Whenever I’m here I read about bookkeepers doing these types of work, what do they mostly consist of ?

I've had to turn down a few potential clients this year because I just don't have the bandwidth to take on another client.

I would love to grow my business, but I probably have 5-10 hours of work a week MAX right now for a potential employee/subcontractor. I have had a subcontractor in the past but as soon as they found a full time job, they took it so I'm back at square one.

Bookkeeping firm business owners -

1 When did you decide to hire / What made you decide?

1. What was the process like for you?

2. Where did you find your person and did they work out?

PS I'm NOT hiring. If you DM me I will block you.

This time of year clients start asking about buying equipment "for the write-off," so here is the checklist I use. Curious how others handle it.

The 2026 numbers (IRS Pub 946 / Topic 704): - Section 179 limit is $2,560,000, phase-out starts at $4,090,000 of qualifying purchases - 100% bonus depreciation is permanent for property acquired and placed in service after Jan 19, 2025 - De minimis safe harbor is still $2,500 per invoice or item if there's no audited financial statement, and the election has to go on the return every year

What I check in the books before Dec 31: 1. Anything over the safe harbor goes to a fixed asset account, not Office Supplies or Repairs 2. Delivery or install date in the memo, with the receipt attached, since placed in service is what counts, not the payment date 3. Financed equipment recorded at full cost with the loan as a liability, so only interest hits expense 4. Deposits on equipment arriving in January sit in a prepaid account until it arrives 5. A written capitalization policy so the books and the return match

How do you all handle clients who expense big purchases all year and then want them capitalized at tax time? Do you reclass in the books or leave it to the preparer?

Hey, I really mean to post this to tax professional page but I know there are other pros here (I can’t seem to post in tax pro page right now) Anyway, I have a new bookkeeping client that has an accounting error for prior year. À large 300k prepaid was fully expensed in prior year. They file as an S-Corp, accrual based.
I know the bookeeping side would be debit prepaid and credit retained earnings but how does this get addressed on the tax return? Is it an M1 adjustment? I have never done an error adjustment. Only prospective estimate changes. (I’m not doing the tax return for this one but curious about it). Thnx

Small bookkeeping practice here. We're looking at adding some outside apps that connect to clients' QBO files, read only, to help us catch errors faster during cleanup and to put together the quarterly snapshots we send clients.

My partner wants to make sure we're handling client privacy the right way before we connect anything. We're thinking about adding a consent form at onboarding, but we're not sure what it should cover.

For those of you using connected apps, did you get clients to sign something, or did you just add it to your engagement letter? Do you usually connect through your accountant login or each client separately? Did you check with your E&O insurance first? And has any client pushed back?

We'll have someone look over the actual wording before using it. Just trying to learn from people who've been through it.

Long one, sorry. I need to vent and I also genuinely need a gut check, and advice.

I'm a solo bookkeeper. One of my clients is a commission-based sales agency.

The model: Reps sell, manufacturers pay the agency, the agency pays the reps. Not complicated in theory.

But an absolute financial shit show in reality.
I got recruited by the ops manager who wanted me to review the books because the old bookkeeper "didn't know what she was doing."

This was a true story, the prior bookkeeper had literally been making up transactions. Not sloppy books. Fabricated transactions to make the bank accounts reconcile. Made up, imaginary numbers. Large deposits not tied to actual invoices. An absolute shit show.
I've never seen anything like it. And in hindsight this was probably the red flag that should have sent me running in the first place.

So I did the forensic cleanup, caught the books up, and built their whole commission calculator from scratch, took over payroll, reconcile the owner's cards, all of it. I basically AM the finance department.
And now that the books are actually clean, I can see exactly what's going on. And it is ugly.

The numbers:
Profit Jan through Sept: about $72K
Owner distributions over the same months: about $290K. Plus another $30K he pulled last week.

So he took 4x what the business made. A $140K line of credit covered the gap (maxed now, nothing left) along with draining the bank account.
Right before that $30K draw, I counted everything already owed (rep commissions, his credit cards, bills). Under $4K was actually free for distribution. He took $30K. So $26K of it was other people's money.

His salary is tiny, by the way. His "business expenses" were running through payroll as reimbursements (HUGE ones), and his distributions were getting lumped in there too, until I untangled it and pulled his cards into the bank feed. And flat out refused to run owner distributions through payroll as reimbursements.

The one thing this man definitely knows how to do is spend. That's really the whole problem. Business spending aside, his personal lifestyle apparently demands the distributions he's taking, which is why he won't cut them back.

The business actually does make money. He just spends waaay more than it makes, and treats whatever's sitting in the bank as his. And it almost always looks full, because the reps get paid weeks after the money comes in. So he sees a big balance and helps himself.

