Small business bookkeeping for the Inland Empire

Short answer: Small business bookkeeping in the Inland Empire is for family businesses, shops and service companies that have outgrown kitchen-table books. Every bank, card and loan account is reconciled monthly, payroll is recorded from your provider, and personal spending is kept out of business expenses. You get a monthly profit and loss, a balance sheet and a clean CPA file.

Who this is for

Plenty of Inland Empire businesses have five to thirty people, one or two locations, and an owner who still signs every check. The books are often kept by a family member, an office manager who also runs dispatch, or the owner after the kids go to bed.

That works until it doesn't. Usually the breaking point is a loan application, a tax bill that came out of nowhere, or a second location.

What small business bookkeeping covers

• Every bank, card and loan account reconciled every month
• Sales and deposits recorded once, at the right amount, net of card fees
• Bills and vendor payments coded to real accounts
• Payroll recorded from your payroll provider's reports
• Owner draws and personal spending kept separate from business expenses
• Monthly profit and loss and balance sheet
• A clean file for your CPA at year end

Mixing personal and business

This is the single most common problem we see in family businesses. One card for everything. The truck payment and the house payment out of the same account. A spouse on payroll with no clear role.

We do not judge it. We sort it. Personal spending gets recorded as owner draws or distributions, not as business expenses. Going forward, we help you set up the accounts so it stops happening by default.

A note on cash and card fees

Restaurants, auto shops and retail counters in the region take a mix of cash, cards and app payments. Each one lands in the bank differently. Card processors deposit the sale minus fees, sometimes a day or two later, sometimes in one lump for several days. Delivery apps deposit after their commission.

If deposits are recorded as sales, revenue is understated and fees disappear. We record the full sale, then the fee as an expense, so your sales match your point of sale and your costs are complete.

When to hand off the books

• You spend more than a few hours a month on them and you hate it
• You have stopped opening the bank statements
• Your CPA's year-end bill keeps going up because of cleanup
• You want to borrow, expand or sell in the next year or two
• The person doing them now is about to leave or retire

What stays with you

You keep control of the money. We do not pay your bills or move funds. We record and reconcile what happened, ask about what we can't tell, and give you reports. Your bank, your payroll provider and your CPA stay the same.

Where we work

We keep books for businesses across Riverside County and San Bernardino County.

• Chino
• Corona
• Fontana
• Moreno Valley
• Murrieta
• Ontario
• Rancho Cucamonga
• Redlands
• Riverside
• San Bernardino
• Temecula
• Upland

Questions