Boat dealer and marina bookkeeping: three revenue streams, three rhythms

Boat sales: inventory at the hull, not the lot

Every boat in inventory carries its own cost — purchase price, prep, freight, and any US-import duty and GST where it applies — tracked to its Hull Identification Number the same way a dealership tracks a car to its VIN. That hull-level cost is what should come off inventory when the boat sells, so gross profit per unit is real rather than an average across a mixed lot of new and brokered used boats.

Trailers, outboard motors bought separately from the hull, and dealer-installed electronics or upgrades all belong in that same hull-level cost record, because a boat sold as a package but costed only at the hull price overstates its true margin every time.

Floorplan follows the boat-show calendar, not daily turns

Car floorplan turns constantly through the year; boat floorplan typically builds once, ahead of the winter and spring boat shows where most new-boat orders are actually written, then draws down through the May-to-September selling season. That single seasonal cycle changes how we watch it: floorplan interest is posted per unit as it accrues, curtailment schedules from the lender are tracked against each hull rather than assumed to match last year's, and a unit still unsold after the season is a carrying-cost problem worth flagging well before the next buying cycle starts.

A three-way tie between the inventory schedule, the general ledger, and the floorplan statement matters here just as much as it does at a car dealership, and arguably more, because the low-turn, once-a-year buying pattern means an error in the file can sit unnoticed for months rather than being caught by the next week's turn.

Slip and storage revenue is collected up front and earned all season

A customer who pays for a May-to-October slip in April, or for winter storage in October, has paid you before you have delivered a single month of the service. That payment is a liability — deferred revenue — until it is recognized ratably across the season it actually covers, not income the day the cheque clears. HST applies to slip rentals and storage the same way it applies to any commercial mooring or storage service; it is not treated like exempt long-term residential rent, a mix-up we see often enough to flag directly (our answer on HST on commercial versus residential rent covers the distinction). Recognizing slip revenue monthly, rather than all at booking, is also what makes a mid-season occupancy report meaningful instead of misleading.

Cancellations and mid-season transfers between slip holders add their own wrinkle: a refund partway through the season reverses the unearned portion still sitting in deferred revenue, not the full original payment, and a transfer to a new tenant should not be booked as fresh revenue if the underlying deferred balance already covers the remaining season.

Service, parts, and fuel: a smaller, faster-turning business

Engine service, haul-out and haul-in work, winterization, and bottom paint run on work orders the way an auto shop's repair orders do, but on a marine calendar: a spring commissioning rush, a quiet mid-summer, and a fall haul-out crunch that concentrates a large share of the year's labour into a few weeks. Work in progress on an engine still torn down at month end sits on the balance sheet the same way an open repair order does at a garage, and it should never be recognized as revenue before the boat actually goes back in the water. Parts and marine fuel sold at the dock are thinner-margin, higher-volume lines that deserve their own accounts rather than being folded into service revenue, because a season can look strong on total dollars while the actual service margin quietly slips. Fuel-dock sales also carry their own cash-control and environmental-compliance record-keeping, and reconciling the fuel meter readings against sales daily catches shrinkage far faster than a monthly review does. The US-sourced boats, motors, and parts that cross the border into this file are covered on our cross-border tax page for marine businesses, and the full monthly close routine runs through our bookkeeping services.