Questions tagged [bookkeeping]
Bookkeeping is the process of recording business data in a prescribed format. It often forms the first step in the accounting procedures of a company.
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Why do we still need double-entry bookkeeping in the age of computers?
I recently learned a bit about double-entry bookkeeping and although I believe I understood the how I didn't really understand the why. At first it seems to me that splitting each account into debit ...
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VAT Treatment of Foreign Expenses without Invoice
My client operates a company based in the UAE and maintains several bank accounts, including one in the USA. The US bank levies various fees, such as transfer fees and monthly fees, which are ...
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Credit Expenses when someone contribute to my expenses. Is it right to do that?
I rent out my flat. The renter pays rent plus certain amount of money to cover some part of common charges.
I receive the sum of rent and provisions for common charges in my bank.
I split the amount ...
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What double-entry bookkeeping and account structure lets me report taxable distributions from retirement savings plan (e.g. RRSP)?
I have tax-preferred retirement savings plans, and I track their activity using a double-entry bookkeeping app. I am at the age where I am starting to make withdrawals from the savings plans. The ...
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A client paid a non-business debt into my business bank account. How to handle in Xero?
I purchased some groceries for my neighbour, and he reimbursed me by depositing funds into my business bank account (I have done some work for him occasionally), which automatically fed through to ...
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Liability account for inventories sold but pending delivery [closed]
Forgive me if this is a stupidly basic question. I'm not a trained accountant, just a software developer. So the question is -
Is there a standard (or de facto standard) way for recording pending ...
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How should I deal with how the bank/VISA/companies deal with "flexible" charges?
After my bank made it impossible to auto-fetch any data, requiring an extremely tedious and manual process each time I need to log in to their website, I was forced to give up my "automated ...
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How do I record Purchased Annual Leave?
My employer has an arrangement where one can "purchase" annual leave. This works by giving you say 40 hours of additional annual leave to take whenever you like, and then over the course of ...
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Double entry bookkeeping - Record incoming money which I would hold temporarily as a custodian
My dad's clients often transfer payments, which they owe to my dad, into my bank account [for technical reasons, some payment types into my account are not currently available in my dad's]. After a ...
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Personnel costs recorded twice in the income statement? [closed]
We are talking about a company that produces its own products. Since the manufacturing costs also include part of the personnel costs, the personnel costs are recorded twice in the income statement. ...
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How to balance out trading between different currencies and dividends on a ledger?
TL;DR: I'm wondering how should I balance out values when dealing with multiple currencies being traded over time along with normal expenses that might occur along the way, as well as transactions ...
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How does a balance sheet look when almost all income is immediately drawn?
I have a small business and I am being asked to produce a balance sheet. I have a very simple business model: I do hourly work and get paid on a 1099 basis. It is an LLC but I treat it kind of ...
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What are the debits and credits in double-entry bookkeeping when someone pays in advance for a meal?
I'm doing some volunteer bookkeeping for a small nonprofit. If we have an upcoming event and people pay in advance for a meal, how do I enter that in a general ledger (updating Quickbooks for last ...
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Is there a standard for the "transaction type"?
After designing and using my personal bookkeeping system for quite some time, I realized that it lacks one column: what "type" of transaction it is.
I have made it a smallint called type ...
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Depreciating vs expensing purchases to track net worth and personal expenses
Which purchases should you depreciate and which ones should you expense in the context of personal bookkeeping (and not for tax purposes)?
My personal goal for bookkeeping is mainly keeping track of ...
user111766
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Am I correctly categorizing things wr/t the rules of double entry accounting?
I'm trying to bring some organization to my personal finances. I'm looking at tools like GnuCash, but I'd like to really understand how they work, and after reading bits and pieces about double entry ...
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Tracking both raw materials and finished goods inventory [closed]
Generally the period I am interested in in tracking my business is monthly. So when I buy raw materials in quantities that are going to last me more than one month, I book them to a current asset ...
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How to accommodate for bills payed on my behalf in book keeping
I track my expenses and assets using an android application. It allows for a system similar to double entry bookkeeping. Where a recorded transaction make appropriate changes in two accounts. (an ...
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Is there some generally accepted "standard bookkeeping file format"?
I have my self-coded bookkeeping database and manager. Now I want to make an "export" feature in order to be able to hand my data to the government if they make me do it (if the other option ...
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Can a transaction in double entry bookkeeping have an odd number of entries? [closed]
I'm a software developer, and I'm writing a bookkeeping app for my personal finances and freelance work. It's working pretty well, but one point about double entry bookkeeping confuses me. The ...
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UK - Do I need to file final accounts when striking off an empty <12 months old company?
I would like to strike off an empty UK ltd company which is <12 month old and has never done any business and has no employees. My accountant has advised me I don't need to file final accounts ...
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How do you pay other countries' sales taxes when selling internationally?
All OECD countries have a broadly based consumption tax of varying rates:
They go under different names, for example, in Australia it's the 'Goods and Services Tax (GST)', and in Denmark it's the '...
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What is "negative liquid assets" called?
I technically have $3000 on my bank account. However, I have -$2000 in "liquid assets", as determined by my little software system which I've made.
Basically, it takes the money I have and ...
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How should I deal with the fact that currencies change in value in relation to each other when bookkeeping? [closed]
I have made a bookkeeping system for myself. At its core, it consists of a database table with these fields:
timestamp_for_when_it_was_inserted_into_database
...
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Recording Personal Loan
If I put $200 of groceries on my credit card for a friend while I'm out shopping, how do I record that transaction? Further, when she pays me back by bank transfer, how do I record that transaction to ...
