Plain-text accounting insights, tutorials, and updates from the Beancount.io team.
2026 data from 600+ Acquire.com listings shows bootstrapped SaaS selling at roughly 2.6x TTM revenue and 10.7x profit — a 30–50% discount to public comps. Here's how NRR, CAC payback, customer concentration, and reconciled books move your multiple, and the diligence documents buyers actually request.
US billboard ground leases pay landowners 15–20% of ad revenue or flat rent — tax treatment and escalators over 10–20 years.
A side-by-side comparison of Bill.com, Melio, and Ramp for accounts-payable automation — pricing, ERP integrations, AI invoice coding, and which tool fits businesses by invoice volume and approval complexity.
The IRS's February 2026 policy, IRM 10.24.1, formalizes how AI models — now running 126 active projects across six annual cycles — flag small business and self-employed returns for audit, requiring mandatory human review before any AI referral becomes an examination.
US iOS developers can currently run external purchase links at 0% Apple commission while courts settle a replacement rate. This guide covers the bookkeeping fallout — the merchant-of-record shift, sales tax nexus, reconciling two 1099s, and Apple's 15-day transaction reporting rule.
Claude, GitHub Copilot, and Cursor subscriptions are fully deductible under IRC Section 162 as ordinary business expenses, while Section 174 R&D amortization only applies to labor and compute tied to genuine new product development — and the 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act restored immediate deduction for domestic R&E costs.
The IRS raised 2026 HSA limits to $4,400 self-only and $8,750 family (Revenue Procedure 2025-19). A small business owner's guide to the S-corp more-than-2% shareholder rules, the 35% comparability excise tax, cafeteria plan workarounds, and how to avoid excess-contribution penalties.
A May 19, 2026 executive order pushes banks and fintechs closer together, reviving the layered-partnership risks the 2024 Synapse collapse exposed — here's what small business owners should watch and do before the 90- and 180-day regulatory deadlines hit in August and November 2026.
Visa lowered its VAMP excessive-merchant threshold from 2.2% to 1.5% on April 1, 2026, with fines of $8 per flagged transaction, and Mastercard's Excessive Chargeback Program still triggers at 100+ monthly chargebacks — here's how the ratio math catches small merchants off guard and how to bring it back under the line.
The USMCA's mandatory six-year joint review began July 1, 2026, giving the US, Mexico, and Canada until 2036 to decide whether to extend the agreement—small businesses claiming preferential tariff treatment should audit certificates of origin now, since a paperwork gap can be treated as customs fraud during heightened review-period scrutiny.
Toast charges roughly 2.99% + 15¢ per transaction, Clover about 2.3% + 10¢, and Square 2.4–2.6% + 15¢ — a side-by-side breakdown of POS pricing, hardware costs, and contract terms to help restaurant and retail owners pick the right system in 2026.
Maintenance fees, special assessments, and reserve funds need separate ledgers — commingling them is why timeshare and vacation ownership resorts end up issuing surprise assessments averaging $1,800 or more per owner when reserves run dry.
