#small-business
Financial management strategies and tools for small business owners
Federal law only requires final wages by the next regular payday, but states add same-day deadlines and penalties — California's daily-wage meter up to 30 days, Massachusetts treble damages, Colorado's 2x/$1,000 floor — plus mandatory vacation payout in a handful of states.
A fireworks stand earns most of its annual revenue in about ten days. This guide covers per-season profit centers, consignment inventory accounting, stacked permit and surety-bond costs, fireworks excise taxes, and the annualized estimated-tax method for lumpy seasonal income.
The Fair Labor Standards Act has no employee-count trigger — enterprise coverage begins at $500,000 in annual gross sales, and individual coverage can apply well below it. Here is what changes at the threshold, the five obligations it imposes, and a seven-step checklist to run before an investigator calls.
Under 29 CFR 778.114, a fixed salary can compensate all hours worked, so overtime costs only a half-time premium — $80 instead of $300 on a 50-hour week at an $800 salary. This guide covers the math, the five conditions, the 2020 rule on bonuses, and the state-law bans in Alaska, California, New Mexico, and Pennsylvania.
The March 16, 2026 FMCSA final rule limits non-domiciled CDLs to H-2A, H-2B, and E-2 drivers with SAVE verification, roadside English-proficiency failures are out-of-service violations, and penalties for permitting a disqualified driver to operate top $23,000 each — here are the five checks carriers and brokers should run before every dispatch.
The FTC's December 2025 Instacart settlement priced three common practices at $60 million in refunds — "free delivery" with a mandatory service fee, a satisfaction guarantee paid out in credits, and trials converting without express consent — and this checklist maps each allegation onto disclosure, guarantee, and ROSCA subscription rules small businesses must follow.
A federal termination for convenience is not a lost contract — it is a settlement claim. This guide covers the three deadlines (120 days for inventory schedules, one year for the final proposal, 90 days for an equitable adjustment), the four cost buckets plus recoverable settlement expenses, the SF 1435/1436/1438/1439 forms, and the cost segregation that decides how much you actually recover.
Offering layaway for holiday 2026 lets retailers keep the full ticket price instead of paying 4-6% BNPL merchant fees — but deposits must be booked as liabilities until pickup, every fee disclosed in writing before the first payment, and sales tax timed to delivery. This guide covers the accounting entries, state disclosure rules, and the layaway-versus-BNPL math.
A mobile welder quoting $90 an hour often spends $20–$35 of every arc hour on shielding gas, wire, and abrasives alone. This guide shows how to book consumables as direct job costs, build a true cost per arc hour, price the non-arc hours around it, and keep the rig, mileage, and Section 179 records that hold up at tax time.
A bundled dinner theater ticket is two sales — a taxable meal and an admission many states exempt from sales tax but hit with a separate admissions or amusement levy. This guide covers the three state models (split the ticket, operator-as-consumer, tax the whole bundle), the complimentary-drink rules that tax comps at your cost, and a chart of accounts that keeps ticket, bar, and deferred revenue auditable.
Norway moved mandatory B2B e-invoice issuance forward a year to January 1, 2027, with digital receipt and bookkeeping duties following on January 1, 2030. Invoices must be structured EHF Billing 3.0 files sent over Peppol — PDFs no longer count — for all bookkeeping-obligated businesses except those under NOK 50,000 turnover with no VAT or accounting obligations.
OBBBA Section 70113 permanently repealed the moving expense deduction and the tax-free employer reimbursement for tax years beginning after December 31, 2025 — every relocation dollar, including payments made directly to vendors, is now supplemental wages, with exceptions only for active-duty military PCS moves and intelligence community personnel.
