Feature · Invoicing
Bill one of your businesses from another, cleanly
When one of the businesses you own does work for another, the invoice between them should be as clean as any customer invoice — the labor and materials rolled in, a PDF for each side, and separate books that still stand on their own. One workspace holds all of it.
The scenario
When one of your shops works for another
Say your HVAC company has a rooftop-unit job, and it needs an electrical panel disconnected and reconnected before the crew can swap the unit. Rather than sub it out, you send your own electrical company to do it. That is normal when you run more than one trade — but it means the electrical business has just done real, billable work for the HVAC business.
The electrical side booked labor and materials it needs to recover. The HVAC side has a cost to fold into what it charges the building owner. So the electrical business invoices the HVAC business for its share — the same clean transaction you would run with any outside customer, except both sides live in the one workspace where you already run every business you own.
Kept separate
Separate books, one workspace
Each business in your workspace is its own entity, with its own customers, its own work orders, and its own invoices — even though you sign in once. When the electrical company bills the HVAC company, the electrical side records revenue and the HVAC side records a cost. Nothing bleeds across. The two sets of records stay distinct, which is exactly what keeps each business able to stand on its own.
That separation is the same principle that lets you run several businesses side by side without them blurring together, covered in the guide on how to run multiple service businesses.
The mechanics
Generate the invoice both sides need
The hours your electrical crew logged and the materials they used roll straight into the invoice — no re-keying, no second spreadsheet. The time comes from the same field capture your crew already uses on every job, and the work order rode through the same status board as everything else.
When it is ready, export a clean PDF — one for the business that did the work and one for the business that received it — so each side has a document to keep.
Inter-business invoice
- Panel disconnect + reconnect · 2.0 hrs
- $290.00
- Lockout kit + fittings
- $140.00
In plain language
What intercompany invoicing means for a small operator
“Intercompany invoicing” — sometimes called inter-business or intercompany billing — just means one business you own charging another business you own for work or goods. That is the whole idea. Search the term and you mostly find enterprise software aimed at corporations with dozens of subsidiaries reconciling ledgers across borders. The concept is the same at any size; the scale is not.
For a two-truck operator it is far simpler: your electrical company did a panel pull for your HVAC company, so it writes an invoice for that work, and each business keeps its own record of it. You are not moving money in secret or guessing at a number — you are documenting a real transaction between two of your businesses so both sides’ books make sense on their own.
MasterBuilds handles the operational side — the work order, the time, the invoice, the PDF. How you should account for an inter-business charge, and whether it has any tax implication, depends on how your businesses are legally structured, so treat this as background and confirm the bookkeeping with your accountant.
Where it fits
Part of the multi-business model
Billing between your own businesses only matters if you actually run more than one, and that is the whole point of running every business you own from one workspace. Inter-business invoicing is one piece of that model — the same guide on running multiple service businesses walks through the rest.
It is all included in the flat $99/month plan, unlimited businesses and crew — no extra charge for the second business, or the fifth.
Questions about inter-business invoicing
- When would I invoice my own business?
- Any time one business you own does billable work for another. A common one: your HVAC company has a rooftop-unit job that needs an electrical panel pulled and put back, so your electrical company sends someone to do that part. The electrical side now has real labor and materials to account for, and the HVAC side has a cost to fold into what it bills the building owner — so the electrical business invoices the HVAC business for its share.
- Do both businesses see the invoice?
- Yes. You run both businesses from one workspace, so you see the invoice from the sending side — the business that did the work — and the matching cost on the receiving side. Each business keeps its own copy in its own records, and you can export a PDF for either one.
- Does this mess up my books?
- No — keeping the entities separate is the whole point. Each business records the invoice on its own books: revenue for the business that did the work, a cost for the one that received it. MasterBuilds keeps those two sets of records distinct inside one workspace. How an inter-business charge should be treated for bookkeeping and tax depends on how your businesses are structured, so it is worth confirming the specifics with your accountant.
- Is this different from just transferring money?
- Yes. Moving money between accounts leaves no record of what the work was, what it cost, or which business owed which. An invoice does: it captures the labor and materials, gives each side a document, and keeps both businesses’ books able to stand on their own. The payment is a separate step from the paper trail that explains it.
Bill between your businesses without the mess
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