Guides
Bookkeeping, explained plainly
No fluff, no jargon — the practical answers small business owners actually search for.
How Much Does a Bookkeeper Cost for a Small Business?
What small businesses actually pay for bookkeeping in 2026 — hourly rates, monthly retainers, cleanup projects, and how to tell which pricing model fits you.
Read the guide →Months Behind on Bookkeeping? A Step-by-Step Catch-Up Guide
A practical, step-by-step process for catching up months (or years) of bookkeeping — what to gather, what order to work in, and when it's cheaper to hand it off.
Read the guide →QuickBooks Cleanup Checklist: How to Fix Messy Books
The 10-step checklist bookkeepers actually use to clean up a messy QuickBooks file — uncategorized transactions, unreconciled accounts, duplicate entries, and more.
Read the guide →What Does a Bookkeeper Actually Do? (And What They Don't)
The concrete tasks a bookkeeper handles every month, what deliverables you should expect, and where bookkeeping ends and accounting begins.
Read the guide →Bookkeeping for Contractors: What Makes It Different
Job costing, progress billing, 1099 subs, and lumpy cash flow — why contractor bookkeeping breaks generic advice and what a clean setup looks like.
Read the guide →Year-End Bookkeeping Checklist: Close the Year CPA-Ready
The 12 tasks to finish before handing your books to a CPA — reconciliations, 1099s, loan balances, owner draws, and the reports that must tie out.
Read the guide →Bookkeeping for Restaurants: Daily Sales, Tips, and Food Cost
How restaurant bookkeeping actually differs — the daily sales journal entry, tips as a liability, delivery-app deposits, sales tax, and the prime cost numbers that decide whether the month worked.
Read the guide →Cash vs. Accrual Accounting: Which Should Your Business Use?
The real difference between cash and accrual accounting, what each is good at, which one the IRS lets you choose, and why the right answer for your books and your tax return can differ.
Read the guide →Bookkeeping for Trucking Companies and Owner-Operators
How trucking bookkeeping differs from every other small business — settlement statements, fuel tax, per diem, and the cost-per-mile number that tells you if a load was worth running.
Read the guide →9 Common Small Business Bookkeeping Mistakes (and How to Fix Them)
The bookkeeping errors that show up most often in small business books — mixed personal spending, miscoded loan payments, netted deposits — and exactly how to correct each one.
Read the guide →Chart of Accounts for Small Business: What It Is and How to Set One Up
A plain-English explanation of the chart of accounts — the five account types, how much detail is actually useful, a starting structure you can copy, and how to change it without breaking your history.
Read the guide →Quarterly Estimated Taxes for Small Business Owners: Deadlines and How to Calculate Them
Who has to make quarterly estimated tax payments, the four deadlines and the uneven periods they cover, two ways to calculate a payment that avoids penalties, and what to do if you already missed one.
Read the guide →Bookkeeping for Landscaping and Lawn Care Businesses
How to keep books for a landscaping or lawn care business — surviving the off-season, handling prepaid seasonal contracts, splitting equipment from supplies, and the crew and subcontractor questions that decide your year-end paperwork.
Read the guide →Business vs. Personal Expenses: How to Separate Them and Fix Commingled Books
Why running business and personal money through one account costs more than it saves, the simple setup that ends it, how owner draws and reimbursements actually get recorded, and how to untangle books that are already mixed.
Read the guide →Who Gets a 1099-NEC? A Small Business Filing Guide
Which contractors need a 1099-NEC, who is exempt, why payment method changes the answer, when the form is due, and the one habit that makes January painless.
Read the guide →Bookkeeping for Auto Repair Shops: What Actually Matters
How to set up the books for a repair shop so parts and labor margins are visible, cores and sublet stop distorting revenue, and sales tax never gets spent by accident.
Read the guide →How to Do a Bank Reconciliation (And Why It Matters)
What a bank reconciliation proves, the steps to do one properly, the usual reasons it will not balance, and why forcing an adjustment is the worst thing you can do.
Read the guide →How Long Should You Keep Business Records?
How long to keep receipts, invoices, bank statements, payroll and asset records — the three-year default, the exceptions that run six years or longer, and what counts as a record.
Read the guide →How to Pay Yourself From Your Small Business
Owner's draw, guaranteed payments, or a W-2 salary — how your entity type decides the way you take money out, how each one is recorded, and why a draw is not a business expense.
Read the guide →Bookkeeping for Cleaning and Janitorial Businesses
How to keep books for a residential or commercial cleaning company — recurring contracts versus one-off deep cleans, supplies and equipment, cleaner classification, and knowing which accounts actually make money.
Read the guide →How to Track Mileage and Vehicle Expenses for a Small Business
The two methods for deducting vehicle costs, what the IRS actually requires in a mileage log, which trips do not count, and how to get the deduction into your books without mixing personal driving into the business.
Read the guide →Bookkeeping for Retail Stores: Inventory, POS, and Real Margins
Why a retail P&L is only as honest as its inventory count, how to reconcile a POS system that never matches your bank deposits, and where shrinkage and markdowns quietly eat the margin you think you are running.