Two more fun facts:
1. Their biggest team, (who bring in roughly half the revenue), might be leaving. I found this out from the ops manager. Not the owner.

1. There's a guy who gets paid like a partner but isn't one. He gets half the profit pool on EVERYONE'S deals, including the owner's own deals. Over the last four commission periods he made about $142K, and about three quarters of that came from deals he didn't close. That's on pace for $300K+ a year, while the business can't afford its own owner's spending habits and he's borrowing from next month's deposits to take his distribution.

I built the calculator, so I can see it to the dollar. But the owner doesn't want to change the deal because of their personal relationships. (Even if it sinks the ship apparently.)

But here's the part that actually broke me, and has me writing this rant.

Sunday. Text from the ops manager. Asking me questions I told her the answer to last week, and also that she's now the "primary point of contact for all financial matters." That there is to be no direct communication with the owner. That he will only discuss commissions approvals with me and even that may be delegated to her.

I asked why he doesn't want to talk to me directly. "It has nothing to do with you, he prefers a single point of contact." Then basically: the questions would be the same coming from him or her, so why does it matter?

It matters because I'm the one diagnosing the problem!! I'm the person who can see the ship going down, and I'm being told to pass notes through someone whose whole approach is softening everything so he doesn't get upset, and treats him like a child.

I know she knows it's bad. I also know she's not delivering it straight. Much more concerned about how he feels about the news than the reality of the news.

I know she knows it's bad.
She's the one who told me about the team leaving, and has asked for financial reports that don't actually go anywhere.

The problem is she'd rather make it palatable than give brutal honesty, and brutal is what the reality is.

She's also all over the place and one of the most unprofessional people I've ever worked with. Weekend texts constantly. I've asked for email or Slack more than once. Completely ignored. Hours spent on reports requests that doesn't know how to do herself.
Meanwhile simple statement requests that I shouldn't "bother the owner with" ho ignored by her for a month.

She's also requested I pay a subcontractor through payroll, but flat out refusing to provide a W-9 because the owner prefers not to report it. (Ummmm what?!?! I flat out refused to do that btw)

If the company was doing great, he could set up communication however he wanted. But it's not doing great. It's on the edge, and I think he wants to cut off communication with me is the equivalent of wanting to take the batteries out of the smoke detector because the beeping the dumpster fire that is his current financial situation is "so annoying."

My plan: Monday I email him directly. Here are the numbers. Here's what I need: direct access, a meeting this week, asking for a reply from HIM confirming text message from the ops manager that he doesn't want direct communication with me.

And if he says that is actually how he wants communication ser up. Everything routed through her I plan on resigning effective immediately.

I was already planning on leaving once I replaced the income with other clients, but even though they pay well it no longer seems worth it to wait and am prepared to take the financial hit.

So if you made it this far, first off,thank you.
What do you
But second, should I even bother with the email? Or just fire them now and skip it?

How would you handle an owner who won't look at reality and a gatekeeper who won't let you show it to him?

Has anyone stayed with a client like this and actually seen it turn around? Or does it always end the way I think it ends?

All advice is welcome.
I'm not sure what the professional move is here. Or if I should even be worrying about that anymore given the circumstances.

I’m desperately seeking help understanding depreciation. I am preparing the tax return of a new bookkeeping client, and the client’s previous acct occasionally forgot to record a depreciation JE on the books. I have the last 3 years of tax returns + depreciation schedules and can see that some assets took a “reduction in basis” that’s not Section 179/bonus. Can you help me understand when a “reduction” is used? And what’s the correct treatment on the books if depreciation has never been recorded?

Background: this is my first accounting position; I’m a tax preparer/bookkeeper for a super small firm, and I graduated very recently from a laughable online school, that is, I learned all the basics but no nuances and didn’t have teachers or peers to guide me. My boss expects us to rely heavily on chat instead of teaching us (and chat hallucinates a lot) so I would so greatly appreciate any help here! ((Also new-ish to Reddit so idk if this is even the right place to ask… SOS lol))

I have this construction client for about 2 years now where i do their books and AP. We always had somewhat of a system. The invoices would get approved in slack. But the problem is that in his field, things happen last minute, and invoices get adjusted. It was never a problem.

Well I approved a $9,000 invoice early in the week for it to go out on Friday. But sometime during the week, he gets on the phone with the vendor and the amount changes to $7,800. He never told me, just the PM. So, $9,000 went off on Friday.

I've told them we needed something central, but owner doesn't want anything new. He's pissed off, and I'm furious as well. I'm so close to cutting him off.

Rant over. Not looking for advice because I know what the solution is... but some owners are so hellbent.

