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 keeps your expenses categorized and tax-ready 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.
Fast Pay Books 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 expenses stay categorized and tax-ready all year. No QuickBooks file to wrestle with, no shoebox of receipts in the truck.
Categorize fixtures, fittings, permits, and helper pay, and tag them to a client so your costs are captured as you spend.
Trips between jobs, the supply house, and the bank logged at the 2026 rates of 72.5¢/mi through June 30 and 76¢/mi after for your Schedule C.
Snap a supply-house receipt, categorize it, 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, with running totals so you can see who crossed the $600 threshold.
Export a clean categorized income and expense summary as PDF or CSV for your return or your CPA.
Side-by-side on the things plumbing contractors actually use. Pricing verified 2026.
| Feature | Fast Pay Books 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 |
| Expense tracking by client & category | ✓ Tag from your phone | Manual setup / add-on | Not supported |
| Automatic mileage tracking | ✓ Background, 72.5¢/76¢ 2026 | Add-on | Reported broken post-migration |
| Invoicing + online payments | ✓ Stripe + ACH built-in | ✓ | Limited add-on |
| contractor payment records & running totals | ✓ | Manual | No |
| One-tap tax-ready expense reports | ✓ 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 treats job costing as a manual project add-on. For a solo plumber or small crew, Fast Pay Books is cheaper, faster to set up, and built around how you actually work — from the truck.
Driving between calls, to the supply house twice a day, and to the bank stacks up. At the 2026 rates (72.5¢ per mile through June 30, 76¢ after), a plumber putting 14,000 business miles on the truck has a $10,395 deduction — money most contractors leave on the table because they never logged it. The iOS app can detect and log trips automatically. 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. Fast Pay Books 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 Fast Pay Books 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 tax-ready reports. 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 tax-ready expense reports. Fast Pay Books is built mobile-first for solo plumbers and small plumbing contractors who don't want to run desktop accounting software like QuickBooks Desktop.
Categorize every fixture, fitting, and supply-house run as it happens and tag it to the client. Fast Pay Books lets you snap a receipt and record it from your phone, so your materials and drive time are captured accurately instead of reconstructed at year-end.
Fast Pay Books Basic is $24.99/mo and includes invoicing, expense tracking, mileage, job tagging, and tax-ready reports. QuickBooks Online Simple Start is $38/mo and still treats job costing as a manual add-on. For a solo plumber, Fast Pay Books is both cheaper and faster to set up.
Yes. Fast Pay Books 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. Record every sub or helper payment in Fast Pay Books as you make it, categorized and tied to the vendor, so you have a clean payment history to work from at 1099-NEC time instead of reconstructing it from your checkbook.
Fast Pay Books tracks job costs, materials, mileage, and subs from your phone — and keeps your expenses categorized and tax-ready all year. A simpler QuickBooks alternative made for plumbers.
📱 Take it on the go with our iOS app
