Bookkeeping Advice Archives

Close Construction in Progress to COGS

This article deals with posting a closing Construction in Progress journal entry as a result of selling, for example, a Spec built home that, you as the homebuilder, have sold and are trying to close out in your books. During the course of the build of a Spec home, you would post all associated costs

Home Sale Journal Entry

This article deals with posting journal entries as a result of selling, for example, a spec built home that, you as the homebuilder, have sold and are trying to close out in your books. The main document that you will need to post the income, closing costs, cash deposit and reduction to zero out any

Manual Adjustments to Client Retainer Balance

This article deals with posting manual adjustments to your client retainer balances (particularly to manually reduce a client’s retainer balance) in your bookkeeping software. Client retainer balances are increased normally by simply creating an invoice and billing the client for a retainer fee up front, say for $5000. Over time, as the work is completed

Handling Customer Payment Deductions

This article deals with handling customer payments that do not fully pay off the open invoice. Especially in the inventory-related industries, a lot of times customers will send check payments to apply to a specific invoice(s), however the amount of the check payment is short of what is completely due in the open invoice(s). To

Tracking Investments Bookkeeping- Part 5

Part 5 in this series of tracking investments bookkeeping will cover cost basis and market value adjustments. To re-cap from what you may already know: Cost Basis = What you actually paid at the time you purchased your stock. Market Value = What your stock holdings are worth today on the open market. If you

Create Your Own Speculative Job Costing Report

This article addresses the concept of creating something other than a typical pre-made job costing report for your speculative (not custom) home building projects in QuickBooks Online. QuickBooks, both the Desktop and Online versions, have a number of pre-made job costing reports available for your reporting needs, if the information is indeed posted correctly and

Create Your Own Customized Job Costing Report

This article addresses the concept of creating something other than a typical pre-made job costing report for your custom (not spec) home building projects in QuickBooks Online. QuickBooks, both the Desktop and Online versions, have a number of pre-made job costing reports available for your reporting needs, if the information is indeed posted correctly and

Ensure Payroll Filings and Payments are Correct

This article addresses the concept of ensuring your payroll tax filings and payments are up to date and correct. One sure sign that your payroll tax obligations might be amiss is if a recent payroll tax payment never cleared your bank account. This could be due to the fact that you depended on your payroll

Correcting Changes to Reconciled Transactions in QuickBooks Online

Each month or quarter or some other consistent period of time, you, as the bookkeeper for your business, should be reconciling all cash and credit accounts to the corresponding periodic closing statements. This bookkeeping task is crucial to let the reader of your financial statements know that you have verified all cash and credit transaction

The Categorization of Business Meals

The topic of categorizing business meals expenses in the most appropriate way in your bookkeeping system can cause confusion because business meals (and perhaps the associated entertainment costs) can occur for a variety of reasons. In the old days, it might have been enough to categorize business meals based on two main principles: Geography: local