#small-business
Small Business
Financial management strategies and tools for small business owners
Optometry Practice Bookkeeping: Medical vs. Vision Billing, Inventory, and Practice-Value KPIs
Independent optometry practices earn from five distinct profit centers — routine vision plans, medical insurance, frames, lenses, and contact lenses — each with different margins and billing pathways. This guide shows how to build a chart of accounts that separates VSP/EyeMed routine revenue from medical billing, capitalize frame inventory, treat contact lens supplies as deferred revenue under ASC 606, and surface the KPIs (revenue per exam, optical capture rate, normalized EBITDA) that lenders and acquirers ask about.
Pet Boarding, Daycare, and Grooming Bookkeeping: Run-Night Revenue, Add-On Allocation, and Gingr/PetExec Reconciliation
Pet boarding, daycare, and grooming operators run three businesses under one roof — services earned over time, retail earned at sale, and pass-throughs that are never revenue. This guide builds a chart of accounts that separates service lines, recognizes boarding revenue per run-night through a deferred-revenue liability, allocates add-ons to the service that produced them, and reconciles Gingr or PetExec daily summaries to the bank deposit by isolating processor fees, tips payable, deposits, and refunds.
Section 1033 Involuntary Conversion: A Non-Farm Business Guide to Deferring Gain on Property Destroyed, Stolen, or Condemned
Section 1033 lets non-farm businesses defer gain on property that is destroyed, stolen, or condemned if the proceeds are reinvested in qualifying replacement property within 2, 3, or 4 years. This guide covers the election mechanics on Form 4797, the similar-or-related-in-service-or-use vs. like-kind tests, the carryover-basis recapture trap, and the bookkeeping needed to survive an IRS look-back.
When Capital Gain Becomes Ordinary Income: Section 1239 and the Family Business Trap
Section 1239 converts capital gain to ordinary income on sales of depreciable property between related parties — including a controlling owner and their own corporation, partnership, or trust. The constructive ownership rules under Section 267(c) make the more-than-50% threshold easier to cross than family business owners expect.
Section 30C EV Charger Credit Before the June 30, 2026 Cliff: Census Tracts, Prevailing Wage, and Form 8911
The Section 30C credit returns 30% of EV charger cost — up to $1,000 per port for homeowners and $100,000 per port for businesses — but sunsets after June 30, 2026. A line-by-line guide to census tract eligibility, prevailing wage and apprenticeship rules, depreciation interaction, recapture, and Form 8911.
Section 685 Qualified Funeral Trusts: Making the QFT Election, Form 1041-QFT, and Reconciling State Pre-Need Rules
How funeral homes, cemeteries, and memorial providers use the IRC Section 685 election on Form 1041-QFT to tax pre-need trust income at per-contract individual brackets — and how to reconcile state pre-need rules, deferred revenue, and restricted trust assets on the operator's books.
The Self-Rental Rule Under Section 469: How the Grouping Election Defuses the Passive Loss Trap
Section 469's self-rental rule recharacterizes rent from your own building as active income while losses stay passive — a one-way street that traps small business owners. A timely grouping election under Reg. 1.469-4 defuses it; missing the first-return filing window usually means living with the asymmetry for good.
Self-Storage Facility Bookkeeping: A Practical Guide for Operators
How self-storage operators should structure a chart of accounts by unit type, reconcile SiteLink or storEDGE with the general ledger, treat move-in discounts as contra-revenue, handle auction proceeds, and report physical occupancy, economic occupancy, and NOI per square foot.
Solar Installation Contractor Accounting: Customer Deposits, RECs, PPAs, and Passing Through the Section 48 ITC Without Triggering Recapture
A solar installer's bookkeeping playbook — customer deposits under ASC 606, REC inventory, PPA classification under ASC 842, the 50% basis reduction on the Section 48 ITC, Section 6418 transferability mechanics, and the five-year recapture clock that survives a sale of the business.
Streamlined Sales Tax in 2026: One Free Portal, 24 States, and Free CSP Services for Multistate Sellers
A 2026 field guide to the Streamlined Sales Tax Project — the 24 member states, how the free SSTRS portal works, who qualifies as a CSP-compensated seller for free Avalara, TaxCloud, Sovos, or AccurateTax service, and when SST is the wrong choice for multistate online and SaaS sellers.
Travel Agency Revenue Recognition: ASC 606 Principal vs. Agent, ARC Settlement, and 1099-NEC Guide
Two travel agencies can book the same $10,000 trip and report revenue ten times apart under ASC 606. A practical walkthrough of the principal-versus-agent control test, departure-date timing, ARC settlement flows, host agency commission splits, and 1099-NEC reporting thresholds.
The Altman Z-Score: A Five-Ratio Early Warning System for Business Failure
The Altman Z-Score combines five financial ratios into one number that predicted bankruptcy with 72% accuracy two years out. This guide covers the original formula, the Z' and Z'' versions for private and non-manufacturing firms, a worked example, and how to screen your own company, customers, and suppliers.