(720) 333-7274 • Mon–Thu 8–4, Fri 8–12 MT · Castle Rock, CO
Food Trucks specialty

Food truck accounting — built for mobile, multi-jurisdiction operators.

Multi-city sales tax, event vs catering revenue separation, commissary fees, and the truck depreciation math that interacts with Section 179.

Get a quote for your food trucks

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Food trucks are the most jurisdictionally complex small business there is. You serve in Castle Rock on Tuesday, Denver on Wednesday, Aurora on Thursday — and each has its own sales tax rate and licensing rules. Add catering events, festival permits, and a commissary lease, and the accounting needs to handle every layer.

We work with single-truck operators and multi-truck commissary-based operations.

What we handle

  • Multi-jurisdiction sales tax — license per home-rule city you serve, file each correctly.
  • Event vs regular service revenue separated for margin analysis.
  • Commissary fees tracked properly as direct cost.
  • Truck and equipment depreciation — Section 179, bonus depreciation.
  • Catering deposits as deferred revenue until event date.
Field note: home-rule licensing

A food truck operator was serving Denver, Aurora, and Boulder weekly without a sales-tax license in any of them — assuming SUTS covered everything. Voluntary disclosure cost $2,200 in back tax plus minor penalties. Operating without licenses for another year would have been 4x worse.

If / Then

If you serve home-rule cities (Denver, Aurora, Boulder, etc.), you need licenses there.
If you do catering events, deferred revenue accounting on deposits is required.
If you run multiple trucks, per-truck P&L tells you which is profitable.

The Bottom Line

Multi-city tax handled, event revenue clean, catering deposits accounted right.

From $400/month.

Frequently asked questions

How do you handle home-rule cities?

License each city where you serve, file each city's return on its schedule. We map your service footprint quarterly.

Truck depreciation?

Most fully built-out trucks above 6,000 lbs qualify for Section 179 plus bonus, expensed in year 1 to limits.

Catering deposits?

Booked as a liability when collected, recognized as revenue at event date.

Software?

Square or Clover for POS. Toast if you scale. Sync to QuickBooks Online.

Reviewed by

Kali Gilliland · Founder & Lead Accountant

Kali Gilliland is the founder of TBA & Associates and has spent more than a decade serving small businesses across the Denver metro and Colorado Springs corridor. She handles everything from monthly bookkeeping to multi-state tax planning, with a long-term client roster that goes back 10+ years.

Ready for an accountant who picks up the phone?

Get a quote in under 24 hours. No long contracts, no jargon — just clean books and honest tax planning from a Denver-area firm trusted by small businesses for more than a decade.