Common Questions
Answers to questions we hear often about bookkeeping, taxes, and accounting. Don't see yours? Get in touch.
What does full-service bookkeeping include for a small business?
Full-service bookkeeping at GMJ covers transaction categorization, bank and credit card reconciliation, and monthly financial reporting. Pricing starts at $225 per month and scales with your average monthly expenses by dollar amount.
Read answerHow often should a small business reconcile bank and credit card accounts?
Monthly is the standard cadence. Tie reconciliations to when statements close so issues are caught while they are still fresh. Bank feeds help with data entry but still need human review for duplicates, missing transactions, and miscoded charges.
Read answerHow do I know if my books are too messy to file my business tax return?
Several warning signs tell you the books need cleanup before tax filing, including unreconciled accounts, uncategorized transactions, mixed personal expenses, and missing payroll records. If two or three of these issues exist, your return will be delayed, inaccurate, or both.
Read answerWhat records should I gather before hiring a bookkeeper?
Pull together bank and credit card statements, payroll records, sales tax filings, merchant or POS reports, open invoices and bills, loan statements, prior tax returns, and access to your accounting software. Having these ready makes onboarding faster and helps your bookkeeper start producing useful work immediately.
Read answerHow far back can catch-up bookkeeping clean up old QuickBooks records?
There's no hard limit on how far back catch-up work can go. The practical scope depends on how many months or years are behind, whether bank and credit card statements are available, the condition of the existing QuickBooks file, and any upcoming tax deadlines.
Read answerWhy does my QuickBooks profit and loss not match my bank account?
The profit and loss report and your bank balance measure two different things. Net income includes revenue and expenses but excludes loan payments, owner draws, and transfers, while your bank account reflects every dollar that moved in or out.
Read answerShould my small business use cash or accrual accounting?
Cash basis is simpler and works well for many small businesses, especially for tax filing. Accrual gives a more accurate picture of profitability and is often required if you carry inventory, deal with significant receivables and payables, or report to lenders.
Read answerHow are monthly bookkeeping prices usually based on average expenses?
Bookkeeping firms price by average monthly expenses because that number is a reliable proxy for how much work the books require. More dollars flowing through usually means more transactions, more accounts, and more complexity to reconcile each month.
Read answerWhat bookkeeping cleanup should I do before applying for a business loan?
Reconcile every account through the most recent month, build an accurate debt schedule, categorize revenue and expenses properly, and separate owner draws from business expenses. Lenders need clean financials that show real cash flow before they'll approve.
Read answerWhen should I stop doing my own bookkeeping and hire a monthly bookkeeper?
The signs are usually clear. You're behind on reconciliations, you can't tell if you're actually profitable, tax season feels like a scramble, or you're spending hours on books instead of running your business. Most owners wait longer than they should.
Read answerWhat financial reports should a small business owner review every month?
At minimum, review your profit and loss, balance sheet, cash position, AR aging, AP aging, sales tax liability, and payroll costs. Add any industry-specific reports like job profitability or inventory that matter for how your business runs.
Read answerHow can bill payment support help avoid late fees and duplicate payments?
Bill payment support prevents late fees and duplicates through five control points. Approval workflows, due-date tracking, accurate vendor records, consistent payment recording, and monthly reconciliation. Each step catches problems before they cost you money.
Read answerWhat is the difference between bookkeeping, accounting and controller services?
Bookkeeping records and reconciles your daily financial activity. Accounting interprets that activity and produces reports for decisions and taxes. Controller services add oversight, a formal close process, and review to make sure the numbers hold up.
Read answerWhat does an external controller do for a small business?
An external controller provides oversight of your accounting function, reviews the month-end close, ensures financial reporting is accurate, and designs internal controls. The role sits between your bookkeeper and ownership as a second set of eyes on the numbers.
Read answerWhen does a small business need fractional CFO support?
When your business has grown past what a bookkeeper can answer but isn't big enough to justify a full-time CFO salary. Common triggers include cash flow surprises, pricing decisions made without data, financing conversations, and adding locations or product lines.
