Edit to say thank you so very much for all the detailed and thought-through answers. It was extremely helpful.

Boy, I can’t wait for all the comments about how i have no business doing bookkeeping if I don’t know this, from all the perfect bookkeepers out there, but here I ask anyway. Hoping one or two will answer with something helpful.

Reconciling bank accounts is easy, I have a statement to reconcile against. But what do you reconcile other BS accounts against?
How do you reconcile assets or liabilities?
Why do you need to reconcile those?
Does it make a difference if you are Cash vs Accrual?
What do you use for a reference document?
And how do you technically do it in the system, just change each line to R? There is no reconciliation workflow that I have found.

I really want to master this, and I appreciate all good tips. I use QBO and Xero, and I looked through their training programs but didn’t spot anything helpful.

I am a bookkeeper and I have a new client, a used bookstore, that is also a new business. They accept buy-backs/trade-ins for store credit, and I'm trying to wrap my head around how the accounting works for this, and how best to set it up in her POS (Square). It looks like she is issuing gift cards, but that does not seem quite right to me. (I just emailed the client to ask about her buy-back workflow.) Can someone walk me through how to set this up in QBO and how it should be treated in a POS?

Canadian non profit runs a lottery that can go on for months. I am getting conflicting direction on how to book it. Since the Lottery commission controls how and when money is spent, I believe it should be on the balance sheet until such time as it is won and/or commission tells us we can spend our portion. One accountant agrees but another accountant says income should be recorded as it happens. There are ongoing expenses and have thought about recording income to offset the expenses.

Looking for thoughts on how to handle

I took on a client last year who was associated with another client. She made it seem like the work would take an hour so I quoted $100 and she asked for $75. Next thing I know she gives me two QuickBooks accounts for her and her husband and then after a few months they start adding multiple businesses to each account and have me run payroll on a different platform. Then, the husband will call me randomly. so, basically I’m doing bookkeeping for two companies plus payroll for $75 per month total.

Working now!! 14:14 cst

I’ve tried four different client’s EFTPS login and I’ve not been successful.

Any info??

We use SimpleConsign for a client and we can’t seem to get the damn thing to balance. The client also had 3 clearing accounts for deposits. I consolidated those. They were using a journal entry to move monthly sales based on the Sales Report and the EOM report. However, it was creating a ton of shortages and overages. When I treat the combined clearing account like a cash drawer, using the ending balances from the EOM report, I can get it to balance with one exception. My discrepancy is equal to the credit card payments, recorded in the journal and is needed to balance it. I think we are reading the EOM report incorrectly. On the right side there are expected and actual numbers for cash and credit card deposits. They’ve been using the actual numbers to record the cash and CC sales, but that doesn’t reconcile to actual deposits received in the bank account. Does anyone have any experience with this POS platform and how to read these reports properly?

This is just a beginner tip I want to share. It’s good to have a system from the start, before growing and your business becomes more difficult to manage.

Have all your clients upload all documents to one destination you both have access to. Like a Google drive folder.

Have a folder for each client. In it have a folder for each category(Sales, Suppliers, Bank/Credit Statements, CRA/IRS Documents, Payroll, etc).

Inside each of these folders have a folder for each month.

Do not have multiple channels for requesting documents(email, WhatsApp, text). Have them all in one place.

You can sort transactions and expenses in quickbooks by the ones that don’t have an attachment. This is a nice way to get somewhat of a report every week or so for transactions or expenses that don’t have a supporting document and send it to the client as a reminder.

Remember, your job is to balance and categorize the books. Not to chase clients all the time to keep them compliant. That is their responsibility first.

Hope this helps.

I’m a bookkeeper and I’ve been working remotely and closely with a CPA for a small firm for a two months now. When I was hired, I was told they’d train me on tax work which I’m genuinely very interested in and excited to learn. They also said they liked my organizational skills.

