Plain-text accounting insights, tutorials, and updates from the Beancount.io team.
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.
How the IRS Section 263(a)-3 tangible property regulations decide what small businesses can deduct now versus capitalize over decades — with the three safe harbors ($2,500/$5,000 de minimis, the small taxpayer building rule, and routine maintenance), the BRA test, and the unit-of-property trap that drives most mistakes.
Twenty-two states now require small employers to offer retirement savings or face penalties up to $750 per employee. A practical guide to CalSavers, Illinois Secure Choice, OregonSaves, headcount thresholds, registration deadlines, exemption rules, and the compliance traps that trigger non-compliance notices in 2026.
How staffing agencies should price bill rates above fully burdened pay rates, read gross margin by placement type, and book invoice factoring without hiding the spread. Includes burden components (FICA, FUTA, SUTA, workers' comp), a placement-aware chart of accounts, and the DSO math behind payroll funding gaps.
Reg. 1.469-2(f)(6) recharacterizes net rental income from property you rent to your own active business as nonpassive while leaving rental losses passive. This guide explains the asymmetry, walks through a dentist example with a $200,000 cost segregation deduction, and shows how the Reg. 1.469-4 grouping election can collapse the rule.
Section 988 of the Internal Revenue Code makes foreign-exchange gains and losses ordinary, not capital. Importers, exporters, and remote workers paid in euros or pounds get full ordinary-loss deductions with no $3,000 cap, a same-day election to convert forward-contract gains to capital, and a $200 per-transaction de minimis exception for personal travel currency.
How Section 514 of the Internal Revenue Code taxes leveraged investments held by 501(c)(3) organizations, private foundations, and self-directed IRAs — including the debt/basis percentage calculation, Form 990-T mechanics, the 12-month look-back on sale, and the Section 514(c)(9) real estate exception for schools and pension trusts.
Section 45W ended for vehicles acquired after September 30, 2025, but businesses with a binding contract and a payment by that date can still claim up to $7,500 for light EVs or $40,000 for heavy trucks in 2026 — here is how the credit is calculated, filed on Form 8936, and refunded as cash to tax-exempt fleets through elective pay.
