How to Log Cash Jobs and Side Work So Your Books (and the IRS) Actually Match Reality

Say a neighbor flags you down while you're loading the truck and asks you to fix a leak for cash. Or a past customer calls you directly instead of going through LocalFixx. You do the job, you get paid, and life moves on. Six months later you're staring at your P&L or handing your accountant a 1099 total that's missing thousands of dollars of real income you earned — because it never touched LocalFixx, so it never touched your books.

That gap isn't a small problem. Your books are supposed to answer two questions: are you actually making money, and what do you owe the IRS. If half your jobs live in your head, a text thread, or a stack of receipts in the truck, neither question gets a real answer. This is exactly what the outside-job logging tool on your My Jobs page is for — and it takes about the same amount of time as writing an invoice by hand.

What the tool actually does

On your My Jobs page, there's a button: "Did a job outside LocalFixx?" It's built for one specific situation — you completed work that never came through a LocalFixx request or quote. A cash job, a walk-in customer, a referral that called you directly, a longtime client you've worked with for years outside the app. Any of that counts as "outside" work.

You fill in a few fields — trade, amount paid, the date you finished the job, and optionally the customer's name, a short description, and any notes you want on record. Hit save, and that job now sits in your job history alongside every platform-matched job you've done.

Here's the part that actually matters: it doesn't just sit there as a note to yourself. It flows into the exact same Reports, P&L, and 1099 pipeline that your platform jobs use. Same revenue totals, same monthly breakdowns, same year-end tax numbers. There's no separate spreadsheet, no second system, no manual reconciliation at tax time. Your business shows up as one number, not two.

This is available on every vendor tier — it's not a paid add-on or a perk reserved for higher subscription levels. If you're logging into your Vendor Portal, you have it.

How to log an outside job, step by step

1. Go to your My Jobs page in the Vendor Portal.
2. Click "Did a job outside LocalFixx?"
3. Pick the trade the job falls under (it has to be one of the trades you're already set up for — add it under Profile & Services first if it's missing).
4. Enter the amount the customer actually paid you.
5. Enter the date you completed the job. It can't be a future date, and it should be the date the work wrapped, not the date you got paid if those differ.
6. Optionally add the customer's name, a short description of the work, and any notes — these are for your own records and don't go anywhere public.
7. Click "Log this job." It now appears in your job list tagged as an outside job, and it's already counted in your Reports.

Why this actually matters for your business

There are three separate reasons to care about this, and they stack.

1. You can't manage what you can't see

If a third or a half of your income never shows up in your P&L, your P&L is lying to you. You might think a slow month on LocalFixx was actually slow, when in reality your outside work carried you. Or you might think you're profitable overall when your platform work alone is barely breaking even and your cash jobs are the only thing keeping the lights on. Either way, you're making decisions — what to charge, whether to hire, whether to take a slow month off — on incomplete information.

2. Loans and financing look at your whole business, not half of it

Lenders, whether it's a truck loan, an equipment line, or a mortgage, want to see consistent, documented income. "Trust me, I also do cash jobs" doesn't show up on a bank statement or a clean report. A P&L that reflects your entire business — platform and outside work together — is a stronger document to hand a loan officer than one that only shows a fraction of what you actually bring in.

3. The IRS doesn't care where the money came from

This is the one that bites people. Income is taxable whether it came through an app, a check, or a handshake and a stack of twenties. The IRS doesn't have a carve-out for "but that job wasn't on the platform." If you're only reporting your LocalFixx-sourced income and quietly pocketing the rest, that's not a bookkeeping shortcut — it's underreporting income, and it's the kind of gap that shows up badly if you're ever audited. Logging outside jobs the same way you log everything else isn't extra paperwork for its own sake. It's just accurate reporting of income you already earned and already owe tax on.

The bigger picture: how to think about tracking all your income as a self-employed tradesperson

The outside-job tool solves the mechanics of getting a cash job into your numbers. But it's worth understanding the tax picture it feeds into, because that's the part that actually determines what you owe and when.

Schedule C doesn't distinguish income sources

If you're a sole proprietor or single-member LLC, your business income and expenses get reported on Schedule C, which then flows into your personal Form 1040. Schedule C has one line for gross receipts — it doesn't ask you to separate "platform income" from "cash job income" from "referral income." It's all business revenue. That means your recordkeeping needs to capture all of it, from every source, or your Schedule C understates your real gross receipts. A tool that dumps every job — platform or not — into one revenue total is doing exactly what Schedule C needs from you.

Quarterly estimated taxes are based on what you actually expect to earn

If you expect to owe $1,000 or more in tax for the year as a self-employed person, the IRS generally expects quarterly estimated payments, not one lump sum in April. Those estimates are supposed to be based on your actual expected income for the year. If your estimate is built only on your platform income and ignores a steady stream of side work, you'll likely underpay throughout the year and can face an underpayment penalty even if you pay the full balance by the April deadline. Keeping every job — cash, walk-in, or platform — in one running total makes it much easier to estimate quarterly payments that are actually close to what you'll owe.

A simple standard to hold yourself to

• Every job that puts money in your pocket gets recorded somewhere, the same week it happens — not reconstructed from memory in March.
• One system, one number. If you're keeping a separate mental tally of cash jobs "on the side," that's a sign your books aren't actually complete.
• Keep basic backup for outside jobs too — who paid you, what for, and when — the same way you'd want documentation for any other business expense or income if a question ever came up.
• Talk to a licensed accountant about your specific quarterly payment schedule and deduction situation. General guidance like this is a starting point, not a substitute for someone who can look at your actual numbers.

None of this requires new habits or a separate system to maintain. The outside-job tool exists so that the job you did for cash on a Saturday counts exactly as much, in exactly the same report, as the job you got through a LocalFixx request on a Tuesday. Your business is one business — your books should say so.

Related guides

Stop Dreading Tax Season: How LocalFixx's Reports Tool Turns Your Jobs Into CPA-Ready Books

Recurring Expenses: Stop Re-Entering the Same Bill Every Month

Mileage Tracking for Contractors: Turn Every Drive Into a Real Tax Deduction