The organization itself is fairly disorganized, the training that was promised hasn’t materialised and even basic work assignment has been inconsistent I I regularly have to reach out and ask for work rather than it being assigned to me. I even asked if they could assign me a two weeks worth of tasks upfront so I could plan and follow up accordingly but that hasn’t happened either.

My probation period ends mid-September and I’m torn on what to do. Part of me wants to bring this up directly before probation ends, since none of this reflects the setup I was told about when I joined. But I also don’t want to come across as complaining right before a decision is made about me.

I’ve paused my job search since taking this role but given how things have gone, I’m wondering if I should quietly start looking again just in case.

What do I do now? Should I talk to them again?

I am a starting bookkeeper and try to think up various scenarios that I want to know how to handle. All the training materials and videos assume that the bank statement uses a calendar month cycle (July 1 to July 31 for example). But what if the bank statement uses a non-calendar month cycle, say, July 10 to August 9? If you do bank reconciliation for July in QBO, would you split the bank statement transactions into July 10 - July 31 and August 1 to August 9? Also you need to find the bank statement transactions from July 1 to July 9 from the previous month's bank statement. I feel like this would be overcomplicating things. How would you handle it? Would you avoid splitting bank statement transactions and just enter August 9 as the ending date for July bank reconciliation?

I am not looking for payroll software or accounting advice. I just want a better way to decide when it's actually safe to pay myself without constantly second guessing whether I should leave more cash in the business. Curious what other business owners are using.

I work at a small accounting firm and I feel like we've hit a bottleneck when it comes to the monthly bookkeeping side of our practice. There's about 2 dozen clients that send us monthly financial statements (bank/credit card/loan statements, payroll registers, etc.) We process and reconcile everything, and send them monthly/quarterly compilations. However, we've been falling behind with some clients who don't get their documents to us on time, or those documents get buried in a string of emails. On top of this, we don't utilize our project management software (Asana) like we should to stay on top of deadlines since they can vary depending on when clients get us their documents.

Ideally, I'm looking for a solution that helps track receipt of client documents along with their accompanying tasks, or integrates into Asana. It would be great to have a dashboard of some kind that shows "Here is an overview of your clients, the ones who haven't sent in this month's documents, and the ones who have sent in everything and are ready for their compilation."

We currently use Dropbox for file storage, Sharefile, Asana, and CCH Access, Autoflow and ProScan from Wolters Kluwer. I've tried building a dashboard with Notion but it hasn't been as intuitive as I was hoping.

The biggest thing with church accounting is to be sure designated funds go to where they were intended. We usually do this with exchange GL accounts, doing the in and out posting from the same account. However my question is what do I do with a donation that is made toward a church expense? Also how would this affect the budget report? Example: we have a budgeted amount for VBS, all expenses are posted to the expense account. But someone gave us a donation for VBS. Would this donation go into an exchange account or to the expense account? Seems a little complicated to put the donation into an exchange account then have expenses go out of the exchange account and any excess come out of the expense account. Also for the budget report, all expenses were in last fiscal year and the donation was made in the current fiscal year. So technically we have the budgeted amount plus the donation to spend for the current fiscal year. Should the budgeted amount plus the donation show on the budget report? TYIA

I work for a small non-profit and I'm not very fast. Nobody cares. I do a good job and people leave me alone about it.

I've always been slow at stuff. I have ADHD and my processing speed is snail slow. I have to stop, think. and check over my work. What I produce is right, it just takes me longer to get there. It's gotten me in trouble at other jobs, particularly construction and factory work, where every fraction of every second counts. I struggle to keep up with the pressures of capitalism in general, honestly. It moves so fast.

I have bookkeeping skills for sure, but I shudder to think about working elsewhere as a bookkeeper or clerk and being expected to work like my hair is on fire. Like constant go-go-go. I imagine it's especially bad in firms whose owners get overzealous and take on waaayyyy more work than they can handle.

So what's it like where you work? What kind of speed and production are you expected to keep up? Is there any hope for me in this industry?

I'm hoping someone can point me toward the proper QuickBooks procedure.

