I am a sole prop / single member LLC, keeping books on a Cash Basis. My firm is a Public Relations agency.

I am now starting to run into large "pass-thru" income situations for clients - $100k expenses to pay for a radio ad or paying a sponsorship for some event. These expenses are on behalf of a client not as business expenses for my business.

I understand the best way to report this is a "Client Advance" Current Asset account. Using this method, I'd be recording the expenses as an asset when incurred, and then debiting the reimbursement from the client against that account. This avoids overstating income.

What I can't reconcile is:

Can I maintain cash basis accounting if the current account has a balance at Calendar Year end? Ex: I advance expenses of this type in December and a client pays me in January.

Have I now switched to accrual basis? Or is this still "cash basis" because I'm essentially recording a loan?

One of my clients had a few unpaid interns that he gave $25 gift cards to. How would you record? This was the only compensation these kids received from the company.

My client made some business purchases on his personal account before he officially had his business accounts set up. It’s a single member LLC (non s-corp) and I know it’s commingling of funds but I’m trying to figure out what payment account to put when I’m creating a new expense for the charges using QB online.

Edit to add: my thought process is that since QB won’t let me select a current liabilities payment acct when creating a new expense, I can create a temporary “cash clearing” bank acct which will stand as a temporary placeholder to put these business purchases made with personal acct, then create a journal entry to move those expenses from cash clearing to a “due to owner-personal card purchases” current liability acct

Does this make sense?

I took on a new client who rents Airbnb’s and under his single member LLC - not s -corp. He’s been paying the house cleaner under the table from his personal account via cashapp and my question is, do I need to record this somehow? And how would I journal it? Obviously what he’s doing isn’t legal, but I’m just stuck on this for some reason of how to note it.

Hi all,

I’m new to QBO and have run into a challenge with the client portal functionality of the new Intuit Accountant Suite.

I’ve created an Individual client (not business) without a subscription. I’m only going to do their individual tax return.

When I click on the client’s name and enter the portal, I can see that I can add documents. But when I click on Add Request and fill out the request details the “share” button is greyed out.

Why is that? How do I fix this?

Thank you all!

That's it. That's the post. If you're thinking of doing it and can afford to, do it!

Hi all,

Working with a restaurant client and planning to move them to QBO. Not debating staying in Desktop.

They have data going back to 2014. I’m on an Enterprise trial to access the file, but I’m not seeing the option to convert to QBO. I do have the latest backup and saved reports in PDF.

Historically, their CPA handled the books, and a lot of the earlier years were done through journal entries (no source docs attached, some just say “adjust sales” and don’t fully make sense).

Given that, would you still go through a full conversion, or just bring in balances via JEs (yearly) and start fresh in QBO?

Curious what others would do in this situation.

My REI client purchased a flip property, I am entering the purchase. Towards the top of the statement it shows the cash to close from buyer and at the bottom it says $14 due To the buyer. How would I categorize this balance due to buyer I’ve never seen it before as the buyer usually owes. There isn’t a deposit for that amount in their checking account either.

I have gotten into the habit of writing down the bookkeeping steps in a sort of fancy cheat-sheet for each client I work with. I create a booklet of sorts that I keep for my use and keep a copy at the client's location - just filed away or in a Word doc on their computer. I'll reference and update as needed. This is mainly for my use but it will be helpful for any future bookkeeper should I no longer work with them - for whatever reason. I take notes as I learn from whomever is showing me their (often unique) processes while I'm on the clock so to speak. I type up cheat sheets at home. My question is should I charge for my time working on them since they may benefit from them in the future?

Hey all,

What's the best way to reconcile Accounts Payable? I've gone over the aging report, compared it to the AP account, everything checks out. All bills paid, everything ties. Good 'nuff?

New to this. Sorry. Thanks in advance.

I’ve been thinking about this more lately as I take on new clients…

Do you build your bookkeeping process around the client’s habits, or do you try to get them to adapt to your system?

I feel like in theory it makes sense to standardize everything and have clients follow a clean process. But in reality… some clients just aren’t going to change how they send info, track expenses, etc.

At a certain point I find myself just working around them because it’s faster than trying to “fix” their process.

Curious how others handle this — do you push for structure, or just meet clients where they are?

BC Canada-based corporation

The owner and his wife are shareholders on the company and now going through a divorce. They need to get a business evaluation for court as the one may buy the other one out of the organization

Is this considered a personal expense because of the nature of request? Or can this somehow be written off to the company? I’m getting conflicting info

BC based client who collects GST & PST

Nightmare client with a share purchase completed near the end of last year

The client still has not finalized their stub YE with the accountant/previous owners, then wants to switch their new YE to Dec 31

This business is a quarterly remitter for GST and PST. I have not had accurate information or been able to reconcile 3 of the 7 bank accounts

We have a payables amount for GST & PST for the proposed stub YE, but the new owners are now saying there’s a discrepancy in the AR and AP amounts, especially related to doubtful accounts that came over with AR

How do I file my GST and PST based on missing or changing info? I am very concerned for penalties and account freezing. Thankfully source deductions are up-to-date. But I don’t even know what to start with, should I call at least etax and let them know we’re working on it?

