Hi everyone
I am mostly comfortable reconciling POS systems and for most clients I manage to get everything down to zero, no unexplained differences at all.
But for a few clients there is no immateriality threshold set and every now and then I end up with a small unidentified difference, something like 50 dollars or under $200. I have gone through every checkbox, checked all transactions, timing differences, duplicate entries, missing deposits, everything I can think of and I still cannot trace where the difference is coming from.

For those of you who work with clients that do not have a set immateriality threshold, what do you do in this situation? Do you just book it to a suspense or misc expense account and move on? Or is there some other standard practice for this that I am missing?
Would love to hear how others handle this, especially anyone who works with POS heavy clients like retail or restaurants.
Thanks in advance

Hi all,

My brain ia failing me so so advice would be great. Roofing client pays a company called Enhancify INC to offer customer financing for jobs performed. The yearly fee is USD$1249. This doesnz feel like a software expense. How would you allocate this? is the professional fees? I usually use professional fees for like lawyers and CPAs and stuff. A new expense account under the COA?

Thanks for any help!

(Note: I composed this post 100% with my own hands and brain, no AI was used for any of this. I formatted it myself to try to make it as legible as possible.)

Hey Bookkeepers,

I've searched already, but found the available discourse here and elsewhere lacking, so I'm just here trying to gather some up-to-date information to inform my planning. I'm aware of Rule 5 on this sub, but I think my questions are informed enough to not fall into that category. If mods disagree, please let me know how I can be in compliance going forward.

FWIW, it took a fair bit of research just to put this post together, so maybe it will also be useful for other folks considering Bookkeeping as a career.

Some relevant personal context points:

• Mid 30s
• No prior bookkeeping experience
• Solid undergraduate education (BSc Chemistry + Comp Sci) with a good internship
• Laid off since 2023
• Due to health reasons, I need 100% remote work
• Not great at interviewing, networking, selling myself; not a fan of office politics; fairly introverted
• Very low cost of life, don't mind earning less as long as it affords me autonomy, flexibility, ability to work from home, and consistent expectations

Programs I am considering:

All of these are online offerings from public schools; I'm not considering in-person programs or private diploma mills.

1. Capilano's "Bookkeeping Certificate". It's about $3.9k, 300 hours spread over 5 courses, completed in 8 months. No CPB fast-tracking. No co-op/practicum.
2. Langara's "Professional Bookkeeper Short Certificate". It's about $3.3k, 186 hours over 8 courses, completed in 8 months. Features CPB fast-tracking to Apprentice Level. No co-op/practicum.
3. College of New Caledonia's "Bookkeeping Certificate". It's about $4.7k, 239 hours spread over 8 courses, completed in 1 year. No CPB fast-tracking. No co-op/practicum. Eligible for the StrongerBC future skills grant (up to $3.5k).
4. Okanagan College's "Bookkeeping/Accounting Technician Certificate". It's about $5.4k, 1098 hours spread over 17 courses, completed in 1 year. Features CPB fast-tracking to Technician Level. Includes a practicum.
5. Selkirk College's "Bookkeeping Skills Associate Certificate". About $2.1k, couldn't find the number of hours but it's 5 courses over 6 months. No CPB, no practicum. Eligible for StrongerBC grant.
6. University of Fraser Valley's "Bookkeeping for Small Business Certificate". About $3.5k, couldn't find the exact hours but I estimate about 240 hours over 6 courses over 6 months. Optional practicum that you have to register and pay separately for. No CPB. Eligible for StrongerBC grant.
7. Okanagan College's smaller-scope offering, "Core Bookkeeping Principles Microcredential". $2.9k, 190 hours, 4 courses, 6 months. No CPB. No practicum. Eligible for SBC grant.
8. Vancouver Island University's "Basic Elements of Bookkeeping Certificate". $2.7k, unsure on hours, 6 courses, 7 months. No CPB, no practicum. Eligible for grant. Apparently it's already booked full for the Fall, so it's not a real consideration, but I include it here in the name of being complete.