Read the guide →What Your Accountant Needs at Tax Time: A Small Business Checklist
The documents, forms, and answers a tax preparer actually asks for, which of them only you can supply, and why handing over a shoebox in March costs more than handing over closed books in January.
Read the guide →How to Record a Business Loan and Its Payments in Your Books
Why loan proceeds are not income, how to split every payment between principal and interest, and how to keep the loan balance in your books matching the balance your lender says you owe.
Read the guide →How to Track Unpaid Invoices and Write Off Bad Debt
How to keep accounts receivable accurate, read an aging report, tell a credit memo from a bad debt, and write off an invoice that will never be paid, including the tax catch for cash-basis businesses.
Read the guide →Bookkeeping for Law Firms: Trust Accounts, Retainers, and Client Costs
How small law firm books differ from other businesses: keeping client money in trust separate from firm money, when a retainer becomes income, tracking advanced client costs, and reconciling the trust account.
Read the guide →How to Record Payroll in Your Books (Without Double-Counting Anything)
Why gross wages, not net pay, is your payroll expense, how to split the single lump sum your payroll service withdraws, which taxes are your cost and which are the employee's, and how to tell when payroll liabilities are recorded correctly.
Read the guide →Sole Proprietor, LLC, or S Corp: What Actually Changes in Your Books
How your entity type changes the bookkeeping — equity accounts, owner pay, payroll, and the filing deadlines that follow — explained for owners deciding or already switched.
Read the guide →Bookkeeping for Daycare and Childcare Centers
How to keep books for a childcare center — tuition and deposits, state subsidy payments, food program reimbursements, ratio-driven payroll, and year-end parent statements.
Read the guide →Capitalize or Expense? How to Record Equipment and Other Big Purchases
When a purchase belongs on the balance sheet instead of the P&L, how the $2,500 de minimis election works, and how to record financed equipment, repairs, and depreciation correctly.
Read the guide →Monthly Bookkeeping Checklist for Small Business Owners
The month-end bookkeeping tasks that keep a small business's books accurate: reconciliations, uncategorized transactions, receivables, payroll and sales tax liabilities, loans, and closing the period.
Read the guide →Bookkeeping for Nonprofits: Restricted Funds, Donor Receipts, and the Form 990
How nonprofit bookkeeping differs from business bookkeeping: net assets with and without donor restrictions, grant tracking, donor acknowledgment rules, functional expenses, and what the Form 990 needs from the books.
Read the guide →How to Record Startup Costs and Expenses You Paid Before Opening
How to book the money you spent before your business opened: startup vs. organizational costs, the $5,000 first-year deduction, equipment that is depreciated instead, and how to record costs you paid with personal money.
Read the guide →Bookkeeping for Landlords: Rent, Security Deposits, Repairs, and Schedule E
How to keep books for long-term rental properties: tracking each property separately, why security deposits are not income, repairs vs. improvements, splitting mortgage payments, and handling a property manager's net payouts.
Read the guide →How to Record Business Credit Card Transactions (and Stop Double-Counting Expenses)
The right way to book business credit card purchases, payments, interest, refunds, and rewards — and the double-counting mistake that inflates expenses in so many small business books.
Read the guide →Filed a Tax Extension? Getting Your Books Ready Before October 15
What a tax extension actually gave you, what it did not, and the bookkeeping that has to be finished before the October 15 extended deadline for individual and calendar-year C corporation returns.
Read the guide →Prepaid Expenses vs. Accrued Expenses: What They Are and How to Record Them
A plain-English explanation of prepaid and accrued expenses, how each is recorded month by month, and why they decide whether your monthly profit is real or just a timing accident.
Read the guide →Bookkeeping for Veterinary Clinics: A Practical Guide for Practice Owners
How to set up and run the books for a veterinary practice: separating services from pharmacy and retail, wellness plans paid in advance, card and financing deposits, doctor pay, relief vets, and expensive equipment.
Read the guide →How to Manage Accounts Payable in a Small Business
A practical accounts payable process for small businesses: recording bills when they arrive, matching them to what you ordered, scheduling payments around due dates and cash, and keeping the AP aging report honest.
Read the guide →Year-End Inventory Count Checklist for Small Businesses
A practical checklist for a year-end physical inventory count: setting the cutoff, handling goods in transit and consignment, counting accurately, valuing at cost, and posting the adjustment to your books.
Read the guide →Bookkeeping for Insurance Agents and Agencies
How insurance agents and small agencies should keep their books: reconciling carrier commission statements, handling advances and chargebacks, keeping client premiums out of revenue, and tracking the costs of producing business.
Read the guide →Bookkeeping for Property Management Companies
How property management companies should keep their books: owner and tenant money in trust, security deposits, management fees as your real revenue, owner statements and disbursements, and reconciling it all every month.
Read the guide →Year-End Tax Planning for Small Business: What to Do Before December 31
The small-business tax moves that only work before December 31 — equipment purchases, prepaying and deferring, retirement plans, owner payroll, and 1099 prep — and why every one of them depends on books that are current through November.
