Accounting for Sole Proprietors: Tax & Bookkeeping Tips

A sole proprietor can basically treat their entire business account as their own—they have total freedom to move funds however they see fit, whether that means settling personal bills through online banking or just hitting up an ATM for some quick cash.
Of course, that assumes they’ve actually stayed on the right side of the IRS—meaning all those taxes and payroll obligations are fully squared away.
And I'm curious, why bring up Finn into this? Don't you already have online banking set up with your local bank?

Paul Carter40 said:I've got a few questions about running my own small business—stone masonry, specifically;

Am I allowed to pay bills out of my business checking account if they're actually under my personal name rather than the business itself? (Think utilities, phone, electricity, etc.)
And, would I even be able to write those off as business expenses? —I mean, I'm guessing probably not, right?
It just seems way easier and cheaper than withdrawing cash just to pay them manually...

Also, can I just do everything through online banking from now on? I’d love to stop going down to the local branch to pick up paper statements or handle payments in person. If I just work things out with my bank to get one monthly statement emailed to me, would that be fine? Basically, I want to cut ties with the local branch services so I can dodge all those extra fees—processing, paper, statements—that just keep piling up. Is it okay to operate like that and skip their services entirely? And if I start doing this, will they just stop charging me for the stuff they used to do, or will they keep sending printed statements anyway?

Thanks

At Bank of America, you can easily arrange to have your statements sent straight to your email, and that's also when you'd cancel your service with Fidelity if you had it set up that way previously. Honestly, the most practical move is to request statements on an as-needed basis rather than strictly once a month.
Regarding those personal expenses, silversailor pointed it out: you can pay them, but you shouldn't record them as business expenses since they aren't legitimate business costs.

Does anyone happen to have a template for a time sheet that actually complies with the new regulations from March 28, 2015?

placidlynx92 said:At Bank of America, you can easily arrange to have your statements sent straight to your email, and that's also when you'd cancel your service with Fidelity if you had it set up that way previously. Honestly, the most practical move is to request statements on an as-needed basis rather than strictly once a month.
Regarding those personal expenses, silversailor pointed it out: you can pay them, but you shouldn't record them as business expenses since they aren't legitimate business costs.

I swear, bank statements drive me absolutely insane. And what even is a "monthly statement" anyway? I’d rather save the trees, honestly. Is there an option at Chase to just skip the monthly thing?

You don't actually need to keep those paper statements on hand—and if you do have them lying around, I'd suggest just sending a quick request to Chase to stop the physical mailings altogether.
Everything is available through online banking in PDF format anyway, so you can just download whatever you need whenever it's convenient.

To be honest, back in the day, I wasn't even interested in setting up business online banking. 🤦 :mladost-ludost: 😬
But nowadays? It’s practically unthinkable to run a business without it. 😁
Now, I just bundle up all the monthly statements into a single zip file and shoot it over to my accountant. Makes life easy. 😁

thanks.

so, the forests are officially saved. from here on out, I’m strictly printing Promethean stuff—unless those people I'm terrified of come knocking, then I guess I'll just scrap everything and start over.

cosmictinker24 said:Does anyone happen to have a template for a time sheet that actually complies with the new regulations from March 28, 2015?

They added a few things—stuff like field work hours, time taken for maternity or parental leave, and any gaps in the daily schedule requested by the employee.

Paul Carter40 said:They added a few things—stuff like field work hours, time taken for maternity or parental leave, and any gaps in the daily schedule requested by the employee.

But I’m really stuck on point 9—absences from the workplace:
- Does this include time taken for breaks (daily, weekly, or vacation)???? Are we seriously supposed to log a 30-minute lunch break under daily leave? And I don't even get what they mean by weekly leave... up until now, I’ve only ever recorded annual vacation... I could really use some clarification here.

cosmictinker24 said:Does anyone happen to have a template for a time sheet that actually complies with the new regulations from March 28, 2015?

Paul Carter40 said:They added a few things—stuff like field work hours, time taken for maternity or parental leave, and any gaps in the daily schedule requested by the employee.

Since you all brought it up, I remember a time when someone at the RIF told me that I didn't actually need to keep every single column open in my records if there was zero activity to report for them. Essentially, they said if there wasn't any U.S. sick leave taken during a specific month, I could just leave that column closed entirely. They even suggested I could add a custom column if something unique popped up—like night shift overtime, for instance. Is that still the case? Can I just omit columns where nothing happened, and am I allowed to create new ones for things that aren't explicitly laid out in the regulations but are necessary for my tracking?

cosmictinker24 said:But I’m really stuck on point 9—absences from the workplace:
- Does this include time taken for breaks (daily, weekly, or vacation)???? Are we seriously supposed to log a 30-minute lunch break under daily leave? And I don't even get what they mean by weekly leave... up until now, I’ve only ever recorded annual vacation... I could really use some clarification here.

