The archive
Every piece the desks have filed, newest first. Search it, or narrow it to one desk.
Retained earnings on a balance sheet: profit you have already spent
Almost every definition of retained earnings runs through dividends paid to shareholders. If you take draws and have no shareholders, here is what the line is actually counting and what your return calls it.
Balance sheet vs. income statement: the number at the bottom of one is a line on the other
Your income statement's bottom line is not just a result. It is the amount your equity moved on the balance sheet, which is why one miscoded purchase shows up in two places at once.
Amortization of startup costs: how to record what you spent before the business opened
You paid the designer in April, off a personal card, three months before the business opened. Here is where that lands in a set of books, and what the monthly amortization entry looks like after it.
Section 179 vs. bonus depreciation: what each election does on the return, and what neither one does to your books
The machine cleared the capitalization threshold, so it is an asset. Both elections write off its cost on the return in year one. Your balance sheet still shows it, and your books still depreciate it for seven years.
De minimis safe harbor: the capitalization policy has to exist before the tax year starts
The $2,500 limit is the easy part. What decides whether you qualify is a written threshold in your own books, dated before the tax year began, and this is what that document says.
How to read a balance sheet, one line at a time, and what each line should tie to
Most guides teach you to read somebody else's balance sheet. This one walks down your own, naming the document each line should agree with and what it usually means when it doesn't.
Can the owner of an LLC pay himself through payroll? What changes in your books the day the election takes effect
The election is filed and the payroll provider is set up. The part nobody covers is the books: one draw account becomes three, and the transfer you have coded as a draw for two years stops being one.
How much should I pay myself from my LLC? Reserve, floor, draw
Two subtractions decide it: the tax reserve you can read off last year's return, and the cash floor your business has to keep. What is left is the draw, and some months that is nothing.
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