#accounting-basics
Foundational accounting concepts, terminology, and principles for small business owners
Debits equal credits, yet your books can still be wrong — omissions, duplicates, and wrong-account postings all sail through a balanced trial balance.
The high-low method splits a mixed cost using two periods — cost difference ÷ activity difference is the variable rate, and the remainder is fixed.
Master year-end closing entries: learn the four steps to zero revenue, expense, and dividend accounts, transfer net income via Income Summary to retained earnings (or capital), verify with a post-closing trial balance, and see how Beancount handles closing without manual entries.
Nearly 9 in 10 spreadsheets contain errors — learn the 7 warning signs your Excel bookkeeping is costing you time and accuracy, what accounting software fixes, and a migration checklist that keeps your history intact.
Pre-need funeral payments are not revenue until service — they're trust liabilities. Accrual, revenue recognition, and compliance for 2026.
New business owners confuse cash in the bank with profit earned. Learn how to read your P&L and balance sheet together — revenue, COGS, gross margin, assets, liabilities, and equity — plus the seven bookkeeping mistakes that make beginners misread their own numbers.
Landscapers lose one-third of their businesses in five years to winter cash crunch—not from low margins, but from treating year-round expenses like a five-month revenue business. A seasonal chart of accounts, rolling cash forecast, and winter reserve strategy turns survival into planning.
A managed service provider chart of accounts should split recurring MRR, hardware resale, and project/T&M into separate revenue and COGS lines, since blended margins of ~42% can hide 58% recurring services next to 8% hardware resale.
Learn to read P&L and balance sheets to understand your business's profitability and financial position. A practical guide for business owners on why both reports matter and how to use them for smarter decisions.
Makerspaces should recognize annual membership dues ratably over the term as a deferred-revenue liability rather than all at once, track workshop revenue separately from dues, capitalize equipment above a set threshold, and choose an LLC or 501(c)(3) structure based on whether their funding model relies on grants or dues.
Newsletter CPC ad networks like beehiiv verify clicks roughly 96 hours after send and pay out on the 20th of the following month — three different dates that create a real accrual-accounting gap most solo publishers book incorrectly.
Podcast sponsorship payments received upfront aren't income until the sponsored episode airs — under ASC 606 they're deferred revenue, a liability, until each performance obligation is fulfilled.
