#small-business
Small Business
Financial management strategies and tools for small business owners
The Visa/Mastercard Interchange Settlement: A Small Business Guide to Surcharging
Visa and Mastercard's 2026 interchange settlement caps credit card surcharges at 3% of the transaction or the merchant's actual cost of acceptance, whichever is lower, and requires 30 days' written notice to your processor before you can start charging it.
Water Damage Restoration Bookkeeping: Reconciling Xactimate, RCV, and ACV
Water damage restoration companies must track three separate numbers per job — the Xactimate-approved scope (RCV), actual costs incurred, and cash collected — because ACV checks, recoverable depreciation holdbacks, and carrier-approved supplements rarely match the original estimate dollar-for-dollar.
2/10 Net 30 Explained: How a 2% Discount Becomes a 37% Annualized Return
A 2/10 Net 30 trade discount — 2% off for paying within 10 days instead of 30 — is equivalent to an annualized return of roughly 37%, making it one of the highest guaranteed returns available to a small business's idle cash.
AI Deepfake CEO Fraud: Wire-Transfer Controls That Actually Work
The FBI logged over 22,000 reports of AI voice or video fraud with nearly $893 million in losses in a single recent year; callback verification on a separate channel, a rotating code word, and a dollar-threshold second approver are the three no-cost controls that stop deepfake wire-transfer fraud.
Automatic Gratuity Isn't a Tip: Payroll, Tax, and 'No Tax on Tips' Rules for Restaurants
Automatic gratuities fail the IRS's four-factor tip test and must be taxed as wages, which excludes them from the FICA tip credit, the FLSA overtime rate, and the new "no tax on tips" deduction.
Bartering Isn't Free: How the IRS Taxes Trade Exchanges and What Small Businesses Must Report on Schedule C
Bartering income is taxable at fair market value the moment goods or services change hands, and for sole proprietors it flows into Schedule C gross receipts and triggers 15.3% self-employment tax, even when no Form 1099-B ever arrives.
Budget vs. Actual: Turning Monthly Surprises Into a Repeatable Habit
Budget vs. actual (BvA) variance analysis compares planned numbers to real results every month, flags variances that cross both a dollar and percentage threshold, and turns recurring misses into a corrected forecast instead of a repeated surprise.
Cash Balance Plans: How Business Owners Save $200,000+ a Year Beyond a 401(k)
A cash balance plan is an IRS-qualified defined benefit plan that lets business owners 45 and older stack $75,000 to $290,000 in additional pre-tax retirement contributions on top of a 401(k), with the trade-off being a required multi-year funding commitment and $2,000-$4,000 in annual actuarial administration costs.
Cash Over and Short: Turning Till Discrepancies Into an Audit Trail
The Cash Over and Short account records the gap between expected and actual cash counts as a debit (shortage) or credit (overage), turning routine till discrepancies into a trackable, auditable pattern instead of a buried miscellaneous expense line.
CFPB Section 1071 Small Business Lending Rule Explained
The CFPB's Section 1071 small business lending rule takes effect January 1, 2028, requiring lenders that originate at least 1,000 covered small business credit transactions annually to collect and report data on applicants with $1 million or less in gross annual revenue, including optional demographic information.
Corporate Cards and Spend Management in 2026: Choosing Between Ramp, Brex, and the Rest After the Capital One Deal
Capital One's $5.15 billion acquisition of Brex, which closed in April 2026, adds integration and roadmap uncertainty to a corporate card market that also includes Ramp, BILL Spend & Expense, and Aspire, so small businesses now need to weigh vendor stability alongside features and pricing.
Days Cash on Hand: The Liquidity Metric That Predicts Business Survival
Days cash on hand measures how many days a business can pay operating expenses using only its current cash balance, with small businesses typically running 30–60 days and 90+ days considered a strong cushion.