#small-business
Financial management strategies and tools for small business owners
A pop-up shop tour that books short-term retail leases as rent and inventory transfers as sales will misstate both. Learn how to expense short-term leases, reconcile percentage-of-sales rent, and track inventory that moves city to city.
Portugal's €15,000 VAT exemption for freelancers on recibos verdes is becoming a hard threshold in 2026. Learn how the grace period ends, what quarterly VAT means for a freelancer, and the bookkeeping that keeps AT from reclassifying your activity.
Intuit added Payroll and Sales Tax AI agents to QuickBooks in 2026. Learn what the agents actually automate, what still needs a bookkeeper's approval, and the controls that keep AI from booking a transaction you can't explain.
New business owners confuse cash in the bank with profit earned. Learn how to read your P&L and balance sheet together — revenue, COGS, gross margin, assets, liabilities, and equity — plus the seven bookkeeping mistakes that make beginners misread their own numbers.
OBBBA repealed the 30% residential solar credit under Section 25D. Learn what the repeal means for installers, how to handle pipeline contracts, and the disclosure that keeps sold-but-not-installed deals from becoming refund liabilities.
Annual budgets go stale by March. Learn why rolling 13-week cash forecasts outperform year-long budgets for small businesses, how to build one from your ledger, and the weekly routine that keeps cash surprises to a minimum.
The SBA will now guarantee 90% of a manufacturing loan up to $5 million. Learn what qualifies as Made in America, how underwriting still works, what to prepare for your lender, and the bookkeeping cleanup that makes approval faster.
The 150-day global tariff surcharge under Section 122 sunsets July 24, 2026. Learn what importers should accelerate, defer, and document before the clock runs out and how to handle CAPE portal refunds if you overpaid.
Amazon KDP royalties from books you wrote and marketed are active business income. Learn when KDP income belongs on Schedule C vs. Schedule E, how to handle quarterly estimates, and why passive reporting triggers the IRS mismatch.
Seller financing can close a deal when a bank won't. Learn how to book a promissory note, recognize payments you haven't collected, and handle IRS imputed interest under Section 483 and 1274 before it turns a capital gain into ordinary income.
Septic and well drilling jobs lose margin to drive time, dump fees, and mobilization that never hits the bid. Learn per-job costing for drive time and fees, and the route profitability check that keeps a two-crew operation solvent.
Retainer pricing fails when utilization and realization drift. Learn how to set retainers from capacity, track write-offs, and keep margin from quietly going negative.
