Mike Thrift
Marketing Manager
Summer Camp Bookkeeping: Surviving the 8-Month Cash Flow Gap Between Deposits and Opening Day
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.
Surf Shop and Dive Shop Bookkeeping: Why Your Best Season Can Still Leave You Broke by October
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.
USDA's New SNAP Stocking Rule: The 84-Unit Inventory Test That Decides Your EBT Authorization on November 4
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.
USPS Dimensional Weight Just Got 19% More Expensive: What Every E-Commerce Shipper Needs to Know
USPS cut its dimensional-weight divisor from 166 to 139 on July 12, 2026, raising DIM weight roughly 19.4% on bulky-but-light parcels and adding a $3 per-parcel fee for missing or inaccurate dimensions on commercial manifests.
Virginia's Data Center Electricity Tax: What the $0.011-per-kWh Charge Means for Your Colocation and Cloud Bills
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.
Wholesale Distributor Bookkeeping: Freight-In, Vendor Rebates, and Consignment Inventory
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.
Xero vs. QuickBooks Online in 2026: Which Accounting Software Is Actually Right for Your Business?
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.
Hair Salon Booth Rental Bookkeeping: Why the IRS Sees Your Chair as a Separate Business
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.
Roofing Contractor Bookkeeping: The WIP Schedule That Tells You Whether Your Bank Balance Is Lying
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).
Personal Chef and Private Catering Bookkeeping: Grocery COGS, the Home-Kitchen Deduction, and Per-Client Profitability
How personal chefs and private caterers separate client grocery COGS from household spending, claim the home-kitchen deduction under the exclusive-use test, and job-cost every booking — with target food-cost ranges of 28–38% for weekly meal prep and 25–35% for private dinners.
The 100% Pharma Tariff Arrives September 29: What Independent Pharmacies and Specialty Clinics Must Do Before Your Next Reorder Costs Twice as Much
A 100% Section 232 tariff on patented drugs and APIs hits smaller manufacturers on September 29, 2026; here is how independent pharmacies and specialty clinics should audit country of origin, separate tariff in landed cost, and manage the working-capital lag before the cost passes through.
Donor-Advised Fund vs. Private Foundation: A Business Owner's Guide to Giving Appreciated Stock
A DAF deducts appreciated closely held stock at fair market value up to 30% of AGI; a private foundation caps the same gift at cost basis and 20%, plus a 5% payout and 1.39% excise tax. Here is how business owners choose between them.