The IRS put out a small business reminder last week (Cybersecurity Awareness Month) about phishing, fake invoices, and payroll/W-2 scams. With final vendor bills and year-end payroll coming up, here's what I'd put in place now:

1. Any bank-detail change from a vendor or employee gets a callback to a number you already have, not one in the email.
2. Direct deposit changes need a second approval or a callback before they go live.
3. Before paying a "new" invoice, pull that vendor's past bills. New remit-to account, new email domain, or an odd amount = pause.
4. MFA on your accounting software, payroll, bank and email. Remove old users.
5. Nobody legit needs all your W-2s emailed in January. Treat that request as a scam.

AI makes the fake emails look a lot more real now, so the callback is doing most of the work.

Anyone here been hit with a vendor bank-change scam? What tipped you off?

Hey guys! I have a quick question I'm having a problem untangling. I thought maybe the folks at bookkeeping could help.

I'm happy to expand on this in the comments but generally:

We have had a corporation for many years. ("OldCo").

For various reasons, we started a new co ("NewCo") that now owns the OldCo.

The Old Corporation and the New Corporation have their own sets of books, and their own bank accounts.

As we complete the transition where a certain category of business is being conducted by NewCo, we have two situations to resolve:

• Customers have paid OldCo invoices into NewCo bank accounts.
• Customers have paid NewCo invoices into OldCo bank accounts.

Proposed fix: Use mirror Due To / Due From Intercompany accounts in both entities to balance cash and clear the respective A/R.

(Note: going forward customers are paying into the correct accounts. We also plan to settle the intercompany cash balance via bank transfer before year-end to prevent tax authorities from treating this as an undocumented loan.)

Questions:

1. Is this overall approach sound?
2. What is the standard convention for naming and classifying these accounts—should each entity carry a single clearing account, or separate 'Due to [Affiliate]' (Liability) and 'Due from [Affiliate]' (Asset) accounts?"

Really appreciate any help anyone can give or any resources that we may have missed!

Principles are clear but not being able to learn quickbooks or just get too lost in it,any suggestion to make it a bit easy?

I own a bookkeeping firm and we have a lot of clients who use Wells fargo. We use QBD and import transactions from online banking. We create a view only access account under their online banking account. The past few days, any client we try to log in to online, it gives us a "please give us a call" message. I called and WF said they are working to figure it out, but there is no ETA. I remember this happened a few years ago, and it was something with the permissions on the site. Is anyone experiencing similar issues?

Hoping to get some advice here because the last time I scheduled something with my sister's accountant, it was quick advice like this and he didn't charge me, and I felt awkward. I don't know if this is more appropriate or not but if you tell me to call him back, I will. Otherwise, is there a better way to get quick questions answered?

I have a small LLC, it doesn't make much money. I teach German part time and starting this year I now have an independent contractor who works for me, too. This was the first month that he had students. Payment has been going through me, as I understood that was important for tax reasons. So students meet with him but send the money to my business venmo account. Then he's supposed to send me an invoice every month and I pay him for the lessons, keeping my overhead. The problem is that after the initial email, unless the students end up taking lessons with me, I send them the contractor (Kevin)'s email, and then the student and I don't have much contact. So there's a lot of annoying checking in between me and Kevin about missed/late payments and canceled/moved lessons and stuff like that.

It would be really convenient if payments for Kevins lessons could go through him. The students could send him the full amount and Kevin could send me my overhead only, keeping his fee.

Is this reasonable? For some reason I was operating under the understanding that the direction of money flow was important and that if we switched it, it would change the classification - it would look like he was paying me some kind of "finders fee" and for tax purposes it might change everything and make it all more confusing. I don't remember where I read that or got that idea. I've been thinking that all year though.

What should I do? It's chaotic as it is and this seems like the best solution.

Curious what everyone uses as a naming convention for files?

I have a decent system but I'm looking for inspo!

One of my clients is considering Mercury bank. I manage his books on Xero. If anyone has experience with Mercury bank, I'd love to hear your feedback. Brownie points if you have experience with Mercury's feed connection in Xero.

You apply a payment, think everything's good, then realize it was matched to the wrong invoice. Now one looks paid when it isn't, and another has a balance that shouldn't be there.

For those who work in AR, how do you usually catch these mistakes? Do you spot them during reconciliation, or does the customer end up telling you first?

Hey all , I do bookkeeping for an tech company which sells subscription of 2 kinds we make invoice by selecting the same kind of product for both now CEO wants to bifurcate between 2 different products but there are 1800 invoices how can I change that in bulk (right tool doesn't allow this )

Hey, I’m newer to the land of bookkeeping and I’m stuck on something. I have a client who donated an item for a charity event. It was something he was gifted, but he estimates the value as being about $30. How would I put this into his QuickBooks?

I run a small bookkeeping practice serving mostly micro-businesses like farmer's market vendors, online retailers, and contractors. I've been re-examining a few practices and realized I may be overcomplicating my billing.