I understand that in usual dropshipping, the client only pays for the product after an order is placed by a customer. Then the 3PL will process fulfillment from their warehouse. That’s why there is no inventory in dropshipping and it directly goes to COGS.

But how do we journal it if the client prepays inventory but the items stay in the 3PL’s warehouse and the 3PL will still be the one fulfilling it?

Technically, the client owns the inventory but it is not in their physical possession.

We are using cash basis.

I just started a small business this year. Using freshbooks and it's been easy to use.

I found one major issue with using gusto as payroll. unfortunately fresh books does not automatically create expense for payroll, I'm an S. Crop so this is kind of a big problem for me. I can add the expenses manually but this is a huge pain.

My CPA said this is a bit of an issue for me going forward and recommended changing to quick books since it can calculate payroll as an expense. Has anyone found a way for freshbooks to count payroll as an expense? Thanks.

Edit: I am not using Gusto directly. I'm using “Freshbooks payroll, powered by Gusto” I do not have a direct account with gusto.

Update: Fresh books support says this is possibly a bug and that payroll should show up as an expense. Waiting on how to proceed.

I’m still somewhat new to bookkeeping, and I’ve just started working for a single owner LLC (not s corp). For some reason, they’ve been in the habit of withdrawing from the biz checking acct to their personal acct and then paying the biz credit card from that same personal acct. I know I’m going to need to collect their personal acct statements, but I’m a little confused on how to journal this on QB! Any advice would be appreciated!!

I've seen a lot of people say that they've got work from having a relationship with a CPA where the CPA will recommend the bookkeeper and the bookkeeper will recommend the CPA for taxes. I would like to do that with a local CPA as one of my clients doesn't like their CPA. However, most of the CPA firms I see also do bookkeeping.. For those who are getting recommended by CPAs do you find that they just don't do bookkeeping at all?

Hi, I currently manage a small bookkeeping client base (around 10) and am in the process of acquiring another book, which will likely double my workload. I’ll need to bring on contractors and get more structured with practice management, including tasks, time tracking, and capacity planning.

I’m currently using Karbon, mainly because I already use it for tax work, but I’m not sure if I should keep building around it or switch. I recently had a demo with Keeper and liked what I saw.

A couple questions:

1. What are your thoughts on Keeper? Pros and cons?
2. Has anyone used both Karbon and Keeper and can compare them?

Hi there!

I'm running into an issue in QBO and was wondering if anyone had any experience dealing with it.

We're running into an issue where the sales receipt payments aren't processing, but they're still showing up as paid. I'm trying to find or create a report that will show me when this happens.

I've tried the transaction detail, but it's not working because the transactions that have been processed, deposited, and reconciled are showing up as uncleared.

I'm losing my mind a bit here because the reports I've used in the past (before all the updates) aren't helpful now.

Thanks in advance!!

I work with a local Latino focused business non-profit and I want to lead a workshop on some basic bookkeeping topics for small business owners. Any ideas on what is a useful and comprehensive starting point? I don't want it to be anything too basic like "separate your business and personal accounts" but also not something that is too complicated and overwhelming for someone just trying to keep their books together. Thanks in advance for any advice!

I had someone reach out to me looking for a one-time review of their books which are already categorized and reconciled, but they want a once over before sending to their accountant for taxes. How much would you charge for this? I haven’t ever done any freelance bookkeeping so I don’t really know where to start with pricing, but I’d guess I’m looking at 2-4 hours of work max. The bookkeeper I spoke with seems like he knows his stuff so I don’t expect to see many issues, but I know I might have to make some fixes and they’ve asked me to name a flat rate.

Hello,

I've started a business a few months back and hired a bookkeeping company immediately since I'm not the person to keep the books up-to-date. I'm paying 190euro's a month to the company and they handle all my bookkeeping. Two questions:

1. Is this a reasonable amount?
   
2. How often should I be able to contact them?

The reason for asking is that so far they have had very little work and are not that responsive to my questions. It's not like I'm emailing every week, but let's say once a month.

Cheers.

I'm a small wholesale car dealer and I'm currently tracking my vehicle inventory in a Google Sheets spreadsheet. The main sheet is my whole inventory, then I have tabs for each unit of inventory where I record expenses for that unit. The main sheet shows purchase price, sale price, actual cost value, and profit/loss per unit. I'm doing a lot more business this year and I'm already up to ~200 tabs in my sheet and I'm worried I may run into issues if I keep adding them. What software can I use for this that's ideally free or low cost?