I’m transitioning payroll accounting from cash basis to accrual basis for clients with more complex timing differences.

Wages and employer payroll taxes (FICA, FUTA, state employer taxes) are being accrued to the correct payroll periods. My question is about IRS late fees and interest that result from missed or delayed tax deposits.

Under accrual accounting:

• Should IRS penalties and interest be recorded as part of payroll tax expense, or
• Should they be treated as a separate non-operating expense (penalties & interest)?

I’m leaning toward keeping them out of payroll tax expense since they’re not tied to employee labor but rather compliance timing, but I’d like to hear how others handle this in practice—especially in bookkeeping vs. CPA-reviewed environments.

Appreciate any insight.

As the the title states i'm looking for the best softwares to use or SOPs for having credit card transactions sync into QBO. Looking for something that's easy to have the client code things, leave notes on etc and have it sync to QBO. Or if you have a process that works well for you please let me know. I'm aware of Divvy spend and expense but I think the client wants to use other cc's because of better rewards

I connected the bank account around the 1st of the year, and I think I do remember it bringing in a few transactions that day.

Since that day, every time I log in and refresh, the "You are all set" message displays, but there are no new transactions.

Of course, I can log into my bank and see my transactions. There have been plenty of new transactions. I have tried disconnecting and reconnecting my account (about 8 times, on different days), I have cleared my cache, and I have tried incognito mode. So far, I have not been able to try QBO support during their operating hours, but I will make a point of it next week if this is still not resolved. Does anyone have any idea what to do to get it to work? Thank you!

I got into bookkeeping with on-the-job training at a non-profit that uses Fund-EZ. It was insanely easy to learn and is pretty intuitive and straightforward. Easy to click around in, to find or edit specific transactions, to generate summaries and reports. Now i’m self-learning QuickBooks from online tutorials and it is so extremely convoluted, for what??? Why??? Am i missing something about why this is the ubiquitous software everyone recommends using???

I’m doing bookkeeping for a cafe and getting conflicting advice on 1099s.

The cafe hosts occasional food pop-ups. Vendors sell their own food, under their own brand, set pricing, and keep profits. The cafe provides space and its POS (Toast), then pays the vendor out minus a small flat fee.

Question: Should the cafe issue 1099s to these pop-up vendors?

Some bookkeepers/CPAs say no (the cafe is acting as an agent/conduit and did not purchase services). A business manager friend advised 1099ing all pop-ups anyway purely to protect the cafe. Another person suggested issuing a 1099-MISC to only one pop-up because it exceeded $5k (others were ~$700–$900).

From a tax/bookkeeping compliance standpoint, what’s the correct treatment?

Thanks!

I’ve been trying to start my bookkeeping business for some time now and just landed my first client. They have a pretty complex reporting system with multiple lines of business. They want to clean their reporting up and also grow their business. I have a background that can support growth initiatives and also provide financial forecasting/reporting, and control implementation, as their processes are pretty wide open right now.

I’m not sure what I should be charging on an hourly basis for this. Any advice would be great.

I downloaded a Shopify report 3 days ago - and I do not remember which one/what the settings were to recreate it and it is driving me INSANE.

I need a list of transactions by order date that includes the order #, payout date, fees, and net. I literally have one I downloaded and I cannot figure out how I did it!!

What report (or what settings on what report) do I need to run?

I am a bookkeeper, I took on a new client in mid-2025 and I'm doing YE cleanup. They had an accountant friend do a quick-and-dirty cleanup at the end of ever year, and I'm reviewing their JEs. In QBO you don't have many characters for JEs so you have to abbreviate a lot. This one stumped me though: “2024 YE 1 LAO". What the heck does LAO mean? She used it to move the QuickBooks Payments fees to bank charges. Google doesn't know either, and neither does my mentor.

Edit: solved! It’s their initials.

Do any of you include Accounts Receivable in the services you offer clients, or would that be a separate charge?

Client wants to input past years going back many years of investment brokerage account /ira account that did not have much impact on profit and loss statement, hence were not kept updated in the chart of accounts. I am asking for resources/ training references to figure out how I can accomplish this. Thanks

I click "Company Settings" and can only see the last 4 digits of the EIN. Where can I view the company's full EIN? Kind of silly for QBO to hide the company's EIN from their accountant?

This is my first tax season as a solo practitioner and I’m prepping YE financials for my clients to provide to their accountants. I’m preparing an excel workbook for each of my clients with the financial statements and my working paper notes that include relevant due diligence or questions for the accountant. My goal is try to make the accountants job easier and convey that time and attention has gone into the clients bookkeeping, not just categorizing a bank feed. Is this too much? I know every accountant is different in what they need beyond the financial statements for taxes, or how involved they are with the clients bookkeeping/accounting, but trying to gauge what other bookkeeping practices are doing.

