#plain-text-accounting
Plain-Text Accounting
Discover the power of version-controlled, human-readable financial records
Pet Waste Removal Business Bookkeeping: Route Density, Deferred Revenue, and the Real Unit Economics
Pet waste removal services gross $20–$45 per visit at ~50% gross and ~20% net margins, with top operators reporting $2M+ in annual revenue. This bookkeeping guide covers the metrics that actually decide profitability — revenue per route-hour, deferred revenue on prepaid subscriptions, and separating residential cash flow from invoiced commercial contracts.
Bookkeeping for Code-Audit Firms: How to Book Static Audits, Hourly Remediation, and Resold SAST Subscriptions
A code-audit firm selling fixed-scope static audits, hourly remediation, and resold SAST subscriptions runs three ASC 606 revenue-recognition rules under one roof — point-in-time, as-performed, and ratable. This guide covers the chart of accounts to separate them, the principal-vs-agent test for reseller margin, and a worked example posting one client engagement across unearned revenue, unbilled receivables, and subscription margin.
Virginia's HB 975 Replaces the 45% Food-to-Beverage Ratio: What Restaurant Owners Need to Track Now
Effective July 1, 2026, Virginia's HB 975 replaces the flat 45% food-to-beverage ratio for mixed beverage licensees with three tiers — no ratio above $48,000 in monthly food sales, 30% between $25,000 and $48,000, and 45% below that — making monthly food-sales tracking a compliance requirement, not just an annual MBAR exercise.
Alphabet Q1 2026: Google Cloud Grows 63%, and a $37.7B Paper Gain Drives the EPS Beat
Alphabet's Q1 2026 revenue was $109.9B (+21.8% YoY) with Google Cloud accelerating to 63% growth and backlog above $460B, but the 82% jump in diluted EPS to $5.11 rests largely on a $37.7B other-income line — mostly unrealized marks on non-marketable equity securities. Backing out the $36.9B equity-securities gain leaves EPS near $2.76, roughly flat against last year's $2.81. Rebuilding the FY2022–Q1 2026 books in a public Beancount ledger shows exactly where the gain landed — non-marketable securities rose from $68.7B to $106.9B, not cash.
Amazon FY2025 Earnings: A Record $77.7B Profit — and AWS Now Generates 57% of It
Amazon's FY2025: $716.9B net sales (+12.4%) and a record $77.7B net income (+31.1%) — but operating income grew only 16.6%, with a $15.2B non-operating equity gain accounting for $7.0B after tax. AWS grew 19.7% to $128.7B and produced 57% of company operating income on 18% of revenue, while PP&E jumped $104.4B in a single year. Modeled line by line in a public Beancount ledger.
Apple's Best March Quarter Ever: $111.2B Revenue, a New $100B Buyback, and Retained Earnings Turn Positive Again
Apple's Q2 FY2026 revenue reached $111.2 billion (+17% YoY) with expanding margins across every geographic segment, and a new $100 billion buyback authorization pushed retained earnings positive for the first time since fiscal 2021. Full income statement and balance sheet, FY2021-Q2 FY2026, in a public Beancount ledger.
Broadcom FY2025 Earnings: $63.9B in Revenue, and a Net Income That Nearly Quadrupled to $23.1B
Broadcom's FY2025: $63.9B revenue (+23.9%) and GAAP net income of $23.1B, up 292% from $5.9B — but decomposing the $17.2B swing shows revenue growth explains only 72% of it, with roughly $4.8B coming from a tax provision flipping to a $397M benefit plus one-time restructuring and discontinued-operations reversals. The durable signals are Infrastructure Software's operating margin rebounding to 76.8%, above its pre-VMware baseline, and AI semiconductor revenue guided to roughly double to $8.2B. Rebuilt line by line in a public Beancount ledger, FY2021–FY2025.
Circle Q1 2026: $694M in Revenue, and Most of It Never Stays
Circle's Q1 2026 revenue was $694.1M (+20% YoY) with USDC in circulation at $77.0B, but $405.4M — 58.4% — went to distribution partners, leaving an RLDC margin of 41%. Reserve income is 94% of revenue, so the top line tracks short-term interest rates. Rebuilding Circle's books in a public Beancount ledger also shows FY2025 was a net-loss year (−$70M), driven by a one-time $503.4M IPO compensation charge in Q2.
How to Bookkeep a Classic Car Restoration Shop: Job Costing and WIP Accounting
A frame-off classic car restoration can run $20,000 to $200,000 in labor and parts against a finished car worth less than the invoice, so restoration shops need per-job cost centers, a Work-in-Progress asset account, and phase-based billing to stay solvent across builds that last one to two years.
Embedded AI in Accounting: Why Explainable AI and Real-Time Oversight Are Becoming Non-Negotiable
Embedded AI now auto-categorizes transactions and flags anomalies in real time inside tools like QuickBooks and Xero, but industry estimates put manual bookkeeping error rates at 1-3% versus below 0.5% for well-monitored AI systems — the tradeoff is that AI errors compound systematically until a human catches the pattern, which is why explainable AI and real-time controller oversight are becoming standard practice.
Meta Q1 2026 Earnings: It Beat Every Number and the Stock Fell 7% Anyway
Meta Platforms' Q1 2026 revenue grew 33% to $56.3 billion and net income rose 61% to $26.8 billion, yet the stock fell about 7% after Meta raised full-year 2026 capex guidance to $125-145 billion, a $10 billion increase from the prior quarter's range.
Micron FY2026 Q3 Earnings: Revenue Rose 346%. The Cost of Making the Chips Rose 10%.
Micron's fiscal Q3 2026 revenue rose 345.7% to $41.46 billion while cost of goods sold rose only 10.5% to $6.40 billion, lifting GAAP gross margin from 37.7% to 84.6% and net income to $28.24 billion — a margin built on DRAM pricing, not cost structure, in a business that posted a negative 9.1% gross margin as recently as FY2023.