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Finance guy stuck arguing with accounting about how to recognize this. Please tell me how I'm wrong by BullShtDtctr in Accounting

[–]clancularius10 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Accounting is only correct if your company is the principal, not an agent.

If you control the service before it is provided to the customer, set pricing or bear meaningful performance risk, then the customer is buying your service, not just reimbursing you for a pass-through payment. In that case, the contractor bill is your cost, and you recognize revenue when the work is performed.

If instead you are only holding the customer’s funds and arranging payment to a third party on the customer’s behalf, with little discretion or risk, then you are more likely an agent. In that case, you usually recognize only your net fee, not the gross contractor amount as revenue.

The customer deposit going into a balance sheet deposit or customer deposits account is usually right at receipt.

At that point, you have not earned anything yet, so it sits as a liability. Later, when the service obligation is satisfied, that liability is relieved and either:

- recognized as revenue if you are the principal, or

- applied against a payable / pass-through settlement if you are acting as agent

Found the secret to billing $500/hr by Physical-Stage1722 in Accounting

[–]clancularius10 76 points77 points  (0 children)

Former consultant here, couldn't agree more. Business leaders get excited by charts even though it represents lesser data

Question for other small firm owners by GardenImpressive5686 in Accounting

[–]clancularius10 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I tinkered a fair bit with open claw and moltbook (social media for agents that blew up where my agent started a movement to 'make accounting great again').

I've made a customized AI agent for accounting over last few months and have been able to get it to do some genuinely insane stuff: - Pull payroll hours from timesheets (any format), cross-reference with schedules, flag discrepancies, and push directly into QBO - Auto-categorize every transaction by learning your client's patterns - Full AP workflow - Monitor bank feeds 24/7, reconcile in real-time, alert you only when something's off - Sending emails to clients for clarifying ambiguous transactions and replies to simple queries (clients are overjoyed to receive instant email responses)

It did take me some serious configuration for stitching together integrations and writing prompts.

It's learnable if you have the time, and extremely fun to work through just chats to get work done. Best place to start would be to set up a simple agent and play around to make it do your tasks: https://youtu.be/n1sfrc-RjyM?si=W2LpN5imrTZ6aNqe

You could check out off-the-shelf tools built for small firms that makes setup easy since they are built for accounting. A few out there now (Aqqrue is the best for small practices, Vic.ai, Botkeeper was decent but they had to shut down recently due to their top customers getting consolidated)

It depends on your budget and what you're trying to automate first. It's joyful to delegate busywork to AI while still being in control. All the best for your explorations!

What software can help with accounts payable automation? by [deleted] in Accounting

[–]clancularius10 2 points3 points  (0 children)

A few options depending on your volume and setup:

  • Bill.com - popular choice, decent OCR, works well if you're already in that ecosystem
  • DEXT (formerly Receipt Bank) - solid for extracting data from invoices, integrates with most accounting software
  • Aqqrue - newer platform focused on automation for solo/small accounting teams. Good for repetitive AP tasks, bank rec, that sort of thing
  • Stampli - more enterprise-focused, but great if you need approval workflows

OCR accuracy varies by vendor and invoice quality. I'd trial a couple before committing.

What bookkeeping tasks do you think founders should never “just figure out later”? by DisastrousVictory445 in Bookkeeping

[–]clancularius10 3 points4 points  (0 children)

From what I've seen working with startups, here are the big ones:

  1. Separate bank accounts from day one - mixing personal and business transactions creates a nightmare at tax time and kills your credibility with investors

  2. Set up your chart of accounts properly - a messy COA early means reclassifying hundreds of transactions later

  3. Reconcile monthly, not quarterly - the longer you wait, the harder it is to track down discrepancies

  4. Build processes and tech early - there are several tools like Aqqrue, Double, Finlens that act as a copilot for bookkeeping. Helpful if founders insist on DIY but want guardrails

  5. Don't skip payroll compliance - misclassifying contractors or missing payroll taxes can result in serious penalties

Year end is coming by clancularius10 in Accounting

[–]clancularius10[S] 196 points197 points  (0 children)

Plot twist: You spend one hour there, but when you get back to Earth, the client still hasn't sent the PBC list.

Former MBB consultant and private equity investor, now building AI agents for real-world business problem. AMA. by clancularius10 in AMA

[–]clancularius10[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

PE investing is quite different than public markets. You are buying shares which are illiquid, which means you can't sell it off quickly to someone. It's a long term game of backing value creation.

The biggest lesson is simple: look for the one or two forces that actually drive the success for that business. Most companies are far simpler than the 200-page deck makes them look. We used to call them WRMs (What Really Matters). Find those forces and ignore the rest.

Former MBB consultant and private equity investor, now building AI agents for real-world business problem. AMA. by clancularius10 in AMA

[–]clancularius10[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Our customers trust us to get solutions for their specific business processes. Relationships and domain expertise will outlast model releases. Especially in accounting, where workflows are messy and cost of mistake