The way I bill now is something I call flat-rate invoicing (there may be a better name). When a client signs up, I estimate a monthly price before starting work, based on # of accounts, avg monthly trxn amounts, and extra services needed. I then invoice them that estimate every month, give them a rate-lock for 2 years, and reassess after that. I set it up as an automatic monthly invoice using QBO's auto-pay, so the same amount goes out each month, and the client doesn’t need to worry about manually paying each month since that complicates things. I try to streamline my services as much as possible, and billing is an example of that. I do this process for every client regardless of size, which has caused problems with larger clients whose monthly workload fluctuates. Another issue is that the price is based on an estimate, and I don't track actual time spent. I have no way of knowing whether I'm over- or under-charging.

I have a few different thoughts on how I could change my billing process. One thought is to split clients by size: I'd define a micro-business (MB) as under $250k in annual revenue and a small business (SMB) as anything above that. MBs would stay on the current flat-rate billing, and SMBs would go to hourly billing for actual time spent. I know that's how most accountants and lawyers bill, usually with minimums (which is probably why I see CPAs charging my clients $300/mo, though I have no idea what for).

Another thought I’ve had is to base the monthly flat rate on avg actual time spent. I would bill new MB clients hourly for their first 3 months, and then average that time from those first 3 invoices and charge that as their flat rate for the current 2-year rate lock.

The last thought I’ve had is to pull some services out of the flat rate invoices, these being A/R, A/P, and research/advisory/calls, which can vary a lot from month to month. Right now I fold them into the flat fee and just absorb the heavy months. Instead, I'd track actual time for those services, and then send a separate quarterly invoice for any hourly work from the previous 3 months, which would keep the monthly auto-pay and flat rate I advertise intact, while also billing actual time for services that require it.

I'm hesitant to go fully hourly because I like being able to advertise to MB clients that they'll pay the same amount every month with a 2-year rate lock, instead of giving them a semi-unpredictable hourly bill each month. Auto-pay also makes life easier on both sides, since Clients tend to skip over QB's invoice notification emails, which leads to late payments on my end when they aren't on auto-pay. I've also wondered whether a credit card authorization form would maybe be a better route than QB's auto-pay.

So,

How do you all bill, flat rate, hourly, or a mix?

Does anyone else use QB's auto-pay for recurring invoices, or not notice payments being any easier for clients using it?

If you bill hourly, and serve smaller clients like I do, how often do you deal with squirrely clients who just forget to pay?

Would a hybrid setup of anything I’m describing sound reasonable, or am I making it more complicated than it needs to be?

Thanks guys for your thoughts!

I’m a CPA with a background in public accounting and industry, but fairly new to offering bookkeeping services. Curious what others would charge for this engagement

Client details:
T-shirt printing shop averaging $80k/month in revenue

Business purchased July 2026 for $350k (asset purchase)

Approximately 225 debit/credit card transactions per month.

Initial cleanup/setup:
Approximately 600 transactions to clean up

Establish opening balance sheet and purchase price allocation.

Set up fixed assets, depreciation, and acquisition loan

Clean up chart of accounts and reconcile bank/credit card accounts

Set up sales tax tracking

Ongoing services:
Monthly transaction categorization and reconciliations

Monthly financial statements

Sales tax filing

I’m considering a one-time cleanup/setup fee followed by a flat monthly bookkeeping fee.

What would you charge for the initial cleanup and ongoing monthly services?

Is there anything glaring that I’m missing?

What do you actually prefer using for your clients and what’s your reason for that?

I have a short term contract with a customer that requires some travel. They agreed to cover the gas expense. 500 upfront and then add any extra to my check on completion of the contract ( with receipts of course)

On my own books I can think of 4 different ways I could record that. How would you do it?

Hey all. EA, CFE and CPA candidate here. I will start: restaurants and construction accounting! I’ve done restaurants before. It was so much work. Construction accounting is just another monster that I’m not willing to take on. I actually don’t have experience with construction accounting (besides the little bit you learn about in college lol) but I know it’s a monster. What about you and why?

I recently posted about a payroll mess. I followed the suggestions of the commenters and found the source of the problem: me.

We're up to date on everything. In 2025 and 2026 I listed our Workers Comp payments as bills to a non-payroll account (Taxes & Licenses) and matched the payment there off my bank feed. Our payroll people made entries for those amounts against the liability. They must have not cleared the bank because of my entries. I'm hoping. At least that would be an explanation.

To add to the confusion, the amounts listed on our WA L&I reports never match up with actual amounts paid in the non-clearing tax payments our payroll guy made.

Rookie mistake that I won't make again. I'm not touching any of these entries until someone who knows what they're doing takes a looksie. Thanks everyone for helping me out and chiming in with your much needed wisdom.

Our accounts with everyone are good. Our bookkeeper (me) took a dump all over the project.