AboutLinda Saltz, CPA, QBalance.com Expertise QuickBooks best practices, troubleshooting, accounting, tax
We have over 70 pages of website content about QuickBooks tips,
running a business, tax and business startup at http://www.qbalance.com
Experience Accountant and CPA over 20 years. Specializing in accounting software for over 12 years, Certified QuickBooks Pro Advisor, QuickBooks seminar instructor since 1997.
Producer of www.QBalance.com over 100 pages devoted to QuickBooks help and support
and training for small business owners in tax and accounting issues.
Question Have not used an accounting package before and for record keeping as a sole proprietor, extensively used Schedule C and manually recorded the info. Have just recently incorporated to an S corporation, and am not sure what would work best for my purposes: FYO, effectively I'm reimbursed for all expenses(hotels and travel) and for meals will be using the govt per diem schedule. I'm effectively juggling between my business and personal account.
I want to set up my bookkeeping such that the use of a CPA is minimized. (In the past, I've done my own taxes.)
Answer Hi,
A corporation is required to report on your assets and liabilities,
and equity including retained earnings (Balance Sheet). This reporting is not required of a Sch C entity.
Your CPA will have to make many adjustments each year to produce that balance sheet if you use Quicken.
So therefore, I recommend that you use QuickBooks for your S Corporation. If you are not a bookkeeping pro and you are concerned about limiting your liability, I highly recommend that you have a separate credit card for business and pay that credit card through the business checking account. If the business checking does not have the funds to pay the bills, make a loan to the business and deposit your personal funds into the business checking account.
Also invoicing for your services and your expenses will be easy in QuickBooks. You would set up a new Item for each Per diem reimbursement rate that you use (different areas of the country may have different reates)plus you can track your time in the Quickbooks timesheets and import that time into invoices.
In addition, now that you are an S Corporation, you will need to generate a paycheck regularly for a reasonable wage for the work that you do. Amounts can be withdrawn over the reasonable wage as SCorp distributions. QuickBooks has several different payroll services that you can choose from. If you do not wish to handle your own payroll tax reporting, QuickBooks assisted payroll is a great service and posts your payroll transactions right inside QuickBooks.
the phone number is 800-365-9618. I work with Karen and she is very helpful. If you are willing to learn how to do your own payroll taxes, QuickBooks has a wonderful do-it-yourself service called enhanced payroll. With enhanced payroll QuickBooks will print your quarterly and year end tax forms, create paychecks.
To keep your CPA fees to a minimum, make sure that all the accounts on your balance sheet can be supported at the end of the year. For example, the bank rec should agree to the amount on the balance sheet, the A/R aging report should be totally accurate, free of negative amounts, plus agree to the A/R account on the balance sheet.
The same holds true for A/P (accounts payable). Loan balances on your balance sheet should agree to the loan statements or amortization schedules. And be sure to post your assets that you purchase to fixed asset accounts such as Furniture, Computer Equipment, Vehicles, Software, Other Equipment.