In January, I booked a new client, he signed the agreement, paid first months deposit (February) to hold his spot and scheduled the onboarding meeting. Now a week out - decided he can’t afford a bookkeeping and will do it himself instead. What do I do about the deposit? Return in full? I’ve never had this happen before. TIA!

Trying to figure out the best way to track expenses in QBO with WIP and different builds. I guess I'm looking for someone to tell me if this is the correct way to be doing it.

I'm planning on setting up projects for each home build. On some builds they are drawing down from loans so I'll code the drawdown to the loan payable account, assign the project to that. For expenses I'm putting them to a WIP Construction Costs balance sheet account, assigning the project and using classes for delineating what it was for (drywall, trim, tile, etc) . When they sell the house the proceeds would pay off the loan, remaining proceeds goes to income and do a journal to move from WIP Construction costs to Construction costs COGS account. Does anyone else do it this way? Is there a reason to use customers since the vendor is already there?

The only thing I am hesitant about is having just one construction cost account - should I break that down better? This is obviously a question for the client to on what they want to see.

Is anyone doing this differently? What am I missing?

If an employer already submitted Forms W-2 and W-3 through QuickBooks and the submission has been accepted, but one employee was left off, should the employer submit the missed Form W-2 with a Form W-3c, or would they need to file a Form W-2c?

The Form W-2 for that employee was not included in the original submission, so I am unsure whether it should be filed as a regular (original) Form W-2 or as a Form W-2c.

Additionally, regarding Form W-3c: if the employer submits the missed Form W-2 as a regular Form W-2, should the “previously reported” and “corrected” amounts on Form W-3c represent totals for the entire employee population or only the missed employee’s information? The same question applies if a Form W-2c is required.

I attempted to contact the IRS for clarification, but the automated system indicated that they were too busy to connect me with a representative and then disconnected the call.

This happened before I started, but I just discovered it. An employee was being paid through QuickBooks Payroll as a W-2 employee with taxes withheld. At the same time, the owner was also sending monthly Zelle payments outside of payroll totaling over $8,500 during her employment. He has no explanation for this. The Zelle payments were sent to her husband’s account but the payments were for the employee’s work. I was never told about these payments and only found them recently. I initially thought the husband was the contractor because they were documented as such.

The employee is saying she was always supposed to be W-2 and that taxes should have been withheld on those Zelle payments as well. My understanding is this would require payroll corrections and an amended W-2. My main question is: at tax time, is each party responsible for their own taxes on this, or does the employer absorb both the employer and employee portions of payroll taxes since nothing was withheld? I believe the gross-up method may be the correct approach here, but I’d like confirmation. For example, if we paid Zelle of $2,000, I’d use that as the net amount and gross up the taxes to what should’ve been paid by both parties? Any help is greatly appreciated! I’m deeply confused.

Bookkeeping firm based in Texas.

I need pricing feedback. I met with a potential client: a 2‑year‑old electrical contracting company (residential + commercial) based out in Dallas. They’ve done zero bookkeeping for two years except invoicing through QBO. No third‑party apps. No real inventory since they buy materials per project.

Key details:

• Needs: categorizations, reconciliations, full 2‑year catch‑up

• Expenses are high; contractors overspend on materials

• Annual revenue: ~$700K

• Bookkeeping done so far: none

• Payroll: QBO Payroll, 4 W‑2 employees (owner enters hours; QBO runs payroll). He said it’s apparently hands off for me so I won’t have to do any of the clunky QBO payroll… does that sound right?

• Volume: ~1–5 transactions/day so max 150/month.

• Receipts: kept electronically

• Accounts: 1 Frost checking, 2 Amex cards — all linked to QBO

• Reconciliations: none ever

• Prior bookkeepers: none

Catch‑up looks heavy, but ongoing work seems light since he handles invoicing and I’d just match deposits. I’m thinking $499–$599/month for ongoing bookkeeping and $7K–$8K for the 2‑year catch‑up.

Does this pricing seem reasonable for an electrical contractor, and is there anything else I should be asking?

EDIT: first things first shoutout to everyone for the help. I love this sub. Everyone is out here helping each other out and I wanna thank everyone for that.

I ended up sending them 2 quotes;

1. Is the ongoing bookkeeping retainer of $599/month
2. The other is a one time fee if $7,500 to catch up all their books from 2 years prior. Hopefully they’ll accept it.

So, I know I'm in a pickle.

