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Retail

Retail operations, delivery fees, and store-level compliance

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13 min read

Service Animals vs. Emotional Support Animals: What a Small Business Can Ask, Refuse, and Must Allow Under the ADA

Under the ADA a service animal is a dog individually trained to perform a disability-related task; emotional support animals do not qualify. Businesses may ask only two questions, cannot demand papers, vests or fees, and may remove a dog only if it is out of control or not housebroken. Covers the staff script, the FDA Food Code kitchen line, why housing (HUD) and airlines (DOT) differ, the 35 state fake-service-animal laws, and how to track compliance costs.

Mike Thrift

compliancelegalsmall-business
10 min read

State Price-Gouging Laws: What Retailers Can Legally Charge During a Declared Emergency

Nearly 40 states cap emergency price increases — California at 10% above your own pre-emergency price — and most statutes require no proof of bad intent, only an increase past the threshold. Penalties reach $5,000 per violation in North Carolina and $20,000 in Texas, and the cost-justification defense works only if dated price snapshots and supplier invoices already exist.

Mike Thrift

retailcomplianceconsumer-protection
11 min read

Gas Station and Convenience Store Bookkeeping: Where Your Pennies Per Gallon Actually Go

How to keep the books for a gas station with a convenience store — splitting fuel from inside sales, tracking tank inventory in gallons, booking lottery as an agency arrangement, recording tobacco buydowns, and keeping card fees off the revenue line. U.S. convenience stores rang up a record $341 billion of in-store sales in 2025, yet NACS found the average in-store basket lost roughly seven cents per transaction after expenses.

Mike Thrift

bookkeepingretailinventory
14 min read

Tortilleria Bookkeeping: Masa Yields, Press Depreciation, and the Wholesale-vs-Retail Split

A tortilleria's masa cost per dozen moves about 5 cents when yield shifts 10 percent — the entire profit on a wholesale dozen. How to cost masa by measured yield, split retail and wholesale revenue and COGS, book presses and ovens under Section 179 or 7-year MACRS, and track the five KPIs that expose a losing route before the bank does.

Mike Thrift

small-businesscost-of-goods-soldinventory
10 min read

Alabama's Grocery Tax Is Back: A POS and Bookkeeping Checklist for the July 1 Snap-Back to 2%

Alabama's two-month grocery tax holiday ended June 30, 2026, and the 2% state tax on food resumed July 1 — with city and county food taxes never having paused. This is the register-by-register POS checklist and month-end bookkeeping routine that keeps the straddle-period July return tying out, covering cutoff transactions, prepared-food classification, SNAP tender confusion, and the uncollected-tax exposure retailers owe themselves.

Mike Thrift

sales-taxalabamapoint-of-sale
11 min read

Illinois Just Rewrote Its Pawnbroker Law: What the Auto-Title Ban and New Reporting Rules Mean for Your Shop's Books

Illinois replaced its pawnbroker statute with the Pawnbroker Regulation Act of 2023, ending auto-title advances under a pawn license, capping active licenses at 250 statewide (150 in specified populous counties), and adding electronic police reporting plus aggregate data collection. Here is how to structure a pawn shop's chart of accounts, book forfeitures at lower of cost or net realizable value, and run off title-secured balances separately.

Mike Thrift

complianceconsumer-protectionloans
8 min read

Wales Business Rates 2026: The Three-Tier Multiplier and the £116M Transitional Cushion

From 1 April 2026 Wales replaced its single non-domestic rates multiplier with three — 0.350 for retail under £51,000 rateable value, 0.502 standard, 0.515 above £100,000 — and is phasing revaluation increases above £300 at 33% in 2026-27 and 66% in 2027-28 with £116 million of transitional relief. Here is how to check which multiplier applies, verify the relief line on your bill, and budget the pre-programmed step-ups.

Mike Thrift

tax-compliancesmall-businessretail
10 min read

Florida's 2026 Sales Tax Holidays: New Dates, Item Caps, and a Retailer Compliance Checklist

Florida's 2026 omnibus tax bill (H7031E) moved the back-to-school sales tax holiday to July 20–August 20, added a September 1–December 31 hunting, fishing and camping holiday with no price cap on hunting supplies, and permanently exempted propane tanks of 20 lbs or less. This guide lists every item cap and location exclusion, explains the university-contractor and home-hardening refund programs, and gives Florida retailers a register-programming and bookkeeping checklist to stay audit-ready.

Mike Thrift

sales-taxtax-complianceretail
9 min read

Furniture and Cabinet Tariffs Rise to 50% in 2027: A Retailer's Guide to Repricing Inventory Before the Hike

Section 232 duties on imported kitchen cabinets and bathroom vanities double from 25% to 50% on January 1, 2027, and upholstered furniture rises to 30%. This guide walks retailers through per-SKU landed-cost math, classification review, supplier renegotiation, tiered price architecture, and the UNICAP rule that capitalizes duty into inventory so a pre-buy hits cash before it hits the deduction.

Mike Thrift

tariffscustomsinventory
10 min read

Lowe's Q2 FY2026 Earnings: $26 Billion of Sales, but Acquisitions Did 90% of the Growth

Lowe's posted $25.96B in Q2 FY2026 revenue, up 8.3%, but net earnings were flat at $2.40B and operating margin fell 81 basis points. Acquired businesses supplied about 90% of the sales increase while Retail Home Improvement grew just 0.8% and comparable sales rose 0.2% — the full income statement and balance sheet reconciled in a public Beancount ledger.

Mike Thrift

open-ledgerfinancial-reportingfinancial-analysis
11 min read

Home Depot Q2 FY2026 Earnings: 75% of the Sales Growth Came From the SRS Distribution Bet

Home Depot's Q2 FY2026 sales rose 5.7% to $47.86B, but the Other/SRS distribution segment supplied about 75% of the $2.58B increase at a 4.9% operating margin versus 15.4% for retail. Roughly $685M of IEEPA tariff refunds cut cost of goods sold; backing it out puts inferred gross margin near 32.2% and operating margin near 12.9%, while comparable transactions fell 1.0%.

Mike Thrift

financial-reportingfinancial-analysisopen-ledger
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