Do Your Books From the Truck.
PayStream Pro tracks job costs, materials, mileage, and subs from your phone — and builds your Schedule C all year. A simpler QuickBooks alternative made for plumbers.
📱 Take it on the go with our iOS app
Track job costs, materials, mileage, and 1099 subs from the truck — not from a desktop you never sit at. A simpler, cheaper QuickBooks alternative that builds your Schedule C all year. Made for solo plumbers and small plumbing crews.
Card required, no charge until day 15 · Schedule C ready · iOS app included
Plumbers spend the day under sinks, in crawl spaces, and running to the supply house — not at a computer. By the time you sit down to "do the books," you've forgotten which fittings went to the Henderson repipe and which water heater receipt was for the rental on 4th South.
PayStream Pro is a mobile-first bookkeeping app made for exactly that. You log income, materials, expenses, and mileage from your phone in the moment, tag each one to a job, and your Schedule C builds itself all year. No QuickBooks file to wrestle with, no shoebox of receipts in the truck.
Tag fixtures, fittings, permits, and helper hours to a job so you see real profit per call — not just total revenue.
Trips between jobs, the supply house, and the bank logged at the 2026 rate of 70¢/mi for your Schedule C.
Snap a supply-house receipt, assign it to a job, and keep copper, fittings, and fixtures out of your taxable profit.
Send an invoice from the driveway and get paid by card or ACH — Stripe payments built in, no add-on.
Track payments to helpers and subs, and get flagged when someone crosses the $600 threshold.
Export a clean Schedule C summary for your return or your CPA in seconds.
Side-by-side on the things plumbing contractors actually use. Pricing verified 2026.
| Feature | PayStream Pro Basic | QuickBooks Online Simple Start | QuickBooks Self-Employed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly price | $24.99/mo | $38/mo | $20/mo (Solopreneur) |
| Mobile-first (works from the truck) | ✓ Native iOS app | Desktop-first | Mobile, but limited |
| Per-job costing & materials | ✓ Tag from your phone | Manual setup / add-on | Not supported |
| Automatic mileage tracking | ✓ Background, 70¢/mi | Add-on | Reported broken post-migration |
| Invoicing + online payments | ✓ Stripe + ACH built-in | ✓ | Limited add-on |
| 1099 sub tracking & threshold alerts | ✓ | Manual | No |
| One-tap Schedule C export | ✓ PDF + CSV | Custom report build | Yes |
| Setup time | Minutes | Hours (chart of accounts) | Minutes |
| Free trial | 14 days | 30 days | 30 days |
QuickBooks Online is powerful, but it was built for accountants and treats job costing as a manual project add-on. For a solo plumber or small crew, PayStream Pro is cheaper, faster to set up, and built around how you actually work — from the truck.
Rated 4.8/5 by tradespeople running solo shops and small crews.
"I was paying for QuickBooks and a separate invoicing app and still doing job costs in a notebook. Now I tag materials to the job at the supply house counter and know what I cleared before I leave the driveway."
"The mileage tracking alone paid for it. I drive between jobs and the supply house all day and never logged a mile. My CPA said this was the cleanest Schedule C I've ever handed him."
"QuickBooks felt like it was built for an office I don't have. This is built for a truck. I send the invoice from my phone and the payment hits before I'm at the next call."
Driving between calls, to the supply house twice a day, and to the bank stacks up. At 70¢ per mile for 2026, a plumber putting 14,000 business miles on the truck has a $9,800 deduction — money most contractors leave on the table because they never logged it. The app tracks trips automatically and tags them to the right job. Run the numbers on our mileage deduction calculator.
If you pay an unincorporated sub or helper $600 or more during the year by cash, check, or bank transfer, you're required to issue a 1099-NEC in January. PayStream Pro tracks those payments all year and tells you who needs a form. Our 1099-NEC guide walks through exactly who gets one.
Most solo plumbers file a Schedule C with their personal return. Every expense you tag in PayStream Pro maps to a Schedule C line, so the form is essentially done before you start it. Tools, supplies, vehicle costs, insurance, phone, and licensing all land where the IRS expects them.
A solo plumber is fully covered on the Basic plan at $24.99/mo — income and expense tracking, mileage, job tagging, invoicing, and Schedule C export. Running a crew or multiple entities? Compare plans to find the right fit. Every plan starts with a 14-day free trial. Already comparing options? See our full QuickBooks alternatives guide built for the trades.
Plumbers need an app that works from the truck, tracks materials and job costs per call, logs mileage automatically, and produces a Schedule C at tax time. PayStream Pro is built mobile-first for solo plumbers and small plumbing contractors who don't want to run desktop accounting software like QuickBooks Desktop.
Tag every fixture, fitting, and supply-house run to a specific job. PayStream Pro lets you snap a receipt and assign it to the job from your phone, so at the end of a repipe or water-heater install you see true profit after materials, helper hours, and drive time — not just what you billed.
PayStream Pro Basic is $24.99/mo and includes invoicing, expense tracking, mileage, job tagging, and Schedule C export. QuickBooks Online Simple Start is $38/mo and still treats job costing as a manual add-on. For a solo plumber, PayStream Pro is both cheaper and faster to set up.
Yes. PayStream Pro includes invoicing with Stripe and ACH payments built in, so you can send an invoice from the driveway and get paid by card or bank transfer. QuickBooks Self-Employed treats invoicing as a limited add-on.
If you pay an unincorporated sub or helper $600 or more during the year by cash, check, or bank transfer for services, you must issue a 1099-NEC. PayStream Pro tracks those payments and flags who crosses the $600 threshold so January isn't a scramble.
PayStream Pro tracks job costs, materials, mileage, and subs from your phone — and builds your Schedule C all year. A simpler QuickBooks alternative made for plumbers.
📱 Take it on the go with our iOS app