#bookkeeping
Bookkeeping
Modern bookkeeping techniques using plain-text and automated workflows
Wedding Officiant Bookkeeping: Ordination Rules, Self-Employment Taxes, and Deposit Accounting
Online ordination doesn't make you IRS clergy — officiant fees are ordinary Schedule C income subject to 15.3% self-employment tax. This guide covers where online ordinations face county-level recognition problems (Tennessee, Virginia), what celebrants actually charge ($300–$1,000+), and why booking deposits belong on your books as liabilities until the ceremony happens.
AI Receipt Scanning Apps in 2026: The OCR-to-LLM Shift and the Hallucination Problem
LLM-based receipt scanners read crumpled and faded receipts far better than template OCR, but when a field is ambiguous they can hallucinate a plausible wrong total instead of leaving it blank. What accuracy benchmarks actually show, the IRS's $75 receipt threshold and lodging exception, and a weekly review workflow that catches confident errors before they hit your books.
Amazon's 2026 FBA Fee Overhaul: What the New Aged-Inventory and Low-Stock Fees Mean for Your Margins
Amazon's 2026 FBA fee changes start the aged-inventory surcharge at 181 days instead of 271, add a steeper tier for stock over 12 months old, and raise the low-inventory-level fee threshold from 28 to 35 days of forecasted supply — now enforced per FNSKU variation. Here's who pays most, how to estimate your exposure, and why these fees belong as separate expense lines in your books.
B2B "Buy Now, Pay Later": How Net-Terms Financing Lets Small Suppliers Offer Credit Without Eating the Risk
B2B Buy Now, Pay Later platforms pay suppliers upfront on Net 30/60/90 invoices and take on non-recourse collection risk, with transaction volume around $14 billion in 2023 forecast to grow at over 25% annually through 2030.
What Botkeeper's Sudden Shutdown Teaches Every Small Business About Trusting an AI Bookkeeping Vendor
Botkeeper, an AI bookkeeping platform that raised nearly $90 million over 11 years, shut down within weeks after losing 30-40% of its revenue when major accounting-firm clients consolidated, leaving hundreds of firms to scramble for replacement bookkeeping infrastructure and export data before access was cut off.
Business Divorce: How Partner Buyout Valuation and Deadlock Actually Work
Roughly 54% of business partnerships dissolve within five years and about 70% of small business owners never signed a buy-sell agreement, leaving price, timeline, and process to be fought over from a blank page once partners can no longer agree.
Cat Cafe Accounting: Why Admission, Coffee, and Adoption Fees Need Separate Revenue Lines
Cat cafes run three distinct revenue streams — lounge admission, food and beverage, and pass-through pet adoption fees — that need separate accounting treatment because admission is often non-taxable, F&B is taxable, and adoption fees legally belong to the rescue partner as a liability, not cafe revenue.
Chimney Sweep Business Bookkeeping: Surviving a Five-Month Season on a Twelve-Month Budget
Chimney sweep businesses earn 60-70% of annual revenue in a five-month window (September-January), so reserve fund planning, per-service-line margin tracking, and the IRS annualized income installment method for estimated taxes matter more than they do for evenly-billed businesses.
Comic Book and Trading Card Shop Bookkeeping: Why Your Inventory Isn't Really Your Inventory
How comic and TCG shops should book consignment splits, buylist store credit, and graded-card cost basis — consigned goods stay off the balance sheet, store credit is a liability until redeemed, and high-value singles need specific identification, not average costing. Plus where the IRS draws the hobby-vs-dealer line, from the nine-factor §1.183-2(b) test to the 28% collectibles rate.
Debt Collection Agency Bookkeeping: Trust Accounts, Contingency Fees, and FDCPA Compliance
Debt collection agencies must hold client recoveries in a segregated trust account, recognize contingency fees only after collection, and run monthly three-way reconciliations of bank balance, book balance, and client ledger totals to avoid commingling violations and FDCPA compliance gaps.
Bookkeeping for Dog Boarding and Pet Sitting Businesses: Platform Income, Sub-Sitter 1099s, and Home-Office Rules
How dog boarding and pet sitting businesses should track revenue by service line, reconcile Rover and Wag payouts against the $20,000/200-transaction 1099-K threshold, file 1099-NECs for sub-sitters paid $600 or more, and apply the strict exclusive-use home-office rule — the childcare daycare exception does not extend to pet care.
The Duty Drawback Program: How Importers and Exporters Recover Up to 99% of Tariffs Paid
U.S. duty drawback refunds up to 99% of import duties when goods are re-exported or destroyed, and claims can reach back five years. Here's which tariffs qualify (Section 301, the 2026 Section 122 surcharge), which don't (Section 232), and the import records CBP requires to approve a claim.