#journal-entries
Master journal entry creation and accounting transactions
A payment processor payout bundles gross sales, fees, refunds, chargebacks, sales tax, and rolling reserves into one net deposit. Route every piece through a clearing account so your books tie out to the penny and match the gross volume on your 1099-K.
Undeposited funds is a temporary asset account that holds customer payments between receipt and bank deposit, letting individual receipts match a lump-sum bank line. This guide covers the three-step journal pattern, four common ways stuck balances accumulate, and three cleanup methods that preserve audit history.
Accrued payroll records wages, taxes, and PTO employees earned before period-end but are paid after it. Learn how to calculate the accrual, post the month-end journal entry, and reverse it next month to avoid double-counting.
Every barter trade creates taxable income equal to the fair market value of what you receive. Record it as a paired sale and expense through a barter clearing account, then report it on Schedule C—including 15.3% self-employment tax—and watch for Form 1099-B from barter exchanges.
For most businesses, credit card cash back and points are non-taxable rebates, not income—but a bonus with no spending requirement is taxable. Spending rewards also reduce your deductible expenses, so record them as a contra-expense to keep deductions accurate.
ASC 340-40 requires companies to capitalize incremental commissions as a deferred asset and amortize them over the benefit period—often three to five years for SaaS, set by the renewal commensurate test rather than the contract term.
A four-step pattern for recording the sale, scrap, or trade-in of business equipment—plus how Section 1245 depreciation recapture flows onto Form 4797 at tax time.
When a business sells, scraps, or trades in a fixed asset, gain or loss equals proceeds minus book value — both the asset cost and its accumulated depreciation must be cleared, and Section 1245 recapture taxes the gain as ordinary income on Form 4797.
Gift card breakage is the value customers never redeem. Under ASC 606, the proportionate method recognizes breakage revenue alongside redemptions—but state escheatment laws can override your right to keep the money.
A practical guide for small retailers and warehouses to compute their shrink rate, design an ABC-based cycle count program, book shrinkage adjustments to the ledger, and turn variance patterns into loss-prevention action.
Inventory shrinkage is the gap between recorded and physical stock. This guide explains how to calculate a shrink rate, why cycle counting and ABC analysis beat the annual physical count, and how to record the adjustment with a dedicated expense account.
A practical walkthrough of the LCNRV rule under ASC 330 — how to calculate net realizable value, book the write-down, handle obsolete or damaged inventory, and avoid the phantom-profit trap of overstated inventory on the balance sheet.
