the claim from inspection to final check. QuickBooks Online has to see the same job the same way. We map claim stages to invoices, keep supplements and deductibles on their own lines, and reconcile the job list to the bank every month.
Roofing is contract work on real property. You pay sales tax on shingles, underlayment, and flashing at the supplier. The homeowner or the insurer pays none on the job.
Insurance jobs follow the same rule. A supplement changes the price, not the tax treatment.
Roofing carries some of the highest workers’ compensation rates in Florida, and coverage starts at the first employee. A crew paid on a 1099 that works only your roofs is your employee in the state’s eyes.
Sub crews without their own coverage fall under yours. Ask for the certificate before the crew goes on the roof.
The April 1 tangible return covers conveyors, lifts, compressors, and safety gear. Licensed trucks and trailers stay off it. The first $25,000 is exempt once the first return is filed.
Crew trucks over 6,000 pounds are outside the passenger-car depreciation caps. Equipment bought after January 19, 2025 qualifies for 100 percent bonus depreciation. In a storm year, the timing of that write-off can matter more than the purchase.
Greg Neilsen, our tax expert, holds a law degree and a master’s in tax law (LLM). He reviews every return before it is filed.
The books, payroll, and filings run through our team in the Tampa office. The person who closes your month is the person who answers your question. We answer or call back within 24 hours.
More: every trade we serve, remodelers and general contractors, painting companies, and our services.
One call tells us both whether this fits. Tell us about the roofing business: trucks, crews, payroll, and what the books look like today. You leave knowing what Zero Tax would handle and what the flat monthly fee would be. Bookkeeping, tax preparation, and planning come on one number, starting at $750 a month, in writing before any work starts.
When the work is done, not when each check arrives. Deposits and holdbacks are tracked to the job until then. That keeps a storm year from being overstated.
The deductible is part of the job price, paid by the homeowner. The supplement is a change to the job price, paid by the carrier. Both are booked to the job, on their own lines, so the job total matches the claim file.
If they work only for you, on your jobs, with your materials, Florida says employees. A crew with its own license, its own coverage, and other customers can be a sub. We look at each arrangement, not the label on the check.
Set them from the season you are in, then reset when it changes. Keep a cash reserve for the tax on the storm quarter so the slow quarter does not have to pay it.
You pay it when you buy the materials, the same as any contract job. You charge none on the job itself. The insurance company paying the bill does not change that.
One free 15-minute call with Greg. Bring your questions. Leave knowing what Zero Tax would handle for your business and what it would cost.
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