Read the guide →What Is a Trial Balance? How to Read One and What It Can't Tell You
A plain-English explanation of the trial balance: what it is, how to read one, the difference between unadjusted, adjusted, and post-closing trial balances, the errors it catches and the ones it misses, and what to look for each month.
Read the guide →How to Set Up and Track Petty Cash for a Small Business
A step-by-step guide to running a petty cash fund the right way — choosing the amount, logging receipts, replenishing, recording the journal entries, and handling overages and shortages.
Read the guide →Year-End Payroll Checklist for Small Business Owners
What to check before your last payroll of the year and what is due in January — employee details, fringe benefits, reconciling quarterly returns to W-2s, and the filing deadlines for 2027.
Read the guide →How to Record Customer Deposits and Unearned Revenue
Why a customer deposit is a liability, not income — and how to record deposits, apply them to the final invoice, handle refunds and forfeited deposits, and keep the balance accurate.
Read the guide →Bookkeeping for Roofing Companies: Insurance Jobs, Crews, and Job Costing
How roofing contractors should handle insurance claim jobs, two-party checks, held depreciation, material returns, subcontracted crews, and seasonal cash flow in their books.
Read the guide →How to Prepare Your Books for an IRS Audit: A Small Business Checklist
Got an IRS audit letter, or want to be ready if one comes? What the IRS actually examines, how to tie your tax return back to your books and bank statements, and the records that support each deduction.
Read the guide →Bookkeeping for Moving Companies: Deposits, Crews, Trucks, and Claims
How movers should record booking deposits, estimates and final invoices, crew tips, seasonal labor, truck costs, storage revenue, and damage claims so the books show what each move really made.
Read the guide →Bookkeeping for HVAC Companies: Jobs, Parts, and Seasonal Cash
How HVAC businesses should set up their books — job costing for installs vs. service calls, parts and equipment inventory, maintenance agreements, and surviving the shoulder seasons.
Read the guide →Bookkeeping for Ecommerce Sellers: Payouts, Fees, and Inventory
Why ecommerce books go wrong — platform payouts recorded as revenue, missing fees, refunds, sales tax, and inventory — and the setup that keeps Shopify and Amazon sellers accurate.
Read the guide →Bookkeeping for Plumbers: Service Calls, Materials, and Getting Paid
A bookkeeping setup for plumbing businesses — separating service work from larger jobs, tracking materials and truck stock, handling deposits, and keeping receivables collectable.
Read the guide →How to Switch Bookkeepers Without Losing Your Books
A step-by-step plan for leaving a bookkeeper — what to collect before you cancel, how to protect access to your own books, and how to vet the replacement.
Read the guide →Can I Do My Own Bookkeeping?
Yes, you can do your own bookkeeping. Here is what the monthly work involves, how much time it takes, and the signs it is time to hand it off.
Read the guide →Do I Need a Bookkeeper for an LLC?
Is a bookkeeper required for an LLC? Usually not by law, but clean books protect your liability shield and your taxes. Here is how to decide.
Read the guide →How to Reimburse Employee Expenses: Accountable Plans Explained
How an accountable plan lets a business reimburse employees, including S corp owners, for mileage, travel, and supplies without it counting as wages, plus the three IRS requirements and how to record reimbursements in your books.
Read the guide →Bookkeeper vs. Accountant vs. CPA: What's the Difference?
What a bookkeeper, an accountant, and a CPA each actually do, which credentials are licensed and which are not, and which one a small business needs at each stage.
Read the guide →Bookkeeping for Electricians and Electrical Contractors
How electrical contractors should set up their books: job costing by materials, labor, and subs, handling truck stock versus job materials, progress billing and retainage, and the tax issues specific to the trade.
Read the guide →Employee or Independent Contractor? How to Classify Workers Correctly
How the IRS common-law test and state ABC tests decide whether a worker is an employee or a contractor, what each classification changes in your bookkeeping and payroll, and what to do if you have been getting it wrong.
Read the guide →How to Record Square, Stripe, and PayPal Payouts in Your Books
The deposit from your payment processor is not your sales number. How to record payouts so gross sales, processing fees, refunds, tips, and sales tax each land where they belong.
Read the guide →Bookkeeping for Painting Contractors: Job Costs, Crews, and Cash Flow
How a painting company should set up its books: job costing for paint and labor, deposits and retainage, subcontractors and workers' comp audits, and getting through the off-season.
Read the guide →How to Set Up Bookkeeping for a New Business: A First-30-Days Checklist
A week-by-week checklist for setting up small business bookkeeping from day one: bank accounts, chart of accounts, software, receipts, invoicing, sales tax, payroll, and a monthly close that sticks.
Read the guide →In-House Bookkeeper vs. Outsourced Bookkeeping: How to Decide for a Small Business
The real differences between putting a bookkeeper on payroll and outsourcing the books: total cost, coverage, internal controls, what each option is good at, and a simple test for choosing.
Read the guide →Bookkeeping for Consultants: Retainers, Billable Expenses, and Paying Yourself
How independent consultants should keep their books: recording retainers and milestone billing, handling client-reimbursed expenses, the deductions that get missed or overclaimed, entity choice, and staying ahead of quarterly taxes.
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