What kind of accounting system is needed for a new S corporation?
I promise you–you will miss business tax deductions and make dumb accounting mistakes if you use a shoebox for your S corporation bookkeeping or the shoebox’s close cousin, Microsoft Excel. (Yes, Microsoft Excel is a great spreadsheet! But, sorry, Excel is a bad accounting solution…) Fortunately, while you do need a real accounting system for an S corp, you often don’t need to go hog wild. In most cases, any simple bookkeeping program will do the job just fine. For example, if you run a personal service business with less than $250,000 in revenue and assets, you only need to construct a simple profit and loss statement in order to prepare your S corporation tax return. Any decent checkbook program–including Quicken and Microsoft Money–will construct such a profit-and-loss statement. Note: A profit and loss statement shows the revenues and expenses of the business–and then calculates the profit. If your S corporation revenues or assets exceed $250,000 or your business buys and res