And what happens if the records aren't kept based on exact clock-in and clock-out times, but just by date? I see that's still perfectly legal, but what then? Am I supposed to open a brand new column just to jot down "0.5" every single day? I mean, isn't that just common sense by itself?!?

cosmictinker24 said:But I’m really stuck on point 9—absences from the workplace:
- Does this include time taken for breaks (daily, weekly, or vacation)???? Are we seriously supposed to log a 30-minute lunch break under daily leave? And I don't even get what they mean by weekly leave... up until now, I’ve only ever recorded annual vacation... I could really use some clarification here.

I’m in the exact same boat; this is all very unclear to me too. Previously, we just had an "Annual Leave" column—meaning I'd only record it during the specific month an employee actually took their vacation; otherwise, the column stayed empty. Now, are they removing the "Annual Leave" and "U.S. 42 days" columns to make room for one giant umbrella category called "Time Away From Work," which then branches out into all those sub-categories listed in point 9? Or am I only supposed to see the specific categories that happen to apply to us on the list?!

9) Time away from work:

– time spent on leave (daily, weekly, and annual), I have a bit of a logistical headache here. Since we run a towing service, we often get calls from HKA and have to head out immediately. How am I supposed to organize all that under these new rules? My employee's contract states that hours worked during emergency interventions count toward redistributed working hours. So, if I'm logging his time, would I write something like 12 hours in the "Daily Leave" column and then 2 hours (for a Saturday night intervention between 10 PM and midnight) in the "Night Shift" column because he gets a night premium? Then, on a slower day, if I send him home early or tell him to show up two hours late, would I log that as 6 hours of regular work and 2 hours of "Daily Leave"??!? 🤔

– non-working days and holidays established by special regulation,is this meant to replace the old "Holidays" column?

– time spent unable to work due to temporary incapacity,so does this cover both the 42 day categories now?

– time spent on maternity leave, parental leave, employment suspension, or other rights granted under special regulations,

– time spent on paid leave,

– time spent on unpaid leave,

– time spent away from work during the daily schedule at the employee's request,

– time spent away from work during the daily schedule where the employee fails to perform contracted duties through their own fault,

– time spent on strike,

– time spent during a lockout.
Does every single one of these bullet points require its own dedicated column?

Nicole Lee6 said:I’m in the exact same boat; this is all very unclear to me too. Previously, we just had an "Annual Leave" column—meaning I'd only record it during the specific month an employee actually took their vacation; otherwise, the column stayed empty. Now, are they removing the "Annual Leave" and "U.S. 42 days" columns to make room for one giant umbrella category called "Time Away From Work," which then branches out into all those sub-categories listed in point 9? Or am I only supposed to see the specific categories that happen to apply to us on the list?!

9) Time away from work:

– time spent on leave (daily, weekly, and annual), I have a bit of a logistical headache here. Since we run a towing service, we often get calls from HKA and have to head out immediately. How am I supposed to organize all that under these new rules? My employee's contract states that hours worked during emergency interventions count toward redistributed working hours. So, if I'm logging his time, would I write something like 12 hours in the "Daily Leave" column and then 2 hours (for a Saturday night intervention between 10 PM and midnight) in the "Night Shift" column because he gets a night premium? Then, on a slower day, if I send him home early or tell him to show up two hours late, would I log that as 6 hours of regular work and 2 hours of "Daily Leave"??!? 🤔

– non-working days and holidays established by special regulation,is this meant to replace the old "Holidays" column?

– time spent unable to work due to temporary incapacity,so does this cover both the 42 day categories now?

– time spent on maternity leave, parental leave, employment suspension, or other rights granted under special regulations,

– time spent on paid leave,

– time spent on unpaid leave,

– time spent away from work during the daily schedule at the employee's request,

– time spent away from work during the daily schedule where the employee fails to perform contracted duties through their own fault,

– time spent on strike,

– time spent during a lockout.
Does every single one of these bullet points require its own dedicated column?

It's just pure nonsense—grouping daily, weekly, and annual leave all under one heading. What is that even supposed to achieve??
I honestly have no idea how I'm going to pull this off... if anyone has any suggestions, please, I'm begging!
Personally, I just log whichever columns are relevant for that specific month (it's simpler that way)... I work five days a week, eight hours a day, and that's it. No weekends for me...

cosmictinker24 said:It's just pure nonsense—grouping daily, weekly, and annual leave all under one heading. What is that even supposed to achieve??
I honestly have no idea how I'm going to pull this off... if anyone has any suggestions, please, I'm begging!
Personally, I just log whichever columns are relevant for that specific month (it's simpler that way)... I work five days a week, eight hours a day, and that's it. No weekends for me...

