Blog
Plain-text accounting insights, tutorials, and updates from the Beancount.io team. Browse by tag.
Micro-Wedding Packages That Still Make Money: A Pricing and Bookkeeping Guide for Event Vendors
How wedding photographers, caterers, and planners can price sub-50-guest micro-weddings profitably — a contribution-margin floor formula that separates fixed event costs from per-guest costs, package structures with explicit minimums and add-ons, and bookkeeping that keeps deposits, earned revenue, sales tax, and direct costs visible per booking.
Lowe's Q2 FY2026 Earnings: $26 Billion of Sales, but Acquisitions Did 90% of the Growth
Lowe's posted $25.96B in Q2 FY2026 revenue, up 8.3%, but net earnings were flat at $2.40B and operating margin fell 81 basis points. Acquired businesses supplied about 90% of the sales increase while Retail Home Improvement grew just 0.8% and comparable sales rose 0.2% — the full income statement and balance sheet reconciled in a public Beancount ledger.
Form 8809 for Information Returns: How Small Businesses Get a 30-Day Extension to File 1099s and Other Forms
Form 8809 can give small businesses an extra 30 days to file many information returns, but it does not extend recipient statements. Learn the deadlines, 1099-NEC exceptions, e-file rules, and bookkeeping controls that keep the request valid.
GPSR for Online Sellers: A Practical EU Product-Safety and Recall Checklist
The EU General Product Safety Regulation (GPSR) has applied since 13 December 2024, requiring online sellers to keep product information for 10 years and supply-chain traceability records for 6. This checklist covers supply-chain roles, distance-sale listing requirements, complaint registers, a five-step recall playbook, and how to reconcile recall costs in your ledger.
The 2026 Employer Meal Deduction Cliff: How to Track Disallowed Cafeteria and Convenience-of-the-Employer Meal Costs
For amounts paid after December 31, 2025, section 274(o) cuts the employer deduction for qualifying employer-operated eating facilities and convenience-of-the-employer meals from 50% to zero — even when the meal stays tax-free to the employee. This guide maps which meal costs land at 0%, 50%, or 100%, and lays out a chart-of-accounts and month-end workflow that keeps the tax adjustments defensible.
Employer Differential Wage Payments Credit: How to Track Reservist Pay and Claim Form 8932
The Section 45P credit equals 20% of up to $20,000 in differential wage payments per qualified employee—a maximum of $4,000 each—when an employer keeps paying civilian wages during active-duty military service over 30 days. Learn the 91-day employee test, how Form 8932 flows to Form 3800, why the payments skip Social Security and FUTA but not income-tax withholding, and a bookkeeping system that keeps the calculation auditable.
Demurrage and Detention Invoice Controls: A 30-Day Checklist for Importers Before Paying Port Charges
Nine major ocean carriers collected roughly $15.4 billion in detention and demurrage charges between April 2020 and March 2025. This checklist explains what the FMC's 46 CFR Part 541 billing rule requires on every invoice, the five controls to run before approving a port charge, and a 30-day workflow for disputing questionable fees and recording accepted versus disputed amounts in your books.
Czech Flat-Rate Tax in 2026: How Self-Employed People Choose a Paušální Režim Band
The Czech paušální režim bundles income tax, pension, and health insurance into one monthly payment — CZK 9,162, CZK 16,745, or CZK 27,139 in 2026. This guide covers how the 75% activity-composition test assigns your band, the retroactive Band I reduction from July 2026, the 12 January entry deadline, and the records OSVČ should keep even without an annual return.
Connecticut Paid Leave Is 0.5% in 2026: How Employers Can Catch Over-Withholding and Reconcile CTPL
The Connecticut Paid Leave contribution rate is 0.5% of subject wages for 2026, capped at the $184,500 Social Security wage base — a maximum of $922.50 per employee per employer. This employer guide covers the quarterly filing calendar, a six-step payroll reconciliation, and how to correct doubled 1% deductions, overpayments, and duplicate remittances.
Cloud Cost Allocation for Small SaaS Teams: A Practical Showback Guide
A 30-day showback playbook for small SaaS teams — define reporting dimensions, enforce a short tagging dictionary, split shared costs with defensible formulas, and reconcile cloud spend to the books before AI workloads (now managed by 98% of FinOps survey respondents) obscure gross margins.
Build a Business Disaster Inventory Before You Need It: Photos, Fixed-Asset Registers, and the IRS Workbook That Speed Insurance Claims and Tax Relief
How to build a business disaster inventory that proves existence, identity, value, and timing of what you own — fixed-asset registers, dated inventory reports, photo walkthroughs, and offsite records — plus a first-72-hours checklist and how IRS Publication 584-B and Form 4684 handle casualty losses and insurance reimbursements.
Beef Jerky Bookkeeping: Turn Dehydration Loss Into Real COGS—and Build a HACCP Trail That Scales
A 100-pound batch of raw beef can yield just 42 pounds of sellable jerky. How small meat-snack makers turn measured dehydration loss into accurate per-ounce COGS, build a chart of accounts around batch production, and link ledger entries to the HACCP validation records FSIS requires.