Read answerWhat should a cash flow forecast include for a seasonal business?
A seasonal cash flow forecast needs to map expected receipts, payroll, vendor and inventory payments, debt service, taxes, and owner draws month by month, not as annual averages. The whole point is knowing in July whether you'll have cash to cover February.
Read answerHow can financial strategy help with pricing and profitability?
Financial strategy connects clean books to margin analysis that shows where the business actually makes money. By breaking down margins by product, sales channel, location, job, or customer type, you can set prices and shape your business mix based on real numbers instead of assumptions.
Read answerWhat should a QuickBooks Online setup include before transactions are imported?
A proper QuickBooks Online setup includes configuring the chart of accounts, connecting bank and credit card feeds, setting up products and services, sales tax, user permissions, and any third-party integrations. Getting these right before transactions come in saves hours of cleanup later.
Read answerWhat QuickBooks training should a business owner get before handing tasks to staff?
Learn enough QuickBooks yourself to oversee the work before delegating it. That means understanding bank feeds, receipts, invoices, bills, rules, reconciliation, reports, and user permissions well enough to catch mistakes and prevent duplicate entries.
Read answerWhat payroll records should be set up before hiring employees?
Before your first hire, you need a federal EIN, state tax accounts for withholding and unemployment, a defined pay schedule, employee onboarding forms, and proper GL mapping in your accounting software. Setting these up correctly from day one prevents costly fixes later.
Read answerHow should a business prepare for year-end W-2s and 1099s?
Year-end filing goes smoothly when your records are already in order. That means current W-9s on file for every contractor, accurate employee information, reconciled payroll liabilities, and clean vendor payment records.
Read answerWhat does business formation accounting setup include after an LLC is created?
Post-formation setup covers your EIN, business bank account, accounting file, opening balances, state and local tax registrations, and properly recorded owner equity. These steps turn a registered LLC into a business with books that actually work.
Read answerWhat can an Enrolled Agent do if I receive an IRS notice?
An Enrolled Agent can respond to the notice on your behalf, communicate directly with the IRS, represent you in audits or appeals, and negotiate payment arrangements. EAs hold unlimited representation rights, the same level granted to CPAs and attorneys.
Read answerWhat is the difference between IRS tax representation and tax audit support?
Tax representation means an authorized professional communicates with the IRS on your behalf. Audit support is the work behind the scenes, preparing documents, drafting responses, and guiding you through what the IRS is asking for.
Read answerHow should business owners prepare personal tax returns when their business books affect their income?
Finish the business books and the business return first, then build the personal return from those numbers. For pass-through owners, the business return drives almost everything on the personal return, so messy books mean a messy 1040.
Read answerWhat tax strategy questions should a small business ask before year-end?
Year-end is when tax decisions actually move the needle. After December 31, most options are gone. The right questions cover entity structure, estimated payments, retirement contributions, depreciation, inventory, payroll, owner compensation, and whether you have cash to pay the bill.
Read answerHow can tax planning change when an owner is choosing LLC, S corp or partnership treatment?
Entity choice changes how income flows to your personal return, how much self-employment tax you pay, and what compensation rules apply. Each structure has trade-offs around payroll, distributions, basis tracking, and state filings that shape your planning every year.
Read answerWhat records are needed for IOLTA reconciliations and trust accounting?
IOLTA reconciliation requires individual client ledgers, the trust account check register, monthly bank statements, deposit records, and disbursement documentation. These records support the monthly three-way reconciliation that state bar rules require attorneys to perform and retain.
Read answerWhat state tax issues should a business watch when selling in both North Carolina and South Carolina?
The two states have separate registrations, separate filing calendars, different local rate structures, and different exemption certificate rules. Treating them as one compliance task is how businesses end up with notices and penalties from both.
Read answerHow should a virtual bookkeeper work securely with documents and QuickBooks?
A virtual bookkeeper should use a secure client portal for document exchange, request QuickBooks Online access through proper user roles instead of shared logins, and connect bank feeds in read-only mode. A consistent monthly close cadence keeps everything moving without back-and-forth.
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