#small-business
Financial management strategies and tools for small business owners
A payment processor payout bundles gross sales, fees, refunds, chargebacks, sales tax, and rolling reserves into one net deposit. Route every piece through a clearing account so your books tie out to the penny and match the gross volume on your 1099-K.
Salon and barbershop booth rent can land on Schedule C, Schedule E, or both — and it is usually the booth renter, not the shop, who owes the Form 1099-MISC. A practical guide to worker classification, deductions, and audit-ready bookkeeping for shop owners and booth renters.
Schedule M-1 reconciles book net income to taxable income on Forms 1120, 1120-S, and 1065.
Section 139 lets employers pay employees tax-free aid after a federally declared disaster — no FICA, no W-2 reporting, no 1099, and fully deductible to the employer. The guide covers qualifying expenses, the disaster definition, the documentation that survives an audit, and a worked $54,000 example.
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.
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 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.
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 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.
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 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.
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.
