Plain-text accounting insights, tutorials, and updates from the Beancount.io team.
How a community theatre records ticket settlements gross of platform fees, holds advance sales as deferred revenue, tracks donor-restricted grants separately from board designations, budgets each production against a 75% attendance base case, and builds compensating internal controls for volunteer-run cash handling.
A co-founder prenup records capital contributions, equity splits, vesting, spending authority, salary triggers, and exit terms before the first dollar moves — Carta data shows only 45.9% of two-founder startups incorporated in 2024 split equity equally — and maps each decision to ledger entries your accountant can verify.
How AWS Marketplace sellers can keep deposits from masquerading as revenue — book gross billings at the transaction level, record listing fees separately, classify the three tax-share scenarios, reverse refunds against the original offer, and reconcile net disbursements to the bank using clearing accounts, offer IDs, and bank trace IDs.
Under ASC 718 as amended by ASU 2018-07, startup equity granted to consultants, advisors, and contractors is measured at grant-date fair value and expensed as services are received — not when cash moves. This guide covers scope decisions, option-pricing inputs and nonpublic-company practical expedients, service vs. performance vs. market vesting conditions, keeping book expense separate from tax reporting, a three-record monthly reconciliation, and the ASU 2025-04 change for customer awards effective after December 15, 2026.
ASC 250 sorts every accounting change into one of three treatments — a change in principle applies retrospectively, a change in estimate applies prospectively, and an error correction depends on materiality, from a Big R restatement to a little r revision. This guide shows small businesses how to classify each event, weigh quantitative and qualitative materiality, and document the decision in an auditable close workflow.
Amazon's Prime Business Card and Amazon Business Card, issued by U.S. Bank on Mastercard, launched May 13, 2026 with 5% or 3% back on Amazon purchases up to a combined $150,000 annual cap. This guide shows small businesses how to reconcile the card migration, book reward credits as cost reductions, and track 0% APR installment purchases as liabilities.
Under the Nacha Operating Rules, an ACH reversal corrects only a sender's qualifying error—a duplicate, wrong amount, wrong account, or qualifying wrong date—and must reach the receiving bank within five banking days of settlement. This guide explains how reversals differ from returns and R10/R11 unauthorized-debit claims, and how to record each event so payments stay reconcilable.
AASB 1061 creates a simplified Tier 3 general purpose reporting framework for eligible Australian private-sector not-for-profits, mandatory for annual periods beginning on or after 1 July 2029. Here is what changes for leases, grant revenue, financial instruments, and donated assets — and the records, registers, and policies to build before the first Tier 3 year closes.
USPTO 2026 fee schedule for US small businesses: trademark classes, patent stages, and how to budget federal IP filings.
Uber processed $58.0B of gross bookings in Q2 2026, up 24%, while revenue grew 12% to $14.19B and operating income grew 30% to $1.89B. Net income rose 77% to $2.39B, but a $1.61B gain on debt and equity securities supplied more than half of pre-tax profit, and a UK shift to an agent model cut reported revenue by roughly $1.1B — the full income statement and balance sheet reconciled in a public Beancount ledger.
Reverse factoring lets a supplier collect early from a finance provider while you still pay the full invoice at maturity. FASB ASU 2022-04 requires buyers to disclose key program terms, confirmed obligations outstanding, and an annual rollforward. Here is the data model, monthly reconciliation, and cash-flow analysis that keep those numbers defensible.
Starbucks reported $9.32B of Q3 FY2026 revenue, down 1.4%, while global comparable-store sales rose 7.9% and net earnings nearly doubled to $1.05B. Moving China retail into a licensed joint venture removed roughly $780M of consolidated revenue, and a $536.3M divestiture gain accounted for more than the entire year-over-year increase in net income — the full income statement and balance sheet reconciled in a public Beancount ledger.
