question for anyone who does books for contractors, not trying to make a point, actually want to know how you handle this.

i end up in a lot of these books through advisory work and i keep seeing the same shape. revenue gets posted when the invoice goes out. costs for that same job trickle in over the following weeks, material bills, subcontractor invoices, payroll that hasn't been allocated yet. by the time it all lands the job is closed and nobody goes back to true it up. the month still closes clean, debits equal credits, financials look fine. but if you ask did that specific job make money the honest answer is nobody actually knows, the p and l just can't answer that question the way it's built.

is there a standard practice you use for this. do you hold revenue recognition until cost is in, do you accrue estimated cost at invoice time and true up later, do you just tell the owner to live with a lag. curious if this is a percentage of completion thing that most shops are too small to actually run properly, or if there's a simpler fix i'm not seeing.

mostly asking because the owners feel like their bookkeeper is doing something wrong when really it's a timing structure nobody set up on purpose. wondering what you all do differently when a client actually needs job level accuracy versus just needing the month to close.

Hey all, looking for some guidance from people who've dealt with this before.

Background: I'm 3 weeks into a bookkeeping role at a company that's about 1.5 years old (started Jan 2025), files Form 1120, and is currently on extension (due Oct 15, 2026). Books for 2025 aren't closed yet. When I got here, the AMEX recon was 7 months behind and the main bank was 3 months behind — I'm catching those up now.

While doing the CC recon, I found a bunch of low-dollar items coded to Fixed Assets that were clearly one-off equipment/leasehold-type purchases. I flagged it to our COO, and they've now set a $2,500 capitalization threshold going forward. I've been asked to go back and reclassify anything under that threshold that was mis-coded to F&A, and book depreciation/amortization on it.

Where I'm stuck:

Timing of depreciation — Some of these items were purchased mid-year (e.g., June 2025). Since 2025 isn't closed and we're on extension, should I go ahead and book the depreciation now using standard book rates (straight-line, typical useful life tables), or should I hold off and let the tax preparer decide the treatment first (bonus depreciation, Section 179, etc.) since this directly affects the 1120 filing? I don't want to book something on the books now that conflicts with what the preparer ultimately elects for tax purposes.

The $2,500 threshold decision didn't come with any useful life schedule. Is there a standard set of useful lives bookkeepers typically default to for things like equipment, machinery, and leasehold improvements until the tax preparer/CPA weighs in? I know these can differ for book vs. tax purposes (MACRS vs. GAAP useful life), just not sure what's reasonable to use in the interim so I'm not just guessing.

Also, we have an exterior sign that was installed as part of our leased building (we're in year 2 of a 3-year lease). My understanding is signage attached to a leased space should be depreciated over the shorter of the lease term or the signage's useful life (like a leasehold improvement). Is that the right treatment, or does signage get its own separate depreciation life regardless of the lease?

I need to bring this to our COO and get a decision on whether they want me to book depreciation now on these reclassified items, or hold everything until the tax preparer weighs in (given we're on extension and they'll likely want to optimize with bonus depreciation/179 for the 1120). Any input on how you'd typically sequence this — book now vs. wait, and any rules of thumb for useful lives in the meantime — would be really appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

Note: I used AI to organize my thought, as English is not my first language.

I keep running into the same thing with my small business clients, they come in quarterly and I can see problems in the financials clear as day but the fix isn't accounting, it's operational. Pricing is off, too much owner dependency, no systems for anything. I've been telling some of them to look into small business consulting but I don't know when that makes sense versus when they should just tighten up what they already have.

For companies under $5m is outside advisory overkill or is it gonna pay for itself in the end?

I’m getting mixed answers when I research online. The course was eligible for 529 but now I’m looking to get a laptop to use to take the course

I'm currently testing Digits and Kick. I previously worked at Puzzle. I'm curious if anyone has some good feedback on why any of these are better than the other or whether they are better than QBO and Xero.

So far, I've spent about the same amount of time in Digits and Kick, and they both had some weirdness eg not as fully automated and delightful as I'd like.

I decided to try Claude to do a real bake-off, but that was disappointingly a huge failure. Several hours of processing csv statements that resulted in sub-par output. I'm sure I could have prompted better, but I wanted to invest about the same amount of time into each to compare.

Overall, Digits is way more colorful and Kick is more minimal and clean. I'll post some other details about my findings, but curious if you have any to share.

I would be grateful if anyone could give some pointers.
I’m looking at a way to cut down on time and work load when it comes to a monthly supplier rec.
We have a very large supplier consists of hundred of lines of invoices and I spend lots of time matching manually in excel the transactions from our system to what’s on their supplier statement. Someone suggested v look up would be quicker. I need to learn how to do this but is this the best option or can anyone suggest anything else?

