Illinois AI Hiring Compliance: Notice, Bias Testing, and Vendor Records Under HB 3773
Illinois HB 3773 took effect January 1, 2026 and covers employers with one employee — give AI notice, drop zip-code proxies, run four-fifths bias tests.
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Vendor Management
Strategies for selecting, managing, and optimizing vendor and supplier relationships for small businesses
Source-Code Escrow for Small SaaS Vendors: Terms, 2026 Fees, and the Bookkeeping
US SaaS vendors face enterprise escrow demands. Self-service plans start near $139/month and traditional agents around $2,200 — negotiate release triggers and book setup, annual, and verification fees.
PEO Brokers Offer Free Help: How They Get Paid and What to Ask
Most PEO brokers are paid by the PEO you pick, not by you — a commission that can vary by provider. Here are the compensation, network, and CPEO questions to ask before signing, and when going direct is faster.
Payment-Approval Limits for a Two-Person Finance Team: A Practical Disbursement Matrix
A ready-to-copy payment-approval matrix for two-person finance teams — who creates, approves, releases, and reconciles each disbursement type, the dollar limits and escalation triggers to set, and the compensating controls that cover what two people cannot segregate.
Slotting Fees, Explained: What Grocery Shelf Space Really Costs a CPG Brand
Slotting fees run roughly $250–$1,000 per item per store in conventional grocery and $20,000–$100,000 per frozen SKU at large chains, and free fills, pay-to-stay charges and trade spend often double the real entry cost — here is how to model breakeven, negotiate the fee down, and book it correctly as a deduction against revenue rather than COGS.
Co-Op Advertising: How to Claim Vendor Ad Dollars and Book Them Under ASC 705
Manufacturers budget roughly $75 billion a year in co-op advertising funds and about half goes unclaimed. How accruals, pre-approval and proof-of-performance claims work, why claims get denied, and why ASC 705 presumes a vendor allowance reduces COGS rather than advertising expense.
Vendor Statement Reconciliation: The 15-Minute Monthly Control That Catches Duplicate Payments
A step-by-step monthly routine for comparing a vendor's statement against your payables ledger — about 15 minutes per key vendor — to catch duplicate payments, unapplied credits, and invoices your books never recorded, plus the five discrepancies that recur and how to resolve each.
Collecting Certificates of Insurance From Every Subcontractor: What a COI Must Show and the Audit Bill for Skipping It
A certificate of insurance you cannot produce on audit day turns subcontractor payments into your own payroll, billed at your trade rates. Here are the seven things every subcontractor COI must show, the five triggers for demanding a new one, and why certificate holder status is not the same as being an additional insured.
That $499 Charge on Your Statement Isn't From Visa: How to Spot and Fight Card-Processing Junk Fees
A merchant's audit guide to card-processing statements — how to separate non-negotiable interchange from processor markup, interrogate nine common junk fees including $450–$529 annual "infrastructure" charges, compute your effective rate, and script the call that gets them removed.
Shift4's $2,000 Annual Service and Maintenance Fee: What Landed on Your August Statement
Shift4 folded the $250-per-device Annual Program Fee and the $325-per-device Regulatory Assurance Fee (capped at $975) into one roughly $2,000 Annual Service and Maintenance Fee starting with August 2026 statements. Here is how to reconstruct your baseline, dispute it within the 30-day window, price the exit before switching, and book the charge as merchant account fees accrued at about $167 a month.
Wedding and Event Planner Bookkeeping: Keep Client Deposits, Vendor Costs, and Profit in View
Track wedding and event client deposits, vendor commitments, deferred revenue, cancellations, and event-level profit without confusing cash on hand with money you have earned.
QR-Code Payment Scams: Protect Your Accounts Payable and Checkout Controls
QR-code phishing (quishing) can redirect a vendor payment or capture a customer's card by swapping one image. The defenses are ordinary bookkeeping controls—verify the vendor master, separate approval from payment release, and reconcile QR channels daily.