Comments on: Small Business Accounting And Bookkeeping Can Be Fun – The Ultimate Small Business Startup Guide Part 6

By: Ollie

Ollie — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 14:58:49 +0000

I’ve been running my own online business for about a year and helping out with my parents’ small business over the same amount of time and, let me tell you, there’s nothing I loathe more than keeping the books. It’s the most tedious, annoying task ever, and it just piles up if you don’t do it on time.

But you make a good point. It’s worth it not only because you have to do it for the IRS, but also because well kept books give an excellent overview of how the business is doing. And I didn’t know about deducting your vehicle mileage, I’m going to start doing that.

By: Tyler WebCPA

Tyler WebCPA — Fri, 28 May 2010 11:58:03 +0000

Ingrid,
While most states now require the vendor to collect sales tax from customers for internet sales you are only required to do so if you have a “nexus,” a physical presence, in that state. So if Steve sells something to me in Indiana and he doesn’t have any type of shop or presence in Indiana then he can not be required to collect Indiana sales tax.
Aside from that, if your product is delivered entirely over the internet (no physical item) most states don’t collect sales tax on that. If you want more detail I did a post on internet sales tax for my blog; feel free to come by and take a look.

By: Ingrid Zacharias

Ingrid Zacharias — Tue, 18 May 2010 16:38:16 +0000

Hi,
I live in Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada and am looking at starting an online business selling virtual strategic planning tools to Canada and the USA. My question is about paying sales tax on online sales. I have been doing research and apparently in February of 2010, many of the US states started collecting sales tax on online sales. There are varying rules, depending on the state. But what I am wondering, is who do I contact in each state to find this out, and how do you manage the diversity of sales taxes charged by individual states? Secondly or was that thirdly, hmmmm, well is there yet a federal sales tax in the USA on online sales, or is that still coming down the pike?

Thanks I appreciate your wisdom on this issue.

By: Twitted by kikolani

Twitted by kikolani — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 10:38:43 +0000

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Fri, 18 Sep 2009 12:12:42 +0000

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By: Phil

Phil — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 17:45:36 +0000

@Jen,

Thanks for your reply, I am currently managing my business finances using Quickbooks for A/R and A/P, it is great for balancing the checking account, keeping track of bills, etc. The biggest problem I have is that I have several websites that generate income for me so each of these sites have their own shopping cart or payment system. I have to manually enter all of these sales into QB so everything balances out there. It is very tedious and time consuming to do this but I don’t know of any other way to do it so I can see a complete picture of my business. If I only had one website generating income it might be easier but now-a-days you need more than one source of income unless your only source is doing really well like your business appears to be.

Once again, thanks for your reply and this whole blog in general!

By: Jen

Jen — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 17:17:27 +0000

As Steve mentioned, I used to work at Intuit so I strongly believe in their products. We in fact own both QuickBooks and Quicken Home and Business, though I still tend to do most of our reporting out of Excel. Reasoning behind this is partly because of my comfort level. I’m an expert in Excel and have worked many years as a planning and reporting analyst for several large Fortune500 companies. At these companies you would be surprised to know that Excel is still widely used as a reporting tool; though the data is coming from different sources. Plus I didn’t want to over complicate the process if I didn’t have to. Our financials are really straight forward; we work with a very limited number of vendors so tracking our expenses is very easy. Plus our shopping cart handles our inventory, tracks payments, handles our customer data and creates our invoices. I then port this over to Excel which I have then automated to create several reports.
QuickBooks is excellent if you need something to create invoices for you, track payments, and also manage your expenses. It’s also a must if you don’t have a good handle on your inventory levels. I strongly encourage folks to use that if they are not familiar with Excel or are not “finance savvy.” It’s very user friend and there is a version of QuickBooks that you can download for free (assuming you have very simple financials and not many customers).

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Wed, 16 Sep 2009 16:14:11 +0000

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By: Steve

Steve — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 17:02:54 +0000

Hi Phil,
We do all of our finances with excel because that is what my wife is comfortable with. She used to work at Intuit too! Eventually, we will transition to Quickbooks so that everything is a bit more portable. For most people, I don’t recommend Excel but my wife happens to be an expert. In fact, understanding our spreadsheet is way beyond the scope of my abilities. Perhaps I can have my wife comment on this later. I’ll see if she has time later today.

By: Paul Smalley

Paul Smalley — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 14:50:12 +0000

Great article.

One point that comes out here is using the accouting data for management reporting purposes – this helps with identifying trends etc.

For good reporting there are lots of accounting packages, some of which are free in their most basic form.

Phil – there are some excel templates out there on the web, but if you want reporting for management purposes, Excel is not the best way forwards I am afraid.