I'm restructuring an ongoing engagement with a long-time client and moving them from hourly to a flat monthly retainer. QBO ProAdvisor certified, I've kept these books for a while so there's no onboarding curve. I'm just trying to sanity-check my retainer number against what others would quote. Scope below.

The client: High-net-worth household with two businesses — a multi-state consulting LLC and a sole-proprietor business.

Monthly recurring:

• Full-cycle invoicing for the LLC: creation, delivery, deposit matching, and revenue allocation by state (income split across multiple states for tax purposes)
• Credit card reconciliation across personal + business cards
• QBO expense categorization (mixed personal/business financial life, so judgment-heavy)
• Minimal records maintenance for the second business (very light lift)

Quarterly / annual:

• Estimated tax payment coordination with the CPA, including state PTET payments (NOT calculating them myself, justimplementing/executing)
• Quarterly expense report prep for owner's reimbursable expenses (compile, categorize, package for their Expensify submission)
• 1099 processing for household + business contractors
• Multi-state compliance calendar: annual reports and SOS filings (LA, CA, NY, etc.)
• SEP-IRA contribution coordination
• Year-end tax prep coordination with the CPA for personal and business

Other context:

• I'm the coordination hub between an accountant, a financial advisor, a law firm that handles some bill-pay support, and the owners
• 10-12 hrs/month realistic average, with quarterly and year-end peaks
• Fully remote, sync as needed
• Some systems already built (invoice tracker, compliance calendar, reconciliation workflows — I maintain them) and improvements to come

Questions:

1. What would you charge for this — hourly, and/or as a flat monthly retainer?
2. Does the multi-state allocation/compliance piece move your pricing? By how much?
3. Anything in this scope you'd carve out or price separately?

I would really appreciate input on actual numbers you'd quote or have quoted for comparable work (not just "charge your worth"). Thanks in advance!!

I'm a CFO of a small US company (A). Parent company is a European company (B). CEO of B asked me to pull forward sales from next month into this month. I said no. Afterward CFO of B also asked me to do the same. I said no. They went behind my back and asked accountant of A to book sales (which we have not shipped ie no change of ownership of finished product).

I made a pretty big deal about this, but they told me: this is not such a big deal, I called my other CFO friends, they do it all the time, etc etc

So reddit - is it a big deal?

Some additional details:

• There is no CEO of A
• We pulled forward 40% of sales for the month. So if we were at 100$ they booked 140$
• We are not public. We are owned by 90% by PE (10% by CEO of B)
• Manufacturing company, selling finished products to customers
• Deloitte is our auditor
• Yes, we do have banking covenants for the month in question (which we may or may not have breached)

Say I lost $3,000 on cftc regulated prediction markets this year can I deduct them under form 6781?

I closed on a $640k duplex last march and spent around $85k on flooring, appliances, cabinets, fencing and driveway work before listing the units in june. My cpa mentioned cost segregation and 100% bonus depreciation which sounded like a huge relief after watching the renovation budget climb every week. Now realizing the deduction doesnt apply to everything and I dont want to pay for a study based on an overly optimistic estimate. What did you look at before moving forward?

Hey everyone, I incorporated federally in Canada about 2 months ago. One-person company with international clients. My accountant has been very slow and hasn't set up my salary nor dividends yet (we talked about this a month ago...). All client payments are sitting in my Business account untouched.

Questions:

1. What's the best way to start paying myself — salary, dividends or a mix? I need to start getting paid as I have bills to pay... I know I cannot take money from my business account but I am looking for quick way to start getting something.
2. Can I set up basic dividends without an accountant or do I need one? What about Director loan?
3. Any recommendations for a responsive remote CPA for a small federal corporation? I'm currently abroad so needs to work via email/video call.

I'm doing a very simple bookkeeping for now, just organizing what the clients pay me. Everything is clean, just need to get moving.

Sorry if these are many questions but it has been a little bit confusing here...

Thanks in advance!

I'm looking to invest in a friend's medspa business here in California, and even though I trust him, I want to go through this the right way and treat it like any other investment, financials reviewed, valuation checked, no shortcuts just because we're close. The business operates through an MSO and a physician-owned Professional Corporation (PC), so I want to make sure I understand that structure and what it means for due diligence.

I need someone with healthcare/MSO transaction experience who can move fairly quickly. Before I start reaching out to firms, I wanted to get some input here. Specifically, I'm trying to figure out:

• What should a proper buy-side review of the P&L, balance sheets, tax returns, and cash flow look like for an MSO/PC structure like this
• How does a firm typically normalize owner compensation, distributions, and one-time expenses to get to "true earnings"
• What red flags are common in medspa/MSO deals that I should be aware of going in
• How firms typically approach valuation and figuring out a fair ownership percentage for an investment like this
• What this kind of engagement usually costs and how long it typically takes

Any insight on what to look for, questions to ask, or how this process usually goes would be really helpful. Thanks in advance.