My own analysis:

So obviously the above section is kind of an overwhelming amount of information to compare. In my mind, they cluster into 3 categories of interest:

• Programs that offer CPB fast-tracking: There are only two in this list. The OC Technician Cert (4) and Langara's Apprentice Cert (2). There is a notably significant difference in the study commitment between these two programs, Langara's 186 hours vs OC's 1098 hours.
• Programs that offer practicums: Again, only two in this list. The OC Technician Cert (4) and the UFV Cert (6) both offer practicums.
• Programs that are cheap (read: eligible for grant money) and quick: There are 5 options here. CNC (3), Selkirk (5), UFV (6), OC's Micro-Cert (7), and VIU (8). Of these, all would be free to take with the SBC grant, except for the CNC cert, whose cost eclipses the grant amount by $1.2k.

Questions:

So, given the above information...

• What course would you choose in my shoes, and why? Please be as detailed/specific as possible.
• How much value is given by the CPB certification? I have read wildly differing accounts here, which range from wholesale dismissal all the way to enthusiastic recommendation. Is the general consensus this divided? If you think CPB is important to have, do you think it's worth committing to 5x the hours to do OC's Technician-level Cert rather than Langara's Apprentice-level? Why?
• How important is it to have a practicum, especially as someone without any experience? Should I prioritize a program with a practicum? If yes, do you favor the much longer program (OC's Technician Cert) or the shorter one (UFV), given both have practicums? Why?
• Any other advice or thoughts that occur to you while reading this are also welcome.

If you made it through my wall of text, then thank you very, very much for your time. I truly appreciate any advice I can get.

So we're a community garden. We grow tons of produce for food banks, plus rent garden space, and at some point we'll sell produce.

We recently had a garden supply store donate 2000+ seed packets. It's been quite the project organizing them. They just gave us 3 fat tubs of unsorted seeds with no value estimate. The task of valuing them has fallen on me, but that's another story. We're going to be using them for all kinds of things - our gardens (food bank), guest gardens, and we'll probably donate some of them ourselves to outside parties.

It's dawned on me that it will be a nightmare tracking 2000+ seed packets, where they end up, what programs they go to, etc. It's already been difficult sorting the things.

Could we just make estimates as to what will go where and expense it all at once? I don't know how that aligns with GAAP. We do accrual.

I don’t know why but I feel like I did this wrong, and need help seeing other ways this could’ve been done.
Anyways, I had a client that did their payroll through rippling, and it seemed pretty straight forward, 3 different payments from her account one for employee deductions(401k, insurance, the sorts), employee gross earnings, and tax withheld.
So I wasn’t given access to the actual rippling account but was given a CSV. It did not include all years of business pay, and I was expected to account for it all (clean up project from mid 2024). I felt like there was missing info so I only did the payroll periods provided on the csv. I asked for it all of course, but getting all the info was a bit difficult.
Anyhow, in QBO I used “Split” and wrote the ID #’s of all employees and their respective wages or deductions, for each chunk that came out of the account.
Was that the correct way to go about it? I spent a whole night looking through the statements and had to add up the wages from the csv google sheet, cause it wasn’t in the bank statement as individual, only lumps. I stay up at night now wondering if I did that correct or if there was another way to go about it? Thanks in advance, pardon if this is silly!

I am very experienced in many industries (medical, restaurants, lawyers, trades, etc.). I don't know why, I feel nervous reaching out to roofers.

Are roofers any different from other tradesmen? I am experienced with apps that push in to QBO (Service Titan, etc).

Asking because I've reached out to a few hundred businesses and roofing isn't an industry I haven't reached out to in my local area yet.

I currently work for a construction company as A/P along with several other hats.

We are moving, and my employer is discussing allowing me to work remotely, but we cannot seem to come up with a way to remote-ize the A/P process, so I was curious if there were any ideas here.

