#cash-flow
Cash Flow
Track and optimize cash flow for better financial health and stability
Your Amended Business Tax Return Now Takes Over a Year to Process — Here's Why, and How to Protect Your Cash Flow
The National Taxpayer Advocate's 2025 Annual Report to Congress found the IRS took over 13 months on average to process 1.6 million business amended returns, after a 27% workforce cut left the Small Business/Self-Employed division down nearly 38%. Here's what the report says and six concrete steps to shield your cash flow.
The SBA Just Sunset the SBSS Score — How 7(a) Small Loan Underwriting Works Now
As of March 1, 2026, the SBA eliminated the mandatory FICO SBSS score prescreen for 7(a) Small Loans of $350,000 or less, replacing the single national cutoff (most recently 165) with lender-specific credit models and a new 1.1x minimum debt service coverage ratio — here's what changed, why approval criteria now vary by bank, and how to prepare your financials before applying.
How to Read an Accounts Receivable Aging Report: 30/60/90-Day Buckets Explained
An AR aging report sorts unpaid invoices into current, 1–30, 31–60, 61–90, and 90+ day buckets so you can spot cash flow risk early. Healthy businesses keep 70–80% of receivables in the first two buckets; collection odds drop below 70% past 90 days. Here's how to read the buckets, run a weekly collections workflow, and turn the report into a cash forecast.
Business Line of Credit vs. Term Loan: How to Match the Financing to the Need
A term loan charges interest on the full lump sum from day one; a line of credit only charges for what you draw. This guide compares 2026 rates (bank term loans 6.8%–11%, SBA 7(a) 9.75%–13.25%, bank lines 8%–14%), qualification bars, and a three-question framework for choosing the right product.
Co-Packer Bookkeeping for Food and Beverage Brands: Finding Your True Cost Per Unit
A co-packer's quoted per-unit price can understate real landed cost by 36% once fixed per-run charges, setup fees, and MOQ economics are counted. How food and beverage brands should classify contract-manufacturing costs as COGS, handle turn-key vs. tolling arrangements, and avoid the 5–10 point gross-margin overstatement that misclassification causes.
Colorado HB26-1223: How Restaurants Keep Their Sales Tax in July, August, November, and December
Colorado's HB26-1223, signed June 4, 2026, lets qualifying food and drink retailers deduct up to $14,000 of monthly net taxable sales from state sales tax in July, August, November, and December of 2027 and 2028 — worth up to about $3,248 — plus a prepared-food utility exemption or 0.5% credit starting July 1, 2026. Here's who qualifies and how to record it.
Environmental Remediation Contractor Bookkeeping: Job Costing When a State Cleanup Fund Pays the Bill
How environmental remediation contractors should structure job costing when a state UST cleanup fund — not the property owner — is the real payer. Covers the five remediation phases as cost codes, ASC 606 collectibility with fund caps and deductibles, tracking 6-to-8-week reimbursement aging separately from ordinary AR, and the documentation that survives a fund audit.
Freight Broker Bookkeeping: Factoring Fees, Quick Pay, and the $700 Million Double-Brokering Problem
Freight brokers earn the spread between shipper billings and carrier cost — not gross freight value. How to book factoring (a receivable sale at 1–5% recourse, 2.5–5% non-recourse), separate quick pay discounts, track the $75,000 BMC-84/BMC-85 requirement, and use AP discipline to catch double-brokering fraud, now a $500–$700 million annual industry loss.
Olive Oil Mill Bookkeeping: Custom Crush Fees, Yield-Driven COGS, and the Harvest Cash Cliff
How to keep books for an olive oil mill that earns most of its revenue in a six-to-ten-week harvest window — separating custom-crush milling fees from own-label inventory accounting, tracking extraction yields that swing from 50 to 200 pounds of olives per gallon, valuing bulk oil in tank storage, and handling Schedule F, cash-method, and UNICAP tax questions.
Pay by Bank: How Open Banking Invoice Payments Cut Card Fees for Small Businesses
Sage and GoCardless's new "Pay by Bank" invoicing feature cuts small-business transaction costs by roughly 54% versus card payments by moving money directly bank-to-bank, and QuickBooks and Stripe already offer similar ACH-based alternatives in the US.
The Quick Ratio (Acid-Test Ratio): The One Number That Catches a Cash Crunch Before It Happens
The quick ratio (acid-test ratio) strips inventory and prepaid expenses from current assets to test whether cash, receivables, and marketable securities alone can cover current liabilities. Includes the formula, a worked example where a 2.5 current ratio hides a 1.0 quick ratio, industry benchmarks, and the aged-receivables blind spot.
Rolling Forecast vs. Annual Budget: Which Should a Small Business Use?
A rolling forecast replaces each closed month with actuals and adds a new month to a fixed 12-month window, so plans never go stale. About 42% of organizations use one (AFP), most alongside — not instead of — an annual budget, and combined approaches improve planning accuracy 25–30%. Here's how the mechanism works, the mistakes to avoid, and a six-step build guide.