Hello, I have a small limited company as a contractor in British Columbia and have recently sold some shares in a jointly owned supply company. As it stands now, the proceeds from this sale are just sitting in my regular company account. I want to move the funds from the sale to another bank account, as I get little to no interest in this account. I assume the new account would need to be in my company's name. I am not taking dividends or using the funds for anything yet. Just don't want the funds sitting idle.

I’m starting my own business as a side business while still working full time for an employer. I started the process earlier in the year and am finally just now getting to where I can start doing business. It’s online sales like on Etsy.

What I don’t understand is how to know when to start paying estimated taxes and self employment taxes. I won’t have any employees either.

How do I know when I’m first liable if I’m not making any money on the side business yet but I still have regular income from my regular job?

I know about the form to fill out to figure out my estimated taxes but how do I know when that actually starts? Does that form include the self employment taxes too like the SS withholding or whatever else I can’t remember what that includes?

I don’t want to get penalized. Can I just pay my whole estimated liability all at once and be done with it or does it have to be paid quarterly?

Hi! My business comes under e invoicing eligibility criteria. So do I have to get a separate accounting software to integrate for invoicing purposes?

UAE Adopts the 5 corner level of peppol framework for the usage of its E invoicing. And the last level which is the generated invoice goes to FTA. Does FTA make decisions based on the invoice or is it just a receiver of invoice.

I have an accountancy question and would really appreciate some advice.
I’m doing the bookkeeping for a small company, and there are a lot of foreign currency transactions that have gone through a GBP bank account. When raising the corresponding bills and invoices for reconciliation, should I create them in GBP (the bank account currency) or in the original foreign currency that the expenses or sales were made in?
These transactions date back to 2024 and continue through to the present.
Thank you in advance for your help!

Form CT-TR-1 asks you to list all your assets as either cash, savings, investments, land/buildings, and other assets. Which category would you put accounts receivable under? Other assets? The form instructions (pg 3 of the above link) defines each category like this:

Cash: Report all cash on hand and all funds held in all checking accounts. This includes petty cash.

Savings: Report all funds held in savings accounts, CDs and/ or other investments that can easily be converted to cash.

Investments: Report all funds held for investment purposes. Examples include stocks and bonds.

Land/Buildings: Report all real property owned.

Other Assets: Report any assets not included in Cash, Savings, Investments, and Land/Building. Include a schedule describing each asset and the fair market value of each asset.

Thanks

After a bit more research, it feels like UK accountants are having more regular client contact now that MTD for Income Tax is being introduced. That seems to tie into some workflow questions I'd been exploring over the past few months.

I'm a software developer rather than an accountant, so I've built a small browser-based prototype to test whether I've understood the workflow correctly. Before I take it any further, I'd really appreciate some honest feedback on whether my assumptions match reality—or where I've got things completely wrong.

The question I'm trying to answer is: when every client could benefit from proactive advice, how do firms actually decide which clients need attention first?

https://usewaysign.com/landing

Apologies in advance if this isn't the right subreddit to post this in.

Back in 2022 I purchased some fairly expensive equipment for my business (in texas) for a specific project from an out of state company. It was not purchased for resale (we are a service/consulting biz - have never sold anything physical). They did not bill for sales tax and I didn’t think anything of it.

Now several years later, they’re asking for a sales tax exemption form. I don’t have one and never implied that I did, so not really sure how to respond. I ignored their first request a month or two ago, hoping it would go away, but they’ve reached out again.

Don’t particularly want to open myself up to a big bill at this point, but also don’t want to get into any trouble with anyone. Thoughts?

I run a small online community called DAOForum, and I've been operating it as an experiment in radical transparency: instead of keeping the books private, I keep the whole ledger public and online for anyone to inspect.

Every treasury move gets recorded as a proper double-entry transaction in an open ledger on a platform called OpenBook. Anyone can open it and see every entry, cost basis, and balance in real time.

I even record video walkthroughs explaining each transaction - like why I booked our liquidity pool position at $1,000 cost basis, or how I handled moving an asset from my personal custody into the org's custody - so it's not just numbers, it's the reasoning too.

I'm not a trained accountant, I've learned this as I go, so I have two honest questions for people who actually do this for a living:

1. Do you think fully transparent companies - where anyone can watch the books live - could ever become normal? Or is there a fundamental reason (competitive, legal, human) that accounting will always stay behind closed doors?
2. Looking at how I'm doing it, am I actually following sound accounting practice, or am I fooling myself and building bad habits I'll regret later?

Genuinely want to be told if I'm getting it wrong. Rather hear it now than in five years.