#bookkeeping
Modern bookkeeping techniques using plain-text and automated workflows
When you sell depreciated business equipment or a vehicle, Section 1245 recharacterizes gain up to the depreciation you took as ordinary income — reported on Form 4797, not Schedule D or Schedule C. This guide walks basis, adjusted basis, amount realized, and the recapture math with plain-text bookkeeping examples.
Section 139 lets employers reimburse employees' unreimbursed disaster expenses with no income tax, no FICA/FUTA, and no W-2 reporting — while keeping the deduction. Covers what qualifies, what doesn't (lost wages, insured costs), the minimal documentation needed, and how to book payments outside payroll.
A sign shop bookkeeping guide covering monthly close, job-level costing for materials/labor/overhead, deposit accounting, sales tax on signage, and Section 179 equipment deductions for 2026.
Small-group health insurance faces a median 11% proposed increase for 2026 based on 318 insurer filings — the sharpest in over 15 years. This guide shows small employers how to translate that median into dollars, understand the cost drivers, and evaluate renewal, plan design, and ICHRA alternatives before signing.
A guide to camp bookkeeping showing why early-bird deposits should post as deferred revenue under ASC 606, how to build a 12-month cash flow forecast from an 8-week season, and how to track KPIs like cost per camper and collection rate by deadline.
A surf or dive shop is six businesses under one roof — school, retail, travel, rental, air fills, and repair — sharing one seasonal cash window. Learn how separate revenue lines, deferred-revenue accounting for prepaid lessons, and 12-month cash forecasting that isolates inventory purchases reveal which business actually profits and whether summer funds the winter.
Starting November 4, 2026, SNAP-authorized small stores must stock 7 varieties in each of 4 staple food categories — 84 units total, up from 36 — with perishables in 3 categories, or risk losing EBT authorization. How to map varieties, track depth, flag perishables, and file invoices in your books before an FNS inspection.
Starting July 1, 2026, Virginia charges data centers $0.011 per kWh of electricity consumed — the first per-kWh data center tax in the U.S. Here is how the pass-through reaches your colocation or cloud bill, how to estimate your exposure, and how to track it in your books.
A guide to the three bookkeeping fault lines that distort a wholesale distributor's margin and balance sheet — capitalizing freight-in into landed cost, accruing vendor rebates as a contra-COGS reduction instead of income, and tracking consignment inventory by location and ownership — plus a monthly close checklist and journal entries.
A side-by-side comparison of Xero and QuickBooks Online pricing, user limits, invoicing caps, inventory, payroll, and reporting after Intuit's August 2026 QuickBooks Online price increase, with a decision framework and migration cost checklist for small businesses.
A booth renter is a separate business, not a salon employee — rent is a Schedule C expense, client payments arrive with nothing withheld, and 15.3% self-employment tax plus quarterly 1040-ES estimates are the renter's alone. This guide covers the IRS control tests, which 1099s and W-9s each side owes, and the account structure that keeps a chair rental defensible in an audit.
A roofing WIP schedule ties revenue to work actually completed rather than to when you invoiced — percent complete equals costs to date divided by total estimated costs, and earned revenue equals percent complete times revised contract price. This guide walks a $192,000 TPO re-roof through the math, explains over- versus under-billing, retainage receivable and warranty accruals, and covers when Section 460 forces percentage-of-completion for tax (roughly $31 million in average gross receipts for 2026, or contracts running past two years).