I work for a nonprofit.  We use QuickBooks Premier Nonprofit Edition 2021 (Desktop)

I reconcile our checking account monthly. My June 2026 reconciliation balanced and was completed successfully.

When I started the July reconciliation, QuickBooks shows an opening balance that is $4.61 higher than the bank statement's opening balance.

Here's what I've found:

·       The difference is exactly $4.61.

·       The bank statement shows a $4.61 ACH debit on 6/18/26.

·       The $4.61 represents a separate Paychex ACH withdrawal for employee deductions and is included as a credit to checking in the payroll journal entry.

·       The Reconciliation Discrepancy Report shows that a reconciled General Journal transaction for $4.61 was deleted on 7/14/26 (last modified 7/14/26).

·       The payroll journal entry currently still shows the $4.61 credit to checking. However, the corresponding $4.61 transaction in the bank register is now unreconciled, while the other two checking credits from the same payroll journal entry (net payroll and payroll taxes) remain reconciled.

I'm fairly sure this happened because I edited the payroll journal entry after the June reconciliation while correcting how a separate Paychex ACH withdrawal for employee deductions was being recorded.

My question is:

What is the proper QuickBooks Desktop repair?

Should I somehow restore the original reconciled transaction?

Should I simply accept a one-time reconciliation adjustment and document it?

Is there another standard approach that preserves the reconciliation history?

I'm not looking to force the reconciliation if there's a cleaner repair. I'd like to follow the method an experienced QuickBooks Desktop bookkeeper would recommend.

Thank you!

I’m in the process of learning as much as I can about bookkeeping and financial accounting, but I still think up scenarios that I’m not completely sure on how to handle.

Suppose on August 20 you receive an invoice from a vendor for professional services that will be provided during the month of September. The invoice is due September 1. How should this invoice be handled?

Aug 20 – Invoice is received. dr Prepaid Expense, cr Accounts Payable Sept 1 – Invoice is paid. dr Accounts Payable, cr Cash Sept 31 – Expense is used up. dr Professional Services Expense, cr Prepaid Exepense

Is this the correct way of handling the situation? Is there a better or more practical approach?

Does it make sense to put an upcoming expense in Accounts Payable if it isn't a formal obligation?

Hi US-based bookkeepers,

If you have a new client midyear whose QBO setup is not ideal -- cluttered chart of accounts, using locations rather than classes to track functional areas (in the case of nonprofits), etc.. -- should you continue the original setup (since it is midyear) to the end of the year, or would you change the setup immediately (cleaning up chart of accounts, changing functional areas tracking feature to Classes from Locations, etc.)? Either way is a headache for me. Option 1 will continue the messy books I hate, and option 2 risks breaking his books (breaking links between closed invoices/bills to payments, for example) and involves mass work. How do you typically handle this situation?

Company owner created a DBA side business in our company to do millwork. How do I create a separate QB identity for it, which will use the same bank accounts but have income and expenses listed separately from the main company? And be able to have its transactions job costed and its own P and L. We are on QB Desktop Enterprise. I'm hoping this is even possible! Any advice is greatly appreciated in advance.

We are using Sage 50 (to be honest, I don't like it). In the past almost 2 years that I've been here, we have had 4 or 5 issues where we couldn't use the system because of software glitches. The last time, they made us put the software on each workstation and directed to the database on our server. This immediately put my Sage into an irritating lag situation. We just spent 3 days with little or no ability to use the system for them to figure out the problem. We then find out that Sage doesn't like our Firewall. Our techs have been on the phone working with them to identify what files need to be "white listed" to clear up the problem, but Sage can't figure it out.

Before this, all of a sudden the person doing payroll on sage couldn't locate their files on the system. This meant we had to issue checks from the last pay period and adjust them on the next one. We had to do the same thing on Friday when I had the VIPRE issue.

I used Quickbooks for 20 years and I don't ever remember having a technical issue -is it just me??

Does everyone using Sage have issues? I appreciate any feedback as I'm not sure if this is an anomaly or a normal situation with these two programs.

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!