#point-of-sale
POS system selection, pricing, hardware, and reconciliation for restaurants and retail businesses
A show-level bookkeeping system for comedy clubs — separate ticket, drink-minimum, and food revenue, settle performers from a written door-split formula, hold sales tax and tips as liabilities, and defer private-event deposits until the show is delivered.
In a mailbox store or CMRA, record prepaid mailbox rent as deferred revenue and customer postage as a liability until it is spent, reconcile the customer-balance subledger to the general ledger monthly, and set retention rules from USPS and IRS requirements.
QR-code phishing (quishing) can redirect a vendor payment or capture a customer's card by swapping one image. The defenses are ordinary bookkeeping controls—verify the vendor master, separate approval from payment release, and reconcile QR channels daily.
Florida SB 606 takes effect July 1, 2026 and redefines restaurant fee disclosure: every mandatory operations charge — service charges, auto-gratuities, delivery fees, and card surcharges — must be shown on menus, contracts, and ordering apps in compliant font, on the face of the bill, and as three separate receipt lines for tip, operations charge, and sales tax. Learn what counts as an operations charge, where to disclose, and how to book each line correctly.
Illinois SB 618 makes cocktails-to-go permanent July 1, 2026, requiring tamper-evident sealed containers, four-element labeling, a seven-day fill clock, employee-only delivery, and age verification, with ABV-based gallonage tax and separate POS bookkeeping to keep the channel profitable and audit-ready.
Florida SB 606 amends Statute § 509.214 effective July 1, 2026, requiring restaurants to disclose every mandatory operations charge—its amount and purpose—on menus and receipts before the order, on its own line separate from tax and tips. Includes the payroll treatment (service charges are wages, not tips), sales-tax exposure, and a chart-of-accounts setup to book each fee cleanly.
Illinois' Interchange Fee Prohibition Act bans swipe fees on the sales tax and gratuity portions of card transactions starting July 1, 2026 — the first US law of its kind. Learn how to prove tax and tips per transaction, choose between the real-time exemption and the 180-day rebate, and structure a chart of accounts that captures every dollar either way.
Mecklenburg County's combined sales tax rose to 8.25% on July 1, 2026 — the highest rate in North Carolina. This is the point-of-sale, invoicing, filing, and bookkeeping checklist Charlotte-area businesses need to collect and remit the new rate correctly.
A comic shop is three businesses sharing a register—non-returnable new issues, long-tail back issues, and consignment—so split them in your chart of accounts, book prepaid pull lists as deferred revenue, and capitalize grading fees into inventory instead of expensing them.
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.
Seventeen states run back-to-school sales tax holidays in summer 2026, from Florida's 32-day window to Iowa's Friday-Saturday weekend, each with its own price caps — $75 clothing in Ohio, $300 in Connecticut, $40 on Maryland backpacks. Participation is mandatory for most registered retailers, and destination sourcing means online sellers with nexus must honor the holiday of the delivery state.
Paint-and-sip and candle studios ring one ticket that is three revenue types, two tax treatments, and a deferred liability. Here is how to split ticket, beverage, and retail revenue at the POS, book gift cards and deposits as deferred revenue, and track pour cost so month-end takes 30 minutes.