Now, I'm once again stuck on this "weekly rest" requirement. Does it have to be at least ? consecutive hours? For instance, if an emergency services driver pulls a shift Monday through Friday from 8 AM to 4 PM, then goes out on a call Saturday from 6 PM until 2 AM on Sunday, and they are required to have a continuous 24-hour weekly rest (meaning they shouldn't drive again until at least 2 AM Monday to satisfy that 24-hour block), how am I supposed to log that in a summary? Do I put down 56 hours total (8h from Friday + 18h from Saturday + 22h from Sunday + 8h from Monday), even though those weren't continuous? Or do I split it into 26h (Friday to Saturday) + 30h (Sunday to Monday)? Or is there some other way to handle this?🙂

Has anyone actually put together a new version of the timesheet—you know, the one that follows the updated regulations—in Excel yet?

cosmictinker24 said:But I’m really stuck on point 9—absences from the workplace:
- Does this include time taken for breaks (daily, weekly, or vacation)???? Are we seriously supposed to log a 30-minute lunch break under daily leave? And I don't even get what they mean by weekly leave... up until now, I’ve only ever recorded annual vacation... I could really use some clarification here.

You only track unaccounted time if the employee isn't actually on the premises during their scheduled rest period. So, if they use that 30-minute break to run down to the Department of Justice to pick up an ID or something similar...
If the worker stays on-site during their break because they're just hanging out in the breakroom eating a sandwich, you don't write anything down. 😉

I got lucky—my tracking is all automated through software. Employees clock in on a device, and the program handles the heavy lifting.
I only manually enter things like paid leave, field work, unexcused absences, or partial sick leave.

The absolute bottom line is that your time logs (the number and type of hours worked) MUST match exactly what shows up on the pay stubs.
If your records show an employee worked the night shift for a week, then that exact same detail has to be right there on the paycheck. That’s the first thing the inspectors look for (I was sitting right next to them when they were auditing, so believe me, I know firsthand).

At a JPMorgan Chase seminar yesterday, they mentioned the regulations are being overhauled. Honestly, they’ve made a mess of them... 🤣

I’m really not a fan of this move toward daily updates for time logs—we used to have an eight-day window.
As if we aren't already under enough pressure... (I missed a filing deadline once; I paid the fine, but the paperwork was late... now I'm just waiting for the FBI to come knocking).

And then there's this requirement for daily, weekly, and vacation tracking... how are you even supposed to manage that properly? Listening to the lecturer yesterday, I wasn't even sure he knew what he was talking about. He actually claimed that if someone works 8 hours, you log 16 hours of rest... I wouldn't call that particularly logical math 😁, but hey... then again... the guy gets paid to give the seminar, and tomorrow he'll publish a new one, charge us all over again, and tell a completely different story... quite brazen, really.
The whole structure of these working hours is just pure chaos...

And things are going to get even more chaotic once we actually sit down to dig into the new payroll statement requirements (that other set of regulations). Right now, it seems like there's time until July 1st... however... it’s going to be ugly if someone doesn't convince the folks at the Department of Labor to stop messing with things before it's too late. They should leave things alone instead of making them worse than they already are. Instead of improving anything, they're introducing absolute nonsense that's going to hit us right in the head and the wallet (though maybe that's the point).
People, please, read through the regulations and check out what these payroll statements are supposed to look like while there's still time, before everything goes south...

ruggedmaker2 said:You only track unaccounted time if the employee isn't actually on the premises during their scheduled rest period. So, if they use that 30-minute break to run down to the Department of Justice to pick up an ID or something similar...
If the worker stays on-site during their break because they're just hanging out in the breakroom eating a sandwich, you don't write anything down. 😉

I got lucky—my tracking is all automated through software. Employees clock in on a device, and the program handles the heavy lifting.
I only manually enter things like paid leave, field work, unexcused absences, or partial sick leave.

The absolute bottom line is that your time logs (the number and type of hours worked) MUST match exactly what shows up on the pay stubs.
If your records show an employee worked the night shift for a week, then that exact same detail has to be right there on the paycheck. That’s the first thing the inspectors look for (I was sitting right next to them when they were auditing, so believe me, I know firsthand).

ruggedmaker2, I'm curious how you plan to "squeeze" what you just wrote into the new layout for the pay stubs (especially that bolded part) 😍

Richard Howard55 said:ruggedmaker2, I'm curious how you plan to "squeeze" what you just wrote into the new layout for the pay stubs (especially that bolded part) 😍

Look, I used to have it set up just fine. We handle all sorts of shift differentials—second shift, third shift, overtime—and everything shows up clearly on our payroll sheets.
For instance: 1st shift: 40 hours x rate = y
3rd shift: 80 hours x increased rate = y
vacation time: 16 hours x rate = y
short-term disability: 24 hours x rate = y
Then we just total it all up at the bottom, and it matches our timekeeping logs perfectly.

Honestly, I figure the software developer will just tweak whatever else needs tweaking. It's not my headache to deal with.

Your programmer better watch his step if he actually manages to "crawl" his way out of this mess! 👏
The point is this: forget everything you know about those payout lists!

I mean, I’m choosing to believe they’ll actually pull it off. Hopefully they aren't just winging it. 😁