Its tax time for our (bootstrapped) startup, and we're deciding the best way to do it. We have subscriptions that people pay for using stripe, and we offer discounts on longer duration signups. My ideal solution would connect to my stripe, and put things right, including prepayments, stripe fee, and refunds. Hoping to gain from the community's experience.
Ask HN: How do you do accounting for your startup?
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Re: Ask HN: How do you do accounting for your startup?
#2Which country do you live in?
Re: Ask HN: How do you do accounting for your startup?
#3Which country do you live in?
We're a US C-corp.
Re: Ask HN: How do you do accounting for your startup?
#4Hire a book keeper as a contractor. We went through this with our startup we spent time researching various platforms considered automating some of our processes our selves and then ultimately hooked up with a book keeper quite accidentally. It changed our whole perspective on the process.
Think of it this way if you were a group of front end developers who turned out to need a high powered backend database solution and hit a wall with internal implementation you would immediately go out and find a dba to be part of or advise your company on the path forward. Think about your books in the same way. Accounting has purposeful redundancy built into it and many constructs that will make a logical programmer want to cry. Getting setup in the right way from the beginning will help you later.
Re: Ask HN: How do you do accounting for your startup?
#5I've heard UK contractors forming a co-operative and employing an accountant. The co-op is purely for the accountant, everything else is kept separate from it.
Not sure about the US but in the UK accountants are trained, qualified, registered professionals. The tax and legal systems are complex so it's usually a good spend of the money. You either save money by knowing what is tax deductible (for example) or you avoid fines by not claiming for things that you shouldn't. It allows you to concentrate on the fun other bits of the business.
Re: Ask HN: How do you do accounting for your startup?
#6Hire a book keeper as a contractor. We went through this with our startup we spent time researching various platforms considered automating some of our processes our selves and then ultimately hooked up with a book keeper quite accidentally. It changed our whole perspective on the process. Think of it this way if you were a group of front end developers who turned out to need a high powered backend database solution…
probably good to also point out the difference between book keepers and accountants in the united states. A book keeper is pretty much a literal title they are experts at going through and organizing your accounting. They are a cheaper first step before eventually getting in front of an accountant. They will generally also point out things you should take to an accountant. A book keepers time is generally significantly cheaper than an accountants. To make another example think a SQL developer could get you started with a plan and a DBA would come in to do really deep low level work.
Re: Ask HN: How do you do accounting for your startup?
#7Might not help you this season, but we use inDinero for all our accounting, and as a perk of a full-year subscription, they also do our taxes. It's quite convenient not to have to think about any paperwork.
Re: Ask HN: How do you do accounting for your startup?
#8In the UK accountancy courses are subsidised, it might also be the case in the US. This could be an option regarding a long term strategy.
At my accountancy course I learned that when Sage goes belly up, you resort to double entry.
Re: Ask HN: How do you do accounting for your startup?
#9I've heard UK contractors forming a co-operative and employing an accountant. The co-op is purely for the accountant, everything else is kept separate from it. Not sure about the US but in the UK accountants are trained, qualified, registered professionals. The tax and legal systems are complex so it's usually a good spend of the money. You either save money by knowing what is tax deductible (for example) or you avoi…
> It allows you to concentrate on the fun other bits of the business.
So wait up, what you're saying is that correcting reverse entry errors is dull and boring.
Re: Ask HN: How do you do accounting for your startup?
#10I've heard UK contractors forming a co-operative and employing an accountant. The co-op is purely for the accountant, everything else is kept separate from it. Not sure about the US but in the UK accountants are trained, qualified, registered professionals. The tax and legal systems are complex so it's usually a good spend of the money. You either save money by knowing what is tax deductible (for example) or you avoi…
> It allows you to concentrate on the fun other bits of the business. So wait up, what you're saying is that correcting reverse entry errors is dull and boring.
Some may say that. I couldn't comment.
While I'm here I used to work for an electronic engineering sub-contractors.
They had an excellent paperwork system to run production, with Sage Line 50 (when it was Sage Sovereign) doing accounts and payroll. It was great. Everyone knew exactly what was happening with any component - it was in a kit; it was in stock; it was in goods-in; it was on order; or none of those. We could tell when it had been ordered and what for and when it was due in and etc etc. then we "upgraded" to Sage Line 100 and rolled it out to include the whole company - stores, production, ordering, goods in, etc etc. it sucked. We lost all that tracability we had.