CPA and Bookkeeping Rockwall AlternativeWhen fees live in two programs

A processor deposits what is left after its fee. The invoice was for the gross. If the books record the deposit as the sale, income is short and the fee never appears. If the books record the invoice and also record the full deposit, income is high and the bank will not reconcile. The third way, the one we use, records the invoice at gross, the deposit at net, and the fee as its own expense.

That split has to happen in the program that holds the bank. The billing program may already show the fee on its own report. Copying the fee a second time, because both screens looked official, is how a small company reports twice the processing cost it paid. We pick one report as the source for the fee and we mark the other as a copy.

Software subscriptions are the quiet twin. They leave on a card, often from a personal card that was never meant to be the company card. If the card is not in the books, the expense is invisible and the owner has been subsidizing the company. We would rather see the card in the file than discover it when a draw account no longer makes sense.

A vendor paid by card is usually outside the January information return. A vendor paid by check or by transfer needs a form W-9 while the relationship is still friendly. Two programs can pay the same vendor and neither total crosses the line by itself. Added together, they do. We keep one vendor record, even when the payments were born in two places.

Ask for the W-9 on the first payment, while the relationship is still easy. Starting that search in January turns a one minute job into a week. We put the ask on the close checklist for any new name.

The processor's statement, the deposit, and the fee account agree to the dollar. Software charges have a vendor name, not a lump called miscellaneous. The billing program's fee report is either the source or it is ignored, and everyone knows which. That is a dull sentence. Dull is the point.

If a fee has been netted for months and never recorded, the cleanup posts the missing expense and reduces income or increases it, depending on which mistake was made. We show the entry before it is saved. Surprise journal entries are how owners stop trusting the file.

Processors move deposit days without asking. A Friday batch that used to land on Monday starts landing on Tuesday, and the reconciliation grows a one day ghost. We do not "fix" that ghost by dating the deposit to the invoice. We date it to the bank and we let the open invoice live through the weekend. A ghost that is explained is not a ghost.

If two processors are in play, a card reader at the counter and an online checkout, their statements do not get added in one miscellaneous bucket. Each statement is its own vendor. The day you combine them is the day a fee increase hides inside a total nobody can trend.

Owners often notice the fee only when the take home feels smaller. The books should have noticed first. A fee account that moves more than the sales moved is a phone call, not a shrug. We put that comparison on the month you see, in words, not as a ratio you have to invent.