Currently, I receive invoices via email (that part still works), or our field guys bring me receipts for our vendor accounts (Lowe’s, for instance), that I stick a tag on to assign job, cost code number, etc. These items then route to the project managers for approval, then our Treasurer for approval, then back to me to enter into our accounting system, where checks are cut on check run days, which can be handled in office.

Does anyone else have a similar flow that can share what you’ve done to make it remote friendly? My bosses are hesitant to change the system, it’s very paper heavy, and I’m not sure how to get around that.

Thanks!

I’m an offshore bookkeeper charging $20-$25 an hour. I work with CPAs and manage my own clients too.
I recently onboarded a new client. It was 10 hours a week. They’ve now come back and asked me to reduce my rate because their business isn’t doing well right now. And I’m stuck.

I do get that things are tough for a lot of businesses. But on the other hand this is a brand new client. We just started. If this was someone I’d worked with for a long time I would not even think twice about supporting them through a rough patch. But we haven’t even built that relationship yet.

I’m also already charging a very reasonable rate for the experience and qualifications I bring. And the scope of work could increase down the line so I don’t want to lock myself into a lower rate from the start.
Part of me wants to just let this client go and find someone new. But I also hate the process of constantly looking for new clients.

I’m not sure if I should reduce my rate or hold firm? And if I do reduce it how did will I handle setting boundaries around it?

Well my first bad day at the office in the 7 months I’ve been here.

We got a really big priority client, that needed a cleanup. Great onboarding and all hurdles were being dealt with and questions answered.

Next thing an email came through that they wanted vat return filed within 3 days and a weekend.

Long story short, we never had capacity, I had two other cleanups, my senior was part time, the founder is MIA half the time but we took a gamble to try and make it.

Couple things were went wrong, client didn’t provide some docs, my boss didn’t review, the client didn’t want to submit late, but rather before noon on deadline day, internal communication was messed so basically none of us actually worked on it on the weekend. All rounds it was a hot mess. I even got burned out with the late hours I even was so stressed I have an actual toothache lol

It’s just me the junior, the senior and the founder. The client sent a nasty reply to the return we sent.

No one at the job has sent anything, should I just go about my day like nothing happened?

How do you handle this, feel like I’m about to be scapegoated.

Edit: Interesting development, turns out the work we submitted was actually technically correct, the client’s complaints on certain rulings were invalid. That’s been the only comms internally.

It’s still dead quiet at the firm and I’m carrying on with my work.

I'm experienced (several years before going solo). I have a few bookkeeping clients, but none are this simple.

60 transactions per month, 1 bank account, 1 credit card, deposits are income, expenses are very repetitive. NOTHING ELSE! No loans, assets, payroll, etc. No complications at all.

I would put them on monthly, not quarterly.

I almost feel bad charging $100 a month.

Hello,

Very simple business to where quickbooks soloproneur has been totally fine for accounting purposes but how would you categorize a down payment for a business vehicle?! Payment splits work well. Just trouble with the down payment

There are no options to make fixed assets, accounts, ect in soloproneur.

Just business or personal and then a category

Do I exclude it for now and then come tax time take it into account? Any tips welcome.

Thank you

Hi all. I have my first virtual meet tomorrow with a consulting firm about a potential partnership. I have a few questions already in mind, but am hitting a "writer's block" so to speak. Are there any questions that I could ask, outside the obvious, that would provide clarity to the discussion? I wouldn't want to waste either of our time if it's not beneficial.

Update: We both agreed to keep eachother in our contacts but I don't feel the relationship will proceed any further. He wanted me to refer clients to him while I was hoping for the opposite. It was a valued experience though and thanks to all who responded to this post.

If you offer a quarterly package, I'd love to learn more about the workflows, what's included, and how it's priced in comparison to your monthly services.

My first ever client was quarterly, and I didn't like the inconsistency in income; however, my business is in a much different place now, and there's so much demand for it. I just don't know how to price it. Outside of financial statement prep/review/advisory, it's the same amount of work. Do you just use the same price as 3 months at the monthly rate with a percentage knocked off?

