For a one-man siding repair business, simple bookkeeping comes down to four habits. Run every job dollar through a separate bank account. Log every business mile. Keep every receipt. Send the IRS a payment each quarter. Do those four and a $0 to $20-a-month app (or a spreadsheet) handles the rest, and tax season is one meeting with your preparer, not a weekend digging through the truck.
This isn't tax advice. It's the setup that keeps your numbers clean enough for a tax pro to do their job. Have one look over your situation, especially your first year.
Open a separate account before the next job
Get a business checking account and a card that you use only for the business. Every customer check, Zelle payment and card payment goes in there. Every coil of trim, box of nails and tank of gas comes out of there.
This matters more than which software you pick. When personal and business money share one account, every grocery run is something you have to sort later. When they're separate, your bank statement already is most of your books.
If you buy something for the house on the business card by mistake, don't let it ride. Pay the business back from your personal account and write a note on the statement line.
Track mileage every day, not in April
On a repair business, miles are often your biggest deduction after materials. You drive to look at the job, drive to the supply house, drive back to do the work, and sometimes drive back again when the color was wrong.
The IRS standard mileage rate for business is 72.5 cents a mile for January 1 through June 30, 2026, and 76 cents a mile for July 1 through December 31, 2026. The IRS raised it partway through the year because of fuel costs. You use the rate for the date you drove the miles, not the date you got paid.
Here's what that's worth. A 20-mile round trip to a one-panel repair this fall is 20 × $0.76 = $15.20. Make 10 of those trips a week for the last 26 weeks of the year and you've logged 5,200 miles, which works out to about $3,950 in mileage at the second-half rate.
For each trip, write down:
- Date
- Where you started and where you went (the job address or the supply house)
- Business reason ("estimate, Hendricks, cracked panel")
- Miles
A phone app that tracks drives on GPS works, and so does a notebook in the door pocket. What doesn't work is trying to rebuild it from memory next spring. Take an odometer photo on January 1 and again on December 31 so you have both ends of the year.
Your truck or van setup is a business asset, so ask your preparer whether the standard rate or actual expenses (gas, repairs, insurance, depreciation) comes out better for your vehicle.
Materials: one receipt, one job
Supply-house receipts fade, get wet on the dash and end up in the cup holder. Take a photo of every receipt before you leave the parking lot, and write the job name on it or in the photo's file name.
Tagging materials to a job does two things:
- It backs up the expense if you ever get asked about it.
- It shows you which jobs actually made money.
That second one is the reason to bother. If a $350 repair took $140 in panels, J-channel and a trip back for the right color, you made a lot less than you thought. Without job-tagged receipts you'd never know. With them, you'll see it's time to raise your minimum charge or start stocking common colors on the truck so you stop driving back for them.
Expect the same kinds of costs every month: siding and trim, fasteners, caulk and sealant, blades, ladder and tool replacement, phone, liability insurance, software, advertising (your Google profile, door hangers) and supplier fees. Give each one a category and use the same name every time.
Quarterly estimated taxes: the one that bites new guys
Nobody is withholding taxes from your pay anymore, so you pay them yourself, four times a year. The IRS says you generally have to make estimated payments if you expect to owe $1,000 or more when you file.
Those payments cover more than income tax. They also cover self-employment tax, which is 15.3% (12.4% Social Security plus 2.9% Medicare). You owe it once your net self-employment earnings hit $400 for the year. This is the tax that shocks people coming off a W-2 job, where the employer paid half without you ever seeing it.
The IRS splits the year into four payment periods:
- January 1 to March 31: due April 15
- April 1 to May 31: due June 15
- June 1 to August 31: due September 15
- September 1 to December 31: due January 15 of the next year
The periods aren't equal, so don't treat this as "every three months." Your next payment, for September through December 2026, is due January 15, 2027.
To avoid an underpayment penalty, the IRS's safe-harbor rule says to pay at least 90% of this year's tax, or 100% of last year's tax (110% if last year's adjusted gross income was over $150,000). Paying based on last year's tax is the easy way for a steady one-man shop, because you already know the number. You can pay through IRS Direct Pay from your bank account, through EFTPS, through your IRS online account, or by mailing Form 1040-ES. Most states that have an income tax have their own estimated payments too, so check your state's rules.
The habit that makes this painless: every time a customer pays, move a set percentage into a separate savings account and don't touch it. Self-employment tax alone is 15.3%, and income tax comes on top of that, so ask your preparer what percentage fits your income. Then automate it if your bank allows.
*Want the full pricing and money side worked out with guys running the same business? That's what we do inside the Siding Pro Academy, including the invoice template in the classroom.*
1099s: what changed for 2026
If you do work for property managers or other businesses, some of them will send you a Form 1099-NEC. Starting with payments made in 2026, the threshold for that form went up from $600 to $2,000 under the 2025 tax law. The Form 1099-K threshold for card processors and payment apps went back to $20,000 and more than 200 transactions.
That changes what paperwork you'll get, not what you owe. All of your income is taxable whether or not anyone sends you a form. Your own deposit records are what count, and that's one more reason to run everything through the business account.
Tools: pick the simplest thing you'll actually use
As of October 2026, here's roughly what you'd pay:
- Spreadsheet: free. One tab for income (date, customer, job, amount, how paid), one for expenses (date, vendor, category, job, amount), and one for mileage. Fine for your first year if you keep it up every week.
- Wave Starter: free invoicing and bookkeeping, with online payments at 2.9% plus 60 cents per transaction. Automatic bank imports need the Pro plan at $19 a month.
- QuickBooks Solopreneur: about $20 a month at list price according to 2026 pricing reviews, and Intuit often discounts it. It's built for one-person Schedule C businesses and includes bank feeds, mileage tracking and receipt capture.
Prices change and promos come and go, so check the current price before you sign up. The tool matters less than doing a 15-minute weekly sit-down: match deposits to invoices, tag receipts to jobs, total the week's miles. Chasing a customer who won't pay is much easier when your invoice records are current.
How long to keep it
The IRS's general rule is to keep records for 3 years from when you file. It's 6 years if you underreported income by more than 25%, and longer for property such as your truck and big tools, until the period runs out for the year you sell or get rid of them. Keep copies of your filed returns. A cloud folder with one subfolder per year (receipts, mileage, bank statements, return) is plenty.
Your setup checklist this week
- Open a business checking account and card, and move all job money through them
- Start a mileage log today, and take the odometer photo on January 1
- Photograph every receipt and tag it to a job
- Open a tax savings account and set the percentage with your preparer
- Put January 15, 2027 on the calendar
- Pick one tool and block out 15 minutes every Friday
If you're still setting up the business itself, start with how to start a siding repair business, then come back to this.
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Photo by u_mevs2b9d3l on Pixabay.
