#small-business
Financial management strategies and tools for small business owners
A four-step pattern for recording the sale, scrap, or trade-in of business equipment—plus how Section 1245 depreciation recapture flows onto Form 4797 at tax time.
When a business sells, scraps, or trades in a fixed asset, gain or loss equals proceeds minus book value — both the asset cost and its accumulated depreciation must be cleared, and Section 1245 recapture taxes the gain as ordinary income on Form 4797.
Gift card breakage is the value customers never redeem. Under ASC 606, the proportionate method recognizes breakage revenue alongside redemptions—but state escheatment laws can override your right to keep the money.
A practical guide for small retailers and warehouses to compute their shrink rate, design an ABC-based cycle count program, book shrinkage adjustments to the ledger, and turn variance patterns into loss-prevention action.
Inventory shrinkage is the gap between recorded and physical stock. This guide explains how to calculate a shrink rate, why cycle counting and ABC analysis beat the annual physical count, and how to record the adjustment with a dedicated expense account.
Job costing assigns every dollar of cost to the job that caused it. Fully burdened labor runs 30 to 50 percent above base wage, overhead is applied with a predetermined rate, and committed costs reveal a budget overrun before the invoices arrive — read the variance column weekly.
LCNRV requires reporting inventory at the lower of its cost or net realizable value (NRV = selling price − completion costs − selling costs). Once written down under U.S. GAAP, inventory cannot be written back up.
A practical walkthrough of the LCNRV rule under ASC 330 — how to calculate net realizable value, book the write-down, handle obsolete or damaged inventory, and avoid the phantom-profit trap of overstated inventory on the balance sheet.
How the net working capital peg and post-closing true-up quietly transfer cash from sellers to buyers in mid-market M&A, and the monthly accrual-basis bookkeeping discipline that protects sale price.
OBBBA raised the SALT deduction cap to $40,400 for 2026, but a 30-cent-per-dollar MAGI phase-down between $505,000 and $606,333 creates a roughly 45% effective marginal rate — the "SALT torpedo." Here is how to decide whether to re-itemize.
Opening Balance Equity is a temporary account that should read $0.00 once setup is done. Learn what it means, how to set up books mid-year from a trial
Owner's equity is Assets minus Liabilities — the running total of contributions, draws, profit, and losses. This guide structures equity accounts for sole proprietors, partnerships, and LLCs, explains why draws are not expenses, and shows the year-end closing entries that keep a balance sheet in balance.
