Mileage Matters

We’re going to cut to the chase here: mileage deductions are one of the most frequently missed deductions on business tax returns. It’s not a small deduction either, Intuit reports that mileage deductions average out to over $600 per self-employed subscriber.

That’s money you could be saving on taxes every single year. 

Mileage Tracking Apps

Quickbooks Online offers a plethora of apps you can use to make your experience better. Here we’ve got a list of the best software apps that you can use to track your business mileage!

Quickbooks Online Self Employed

If you are a sole proprietor and use a Schedule C for your small business, then you should consider using Quickbooks Self-Employed. It’s mobile phone app allows you to record your mileage and directly populate your tax forms through Intuit’s Turbotax software.

Mileage tracking doesn’t cost any extra on top of the Self-Employed subscription. Intuit offers a bundle package that gives you Tur...

Why do we need to reconcile our bank & credit card accounts?

To keep it simple... Because we want to make sure the transactions reflected in your business records match the transactions recorded by your bank.

We use bank (and credit card) statements to double check that the accounts in our bookkeeping system, accurately reflect the transactions in the physical account they represent.

The use of systems like double-entry bookkeeping help ensure that you enter the correct numbers in the right places; bank reconciliations is the "bow" you tie on your account that lets you know that all of your transactions were recorded correctly, then they match the actual transactions and balances in your bank accounts to make sure you didn't make any mistakes.

Now you might be wondering, do ALL of my accounts need to be reconciled?  The simple answer is no.  But to help you know which accounts do need to reconciled, here's a quick refresher about how your accounts in your bookkeeping system ...

Previously we covered the difference between Bookkeeping and Accounting and the definition of Bookkeeping, so now that you know what it is, we’ll show you how to use it!

If Bookkeeping is the act of recording financial transactions, then a bookkeeping system is a system designed to record and view these financial transactions!

Basic Small Business Bookkeeping Overview 

Let’s briefly recap some important ingredients in this financial pie!

There are several basic (but very important parts) of a bookkeeping system: the basis, the entry system, and the usage of bookkeeping or accounting tools.

Basis refers to which method you’ve chosen to record financial transactions.....  cash or accrual basis?

Entry System refers to single or double-entry bookkeeping. It is closely tied to your tool of choice, as well. We highly recommend that you use double entry for bookkeeping, it is more accurate and provides you with more data. To make double entry bookkeeping easier, we also reco...

“OK, what’s the difference between bookkeeping and accounting?”

It might seem like bookkeeping covers all of the finances of your small business, but there’s a lot of other information that bookkeeping simply does not provide. Bookkeeping is really only a slice of the accounting pie, and a healthy business needs more than one slice of pie.

Accounting Basics

Accounting, at the most basic level, is the system of recording and summarizing business finances. Now that might sound really familiar if you read our last blog, but stay with me! It’s more than just recording the transaction like we do when bookkeeping, accounting also means verifying, analyzing, and reporting these transactions. Accounting also includes the theory and method by which you do all of the above.

Bookkeeping is one of the systems that makes up accounting. So you need bookkeeping to do accounting for any business, but successful bookkeeping does not require in-depth knowledge about accounting.

Hav...