Plain-text accounting insights, tutorials, and updates from the Beancount.io team.
An estimated $86 billion is lost to fraud inside churches worldwide each year, and most of it starts with one bookkeeping mistake — treating restricted and unrestricted funds as one pool. This guide explains how FASB ASC 958 classifies donor-restricted gifts, the three errors that get church treasurers in trouble, and the monthly habits that keep ministry books compliant and transparent.
Google deprecated Chrome Web Store Payments in 2021, leaving extension developers to reconcile Stripe, Paddle, or ExtensionPay payouts by hand — here is a three-way match workflow, per-extension ledger structure, and how to treat review-delay refund spikes as a distinct bookkeeping category.
The CFPB's final Regulation B rule takes effect July 21, 2026, removing disparate-impact liability from ECOA, narrowing the discouragement standard, and adding participant-level documentation requirements for for-profit special-purpose credit programs — a practical guide for small-business borrowers and lenders.
CDFIs are Treasury-certified mission-driven lenders that approve roughly 23-30% of small business applicants versus 13-15% at large banks, fund true startups with no hard credit minimums, accept ITINs in place of Social Security numbers, and offer fixed rates as low as 7%. Here's how CDFI underwriting works, who qualifies, and how to apply.
California's admitted commercial property market has contracted sharply — surplus lines grew from 6% to 20% of the market since 2014, the FAIR Plan raised its commercial limits to $20M per building, and a 29.1% average FAIR Plan rate increase takes effect October 2026. Here's how small business owners can navigate renewals, DIC wrap requirements, and the new SB 547 non-renewal moratorium.
Axos Financial is acquiring Arc Technologies, the AI-native cash management platform, in a deal closing July 2026. With large banks approving only 13–15% of small business loans and fintech lenders now originating 32% of them, the acquisition shows why clean, real-time books are becoming your credit application.
Producing one service dog costs $25,000–$60,000 over an 18–24-month cycle. How assistance dog nonprofits should structure per-dog cost centers, record breeding-cooperative puppy exchanges at fair value, apply GAAP (ASC 958-605) to puppy-raiser volunteer time, and release restricted sponsorships on the same timeline as expenses.
Upwork's Future Workforce Index 2026 finds freelancers doing AI-related work earn 34% more per hour, with earnings on complex AI work up 45% year-over-year while per-contract pay for commodity generative-AI gigs fell 13% — here's what the "AI Orchestrator" split means for freelancers and indie developers, and how to land on the right side of it.
AI-generated receipts jumped from 0% to 70.8% of fraud flags between March 2025 and May 2026, per AppZen data covering 1,471 fake receipts across 174 companies — and the average claim dropped to $101 as fraudsters shifted from a few large fakes to many small ones under auto-approval thresholds.
By mid-2026, roughly a dozen states — including Colorado, California, New York, Oregon, and Washington — regulate AI chatbots, with penalties from $1,000 per occurrence under Colorado's HB 26-1263 to $10,000 under California's proposed AB 1609. Here is which laws cover ordinary business support bots, which target companion apps only, and the low-cost disclosure steps that satisfy most of them.
Starting January 2026, ISO endorsements CG 40 47 and CG 40 48 let U.S. carriers exclude generative AI claims from general liability policies — and over 80 percent of carrier requests for AI exclusions have been approved, while roughly 74 percent of small businesses use AI tools. Here's what falls into the coverage gap and five steps to take before your next renewal.
Effective July 1, 2026, Washington raised the B&O tax filing threshold from $125,000 to $250,000 in annual gross income and increased the small business credit caps to $375/month for service businesses and $125/month for nonservice businesses — here's who can stop filing, who still owes nothing, and what obligations remain.