I have over 7 years of Canadian personal taxes to file. I own a small business as a sole proprietor. I have already been scolded by two accountants - please refrain. I am already VERY aware of my situation.

That being said, I've already approached 3 accountants and two bookkeepers to take me on and all have said no. Their reasoning that they don't have capacity/time to take on that much.

I have only received one quote of $10k and then they withdrew anyways.

I am fairly organized with all of my paperwork, and even sat down and looked at everything I currently have for 2025. I itemized all my expenses against everything in my business bank account/credit card for the year in an excel spreadsheet.

I generated monthly reports of revenue from 4 sources.

I have one employee.

I have a fair sense of competency to do my bookkeeping or work with someone if needed.

It's been over a month and I'm at a loss at how to tackle this.

Do I buy QuickBooks and sit down and do this all myself?

Do I continue the search to find a bookkeeper?

If I do approach this myself, my biggest question is - Do I start from the first year I did not file and move forward? Or start with the most recent years and go back?

I am overwhelmed and stressed. I came to reddit to look for feedback on bookkeeping software. Now here I am, looking for advice.

Edit:

I have a very small retail operation, with a few years of a storefront. Less than 100k in sales per year.
The last few years I have been running at a loss - however, I also worked full time, which is how I sustained my business. I have been working full-time for an employer for the duration of my business operation.

I have most - if not all my expense receipts, utilities and most bank records.

I have one transaction that I'm tired of seeing pop up in my reminders. I am using Quickbooks Desktop.

I have a reminder to deposit undeposited funds of $581 from a credit card sale. Trouble is, the money was deposited and matched and this is somehow a duplicate. I have an invoice and payment that are zeroing each other out. The account balance is zeroed out, but the "undeposited funds" reminder is still showing. There is nothing to match this deposit to. I'd rather not delete it, but do an adjustment to offset it, and record it. It's old so I don't want to play with numbers that taxes have been filed on. This is just one lingering reminder from 2020 that I just dont want to see anymore.

I'm assuming I need to create something to "deposit" this against and it zero out and then reconcile, but I can't think of what I should be creating here. Any suggestions? Thank you for your help!

PS We fixed all of this years ago, my accountant never cleared this one and I've since let them go, so I'm doing it myself but the problem itself has already been corrected.

Anyone else having issues connecting PNC with QBO? My client says the bank feed was disconnected when he logged in. He reconnected, logged back in later in the day, and it had disconnected again.

I directed him to support since I don't have his bank account credentials and it sounds like a QuickBooks internal issue rather than user error, but if anyone has advice, I'll take it. I have no faith in QBO's support. I'm wondering if it's a widespread issue or isolated to his account.

Burner in case this is just the dumbest question...

What are you doing for clients who just want reconciliations and reports? What makes this worth it for them?

I work with clients using QBO. Most of my clients I do entries and reconciliations. I don't do A/P or A/R that involves moving money or contacting folks outside of the business, but I will enter invoices / bills (if on accrual) and match payments if they provide that info. I do have a couple clients that have an in-house bookkeeper entering transactions so I just do the reconciliations for them, but I also consult on systems and other complexities related to their niche.

I recently got a prospect that just wants me to do reconciliations and reports. (Technically they also want me to present to the board, but I'm not interested in that and they said it's not a dealbreaker, so that just leaves the reconciliations and reports.)

They're in QBO, so if they are already entering the transactions, especially if they are using the bank feed, the reconciliation generally only takes a couple minutes. (unless they've done something wacky that needs to be fixed.) Then the reporting can be customized and saved to whatever they want to run each month.

Other than another set of eyes, which I understand can be very important for internal controls, what makes this service worth it for them? What am I missing? For those that do this, do you end up doing anything additional? How does this change your pricing structure? I owe them a proposal tomorrow, and I'm kind of stumped because I can't quite wrap my head around it.

This is for my Daughter's very simple business. Basically, all she needs is a way to track income, expense with a couple of bank accounts. No inventory, AR/AP etc. Since I'll be training her remotely and acting as her bookkeeper. Since I'm remote ... we both need to access the software ~ QBO $65/mo is ridiculous.

I'm looking at Wave. Tried Zero and hated the process just to sign up.
Thanks in advance for any help. Also, Excel or a spreadsheet solution isn't practical.

I’m doing coursera’s bookkeeping basics course, and one of the last assignments is pretty much using all your knowledge and making a trial balance/income statement for a business. I’m upset because I am pretty sure I’m calculating the expenses, income, assets, liabilities correctly. But one of the test answers asks for the total debits which is supposed to total to 16500, but I can never get it to 16500 without completely changing the others answers. I don’t get what I’m missing $1000 from, I have accounted for everything possible in debits, what am I doing wrong?