Plain-text accounting insights, tutorials, and updates from the Beancount.io team.
Markup and margin share a numerator but not a denominator, and the gap can quietly cost a contractor $99,000 a year. A plain-language guide to the conversion math, a target-margin lookup table, and why retailers, contractors, and restaurants keep underpricing jobs.
A working chart of accounts and revenue-recognition playbook for marinas — straight-line seasonal slip revenue under ASC 606, point-in-time transient dockage, fuel-dock excise tax on Form 720, deposits held as liabilities, and 15-year MACRS treatment for floating docks.
A working playbook for independent jewelers covering per-piece SKU costing, lower-of-cost-or-market write-downs on metal price drops, memo and consignment inventory, ASC 606 repair and custom revenue, layaway deposit liabilities, and Form 8300 cash reporting without triggering structuring allegations.
A practical walkthrough of Form 1099-DIV Box 3 nondividend distributions — how return-of-capital payments from REITs, BDCs, MLPs, and managed-distribution funds reduce your cost basis under IRC Section 301(c)(2), convert into immediate capital gain under 301(c)(3) once basis hits zero, and what records you need to keep so the IRS matching program never catches you short.
A practical bookkeeping playbook for direct-to-consumer farms — chart of accounts, CSA deferred revenue across a 20-week season, SNAP/EBT and Double Up Food Bucks token reconciliation, per-market cash workflows, and Schedule F line 25 Section 175 conservation expense treatment.
A practical guide to ESOP repurchase obligation accounting for closely held companies — how ASC 480-10-S99 classifies redeemable shares as temporary equity, how to fund the obligation with sinking funds, COLI, recycling, and redemption, and the bookkeeping habits that keep plan-year valuations defensible.
How daycare operators should structure their books to handle CACFP reimbursements, state subsidy vouchers, and parent co-payments — covering chart of accounts, daily meal count discipline, classroom-level labor allocation, and the recordkeeping that holds up under state audits.
How bowling centers and family entertainment centers should book stored-value game cards, league buy-ins, party deposits, and ASC 606 breakage — with a working chart of accounts, escheat-law pitfalls, and the operating KPIs lenders and buyers expect.
Independent auto repair shops earn from labor, parts, sublet work, and environmental fees — each with different margins and bookkeeping rules. This guide builds a chart of accounts that separates flat-rate labor from clock hours, applies a tiered parts markup matrix targeting 55–58% gross profit, tracks comeback expense and warranty receivables aging, codes sublet work cleanly, and records EPA hazmat and shop supply fees as their own revenue and cost lines.
WACC blends the after-tax cost of debt and the build-up-method cost of equity into one hurdle rate. A worked example yields 15.5% for an equity-heavy small business, the minimum return a project must clear to create value.
How to keep books for a vending route at the machine level — reconciling DEX cash counters against deposits, tracking COGS and site commissions per location, and computing the contribution margin that tells you which machines to keep, optimize, or pull.
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.