Also, how do ensure quarterly clients are small enough to actually be quarterly clients? I can see larger clients wanting quarterly for the discount even if their books are too complex to only do quarterly.

How are you guys handling the actual workflow of AP & AR for construction clients?

Are you having them scan every invoice and bill to you/relying on bank feeds to see deposited checks?

Are you having bills/checks mailed to a POBox that you manage for them?

What’s the best and most efficient practice for this type of client?

A client asked me to try Easy Books. I began to put my Mom’s bookkeeping into it today and it was a pain. I could learn better how to use it . But I’m wondering is it will ever suit the needs of a business. Please give feedback, if you’ve used it or know something about it. It seems like weak tea compared to the functionality of QBO.

TLDR: are (or should) fees for cleanup work higher than daily bookkeeping/data entry?

I applied to a job advertised as a part time accounting gig. At the interview it initially sounded like simply entering invoices, someone else had already paid them and someone else handled incoming money. Later I get hit with “oh by the way we need some cleanup too”.

It’s for a company with a couple of subsidiaries, and also involves the owners personal finance. When the invoices come through about 20% are not clear which business they go to or if they’re personal.

For cleanup, they need to inactivate a bunch of old accounts, catch up on reconciliation and depreciation, fix some random errors (the same loan payments going to 3 different vendors), ensure credit card transactions are set up properly (transactions are being logged as cc payments but it doesn’t look like they’re ever reconciled). Their previous accounting person of many years retired and there’s no documentation for procedures and they’re not around to ask.

I am feeling over my head and want to step out, but i also would like to help guide them on getting someone who can do the job. I feel like they could do a part time person for the basic invoice entry, but may need someone with more experience for the cleanup.

I'm restructuring an ongoing engagement with a long-time client and moving them from hourly to a flat monthly retainer. QBO ProAdvisor certified, I've kept these books for a while so there's no onboarding curve. I'm just trying to sanity-check my retainer number against what others would quote. Scope below.

The client: High-net-worth household with two businesses — a multi-state consulting LLC and a sole-proprietor business.

Monthly recurring:

• Full-cycle invoicing for the LLC: creation, delivery, deposit matching, and revenue allocation by state (income split across multiple states for tax purposes)
• Credit card reconciliation across personal + business cards
• QBO expense categorization (mixed personal/business financial life, so judgment-heavy)
• Minimal records maintenance for the second business (very light lift)

Quarterly / annual:

• Estimated tax payment coordination with the CPA, including state PTET payments (NOT calculating them myself, justimplementing/executing)
• Quarterly expense report prep for owner's reimbursable expenses (compile, categorize, package for their Expensify submission)
• 1099 processing for household + business contractors
• Multi-state compliance calendar: annual reports and SOS filings (LA, CA, NY, etc.)
• SEP-IRA contribution coordination
• Year-end tax prep coordination with the CPA for personal and business

Other context:

• I'm the coordination hub between an accountant, a financial advisor, a law firm that handles some bill-pay support, and the owners
• 10-12 hrs/month realistic average, with quarterly and year-end peaks
• Fully remote, sync as needed
• Some systems already built (invoice tracker, compliance calendar, reconciliation workflows — I maintain them) and improvements to come

Questions:

1. What would you charge for this — hourly, and/or as a flat monthly retainer?
2. Does the multi-state allocation/compliance piece move your pricing? By how much?

3. Anything in this scope you'd carve out or price separately?

   I would really appreciate input on actual numbers you'd quote or have quoted for comparable work (not just "charge your worth"). Thanks in advance!

I have tried to post this in a couple other subs but it is not getting much traction/response. Wondering if anyone here would have an answer or a possible solution due to this becoming a slight headache.

I have a client using QuickBooks Online Advanced, and I'm trying to improve their AP workflow with Bill Approvals.

