Send an invoice and get paid by card or ACH before you leave the job. Track expenses and mileage, and build your Schedule C all year — all from your phone. A simpler, cheaper QuickBooks alternative made for one-person and small handyman businesses.
Card required, no charge until day 15 · Get paid on site · iOS app included
A handyman business lives and dies on getting paid. You finish a gutter clean, a fence repair, a TV mount, and a faucet swap in a single day across four houses — and then chase four checks for two weeks. Meanwhile the receipts pile up in the glovebox and "doing the books" keeps sliding to Sunday night.
Fast Pay Books fixes both ends. Build an invoice on your phone the second a job is done, text it to the customer with a Pay Now link, and watch the card or ACH payment land before you're at the next address. Every expense and mile gets tracked along the way, so your Schedule C is basically done by April.
Pick the customer, add line items, send by text or email — straight from the driveway.
Stripe card and ACH payments built in. The customer taps Pay Now and you're paid before you leave.
Snap a hardware-store receipt and categorize it against the client so your material costs are captured as you spend.
Driving between jobs all day is a real deduction — logged at the 2026 rates of 72.5¢/mi through June 30 and 76¢/mi after.
Set up repeat invoices for regulars on a maintenance schedule and stop re-typing them.
Export a clean categorized income and expense summary as PDF or CSV for your return or your CPA.
Side-by-side on the things a handyman actually uses. 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) |
| Invoice from your phone | ✓ Native iOS app | Desktop-first | Mobile, but limited |
| Card + ACH payments built in | ✓ Stripe, no add-on | ✓ Payments add-on fees | Limited add-on |
| Materials & expenses by job | ✓ Tag from your phone | Manual setup / add-on | Not supported |
| Automatic mileage tracking | ✓ Background, 72.5¢/76¢ 2026 | Add-on | Reported broken post-migration |
| Recurring invoices | ✓ | Higher tier only | 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 pushes payments and recurring invoices into add-ons or higher tiers. For a one-person handyman business, Fast Pay Books is cheaper, faster to set up, and built around getting paid on the spot.
The single biggest cash-flow problem in a handyman business is the gap between finishing work and getting paid. Every day a check sits in the mail is a day you've financed the customer's repair for free. Sending the invoice with a Pay Now link the moment the job is done collapses that gap to minutes. Card and ACH are built in through Stripe, so there's nothing extra to sign up for.
Bouncing between five jobs, the hardware store, and the bank stacks up miles fast. At the 2026 rates (72.5¢ per mile through June 30, 76¢ after), a handyman putting 11,000 business miles on the truck has an $8,168 deduction — money most leave on the table because they never logged it. Fast Pay Books tracks trips automatically. Run the numbers on our mileage deduction calculator.
If you bring on a helper or sub and pay them $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 flags who needs a form. Our 1099-NEC guide walks through exactly who gets one.
Most handymen 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, and phone all land where the IRS expects them.
A solo handyman is fully covered on the Basic plan at $24.99/mo — invoicing, online payments, expense tracking, mileage, and tax-ready reports. Adding crew or running multiple services? Compare plans to find the right fit. Every plan starts with a 14-day free trial. Comparing options? See our full QuickBooks alternatives guide built for the trades.
A handyman needs to invoice the moment a job is done and get paid before leaving. Fast Pay Books lets you build an invoice on your phone, send it by text or email, and accept card or ACH payment on the spot — plus it tracks expenses and mileage for your Schedule C. It's a simpler, cheaper alternative to QuickBooks for solo handyman businesses.
Send the invoice before you pack up the truck. Fast Pay Books invoices include a Pay Now link for card and ACH, so the customer can pay from their phone while you're still on site. Faster than waiting on a mailed check, and there is no separate payment app to set up.
Yes. Fast Pay Books Basic is $24.99/mo with invoicing, online payments, expense tracking, mileage, and tax-ready expense reports included. QuickBooks Online Simple Start is $38/mo and treats some of those as add-ons. For a one-person handyman business, Fast Pay Books is cheaper and faster to set up.
Both. Beyond invoicing, Fast Pay Books tracks materials and expenses by job, logs mileage between jobs automatically at the 2026 rate, and rolls everything into a Schedule C summary so tax time is a one-tap export.
No. Most handymen operate as sole proprietors and file a Schedule C with their personal return. Fast Pay Books works the same whether you're a sole proprietor or a single-member LLC, and keeps your expenses categorized for your return either way.
Fast Pay Books sends invoices, takes card and ACH payments on site, and tracks expenses and mileage — all from your phone. A simpler QuickBooks alternative made for handyman businesses.
📱 Take it on the go with our iOS app
