Bookkeeping and financials for a junk removal company
Marketing decisions in this trade are financial decisions, and most haulers cannot make them because the numbers live in a shoebox. If you do not know your gross margin per haul, you cannot say what a booked job is worth, and if you cannot say that, no ad budget is defensible.
Three numbers run this business. Cost per haul, which is crew time plus fuel plus the disposal ticket. Gross margin per haul, which for a well-run operation tends to land somewhere around 55 to 70 percent before overhead. And cost per booked job from marketing. When the third sits well under the second, you spend more. When it does not, you fix the phone before you touch the ad budget.
Disposal is where margin quietly disappears. Landfill and transfer station rates move, mattresses and tires and appliances carry surcharges, and a price ladder built two years ago can be underwater without anyone noticing. Bookkeeping runs $200 to $600 a month at this size. Two weeks in, working means last month is closed, categorized and readable on one page.