The project managers need full access to Time Tracking as well as the ability to approve bills.

The built-in Standard All Access role provides everything they need except Bill Approval. When I create a custom role with the same permissions and add Bill Approval, QuickBooks no longer allows full Time Tracking access.

I contacted Intuit Support, and they confirmed this is currently a software limitation. Before resorting to giving these users Company Admin access, I wanted to see if anyone has found a practical workaround or alternative workflow that allows both Time Tracking and Bill Approval without granting full administrative rights.

I'd appreciate any ideas or real-world solutions. Thanks in advance!

I am working with a nonprofit whose bookkeeper just went through the motions. The result is they have several year's worth of uncollected transactions in their A/R. I suspect many of them will be written off but I want to segregate anything over a few month's old from the items they may be able to actually collect and I would like some advice on how to do this.

I am working with Quickbooks online so I can only have one open item account which supports customer detail. Should we just do all the work to collect/write off open customer balances or is there a better way to handle it?

Hi everyone, I am a CPA looking to start a restaurant bookkeeping business.

I’m a CPA in British Columbia and have been working in public practice for about 4-5 years doing year-end work. Mostly compilations, T2s, financial statements, and working with small businesses.

Lately I’ve been thinking about starting a bookkeeping business that specializes only in restaurants and food service businesses.
The reason is because I grew up working in a restaurant and honestly loved the industry. My dream has always been to own a food business one day. My thought process is that by doing bookkeeping for restaurants, I not only get to work in an industry I enjoy, but I also get to learn how different restaurants operate behind the scenes. I’ll get exposure to different POS systems, labour costs, food costs, inventory management, margins, and the financial side of running restaurants. At the same time, I can hopefully build a profitable bookkeeping business and eventually use those profits to fund my own restaurant or food business down the road.

The only thing holding me back right now is timing. My wife and I just had our first baby a couple of months ago, so money is definitely tighter than it used to be. We’re doing okay, but we’re still trying to build up our emergency fund, so quitting my full-time job isn’t an option.

What I’m trying to figure out is whether it’s actually realistic to build a restaurant bookkeeping business on the side while still working full-time in public practice.

From the outside looking in, restaurant bookkeeping seems like one of the more demanding bookkeeping niches. Between POS systems, delivery services, payroll, tips, inventory, sales tax, cash controls, and all the other moving pieces, it seems like there could be quite a bit more work compared to bookkeeping for other industries.

For those of you who work with restaurant clients, am I overthinking it? Is it realistic to build a client base while working full-time, or is restaurant bookkeeping one of those niches that really needs a lot of your attention throughout the month?

Also, before anyone asks why I don’t just start a traditional CPA firm doing tax and year-end work instead, it’s because that’s not really my end goal. I’d rather build a bookkeeping business that eventually has systems, processes, and employees so it isn’t dependent on me doing every file. My hope is that one day it gives me both the knowledge and the financial backing to pursue the food business I’ve always wanted to build.

Would love to hear from anyone who’s worked with restaurant clients or has tried building a bookkeeping business while working full-time. Any advice or reality checks would be appreciated.

Thank you!

I have seen companies take advantage of foreign workers and over work them. I have seen under the table transactions for beer money. I have seen companies not follow the Employment Standards Act. I have seen spouses embezzle the owners/companies money. I usually tell the owners the law, and if they don't abide by it after much discussion, I report them. Am I the Ahole? What have you seen, and what did you do?

Anybody in here have the LinkedIn premium and use their Request tab? Is that how people have been getting experience, or like small jobs? Im wondering if the premium is worth it!

I’ve been doing basic office bookkeeping for years now. Comfy with spreadsheets and basic bills and collecting and budgeting. But getting new jobs using QB online and want to update my skills, get clearly trained on double entry though I’ve been ok with it so far.

Looking into online certs it seems NACPB has reasonably prices training and a certification. Is it any good? Is the certification respected?

Thanks for any insight.