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How to split joint expenses at regular intervals in double-entry bookkeeping?
I am trying to use GnuCash to keep track of the expenses (such as rent and electricity) in a shared apartment. For historical reasons, I pay for all the bills from my personal checking account. At the ...
user103395
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What account should be debited using double entry accounting for a stock spinoff transaction
I use ledger for tracking my personal finances. I'm trying to record a transaction where a stock I owned spun off shares of another company. (The specific case I'm referring to is when BioTime spun ...
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Is me sending some Bitcoin to a Tor service a transaction? Or only when I buy something with those Bitcoin from the Tor service?
I've started recording all my money transactions, be them fiat or Bitcoin.
Now I wonder how to record the following situation:
I have an existing 0.05 BTC in my Bitcoin Core wallet running on my ...
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How should I handle charges which are one sum when they are pulled from my bank account, but then later change?
I order groceries including some bananas.
The store charges my bank account with $150, which shows up as -$150 in my bank account.
Some days pass and the delivery takes place. I don't get any bananas ...
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Would simplistic date / amount / description bookkeeping "cut it" legally?
I've read many articles and texts over the years about running companies and personal finances. Every time, I sink down in my chair, mentally exhausted from the utterly confusing, cryptic material I'...
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Okay to cancel "Loans to Shareholders" against "Retained Earnings"?
Let's say there's an S Corporation with a single shareholder, a $200 balance in "Loans to Shareholders", and a $300 balance in Retained Earnings. Is it okay to cancel the shareholder's debt by ...
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How do I bookkeep an Ecommerce website?
I have a multi vendor e-commerce website where I sell goods from 3rd party vendors. When an item is sold on my website, the money is stored in my bank account. Monthly, I transfer money earned to the ...
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Which software is suitable to track my investment portolio [closed]
Nowadays I am using google spreadsheet to track my portfolio. Is there some better software for this? Another problem is that some parts of my portfolio are highly volatile (but I want to keep those ...
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How do I set up the books for LLC taxed as a C-Corp?
Most resources online for bookeeping for LLCs immediately repeat a myth about C-Corp taxation subjecting you to double-taxation, declare that nobody would set up their single-member LLC as anything ...
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Recording rental deposit return minus cleaning fees
This is a question about Double-Entry Bookkeeping. I am having a hard time correctly recording the fact that due to shared cleaning fees I owe the subleasee less than the deposit he gave me.
These ...
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How do I properly account for interest charged on a loan in GnuCash?
I've just started accounting and entering initial balances for my personal finances with GNUcash and I'm curious about the proper way to account for interest charged on student loans and credit cards.
...
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How to interpret equity
I understand Equity to be "Net Worth", as calculated by Assets - Liabilities. I also understand the "Expanded Fundamental Accounting Equation" to be
Assets + Expenses = Liabilities + Equity + Income
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Handling waitress unclaimed pay from three years ago
Each week our boss gives us payslips with our hours worked and we can cash them right at the place of work. Pretty simple. You get a receipt for your hours worked for the week and a slip to turn into ...
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How to keep track of revenue and expenses of a small business that I rarely visit?
I'm a programmer looking to invest some money into opening a very very small restaurant which will be run by my friend (who's a professional restaurant manager) with occasional help from family ...
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How to account for transferring money from a USD account to a GBP account?
I am using ZipBooks online software for my bookkeeping, however I do not know how to approach the following situation.
I have 2 bank accounts; one in USD, the other in GBP, and I am transferring $...
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In double-entry book keeping, how should I track planned expenses
So, I'm working on getting a bit better at managing my household finances and am currently working to learn double-entry bookkeeping.
One thing I need to separate out and track a little better is ...
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Accrual accounting: how to implement prepaid tax
I am trying to put my personal finances in order and I figured that accrual accounting fits my needs for keeping a better track of my records. I am new to accrual accounting and while I think that I ...
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Xero - How to reconcile a transaction when the period has been locked
I use Xero for my consultancy company's book-keeping. My accounts from a couple of months ago are locked (due to submitting a VAT (UK sales tax) return). I have an unreconciled bank transaction within ...
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How to account for transactions which may have multiple causes?
Say I have a transaction from my bank in a foreign currency (say a taxi) which causes me to incur a "foreign currency transaction fee" (e.g. 2% of the transaction).
One way to look at this cost is ...
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How to get visibility into contributions to assets
I'm using double entry with Assets, Expenses, Income, Liabilities, and Equity.
To illustrate my question with easy round numbers: Income one month is 10k; 5k goes into an asset like a 401k account (...
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Journal entry for savings of multiple family members
I'm recording family-related transactions in a journal. My question is regarding a cash deposit (asset debit).
For example, my family earned $300 at a garage sale. I deposit that entire amount into ...
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What are the must know topics for personal accounting? [closed]
I'm 18 years old; last year I finished high school. I attended a school oriented in accounting, and even though I didn't care much about it at the time, now I realize how important is to know how to ...
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How do you set up current year bookkeeping based on previous year balance sheet and profit and loss items?
I'm setting up this year's accounting ledger for a sole proprietorship. It used to be done by CPAs in the past but I decided it's time to bite the bullet and start doing it myself.
All is going well,...
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Double-entry bookkeeping: When selling an asset, does the money come from, Equity or Income?
I use a double-entry system (ledger) to manage my personal finances. I have set it up so that the only entries in my Equity are my opening balances.
If I sell an asset (e.g. laptop) whose value I ...
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Best Practices for Managing Paper Receipts
I'm curious to get some input from the community on best practices for managing paper receipts, whether personal receipts or business-related receipts. For example...
What are the arguments for ...
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