If you’re in the process of setting up your business or perhaps looking to manage your finances and cash flow more efficiently, then you’re probably in need of bookkeeping. Abacus offers two levels of service: Self-Directed and Professional assistance, allowing the business owner to manage their own financial records while having access to in-house CPA assistance when necessary.

Self-Directed bookkeeping involves the ability to track every dollar moving in and out of your business to ensure accuracy by providing a clearer picture of business health that supports....

Cash flow (managing income vs. expenses), tax compliance (deadlines & rules), and accurate record-keeping (categorizing transactions & receipts), habitually compounded by mixing personal/business funds, manual systems, and insufficient financial oversight, leading to missed deductions, penalties, and poor business decisions, requiring urgent fixes and professional assistance. Bookkeeping organizes data into five categories: Assets, Liabilities, Equity, Revenue, and Expenses.

The Core Concepts and Methods Are....

Single-Entry: Simplest method where each transaction is recorded once as income or an expense (like a checkbook).
Double-Entry: More robust system when transactions affect two accounts (a debit and a credit), ensuring the accounting equation stays balanced.

Cash vs. Accrual Basis

Cash Basis: Transactions are recorded only when money actually changes hands.
Accrual Basis: Transactions are recorded when they are earned or billed, even if no cash has moved yet.
 
Essential Tasks for Success

Keep Finances Separate: Open a dedicated business bank account to avoid mixing personal and business funds, which simplifies tax preparation.
Record Everything Daily: Save and categorize every receipt and invoice immediately to prevent a backlog.
Reconcile Accounts Monthly: Compare your internal records against your bank statements to catch errors or missing entries.
Store Records Digitally: The IRS accepts digital records; use cloud storage like Google Drive or Dropbox to keep backups of all source documents.

What’s the Difference Between Bookkeeping and Accounting?

Let’s talk about one of the biggest misconceptions in the business world: that bookkeeping is the same as accounting. Even though both have some overlapping features and their names are often used interchangeably, there are major differences between them...

Bookkeeping deals with the identification, measurement, and recording of financial transactions. Accounting, on the other hand, can be used to summarize financial data and interpret it to determine the financial health of the business and make calculated decisions for the future. In simpler terms, accounting encompasses most of the features of bookkeeping and provides a holistic overview of the financial transactions (and status) of a business. The best bookkeeping services are structured to integrate with the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), allowing the two processes to share information and remain in tune with each other. The Abacus "Self-Directed Program" offers this integration through our "Professional Assistance" option when desired.

So, have we answered the basic questions...?

If yes, then in the time since you started your entrepreneurial journey has your internal bookkeeping, payroll or tax reporting become frustrating and time-consuming? Have you been encouraged to find a good service that can assist you? What about strategic planning?

If you've put off that advice thus far, now might be a good time for some research, because now, you're involved with more than recording payables and receivables. Now, you’ll want to guarantee the security, power and continued success of your business. Abacus provides remote services to all business entities, including home-based sole-proprietors.

Our CPA-led "Professional Assistance Option" provides a comprehensive service from basic cash flow recordkeeping, to payables, receivables, payroll, tax and advisory support. Every client is provided with a dedicated internal account manager and the ability to interact with your assigned CPA for quarterly consultations.

Our Pricing Model is Very Reasonable!

It's a do-it-yourself service mainly, but we're always in the background to support you, just starting out...
We'll provide you with the software access and coordinate your initial training along with ongoing technical support from our software partner. We'll also create the "Chart of Accounts" related to your business, provide a dedicated Enrolled Agent licensed directly by the Internal Revenue Service for tax-related issues and provide dedicated customer service to coordinate support as needed. All for $99.00 per month....

Already established, but need some additional clean-up...
The same monthly fee and services as above but with one-time additional fees of $99.00 per hour for any cleanup work or restructuring of the "Chart of Accounts" by our staff....

Looking for Professional Assistance from a Certified Public Accountant....
All services above with CPA monitoring and quarterly consultations plus full W2 or1099 payroll, recordkeeping, and support (first 2 employees free) additional workers are $5.00 each per person for $275.00 per month.

Still not convinced....

How about access to our team of investment or insurance professionals to create and service retirement and employee benefit programs, plus so much more. Single project, non-recurring CPA and CFO requests are available but charged separately depending on the scope and time involved. We would provide a firm quote for any such project in advance.

In Conclusion...

Self-Directed bookkeeping services offer real-time financial accuracy allowing you immediate access to meaningful data for core growth considerations. Also, by leveraging enhanced oversight through our "Professional Assistance" program you would gain improved financial insights, expert regulatory compliance and advisory support as well as payroll capabilities.

Not a do-it-yourselfer...? Not a problem, we can go that way also, just give us a call or request a callback via our "General Inquiries" tab above....

Onboarding is easy....

You are matched with a CPA-led team providing the equivalent of in-house full-charge bookkeeping or accounting. Partnering with Abacus gives you access to "Certified Executive Level" professionals to support and oversee all bookkeeping, accounting and tax-related tasks while controlling salary and benefit costs. Just starting out ? Have additional questions ? Just give us a call, we're as close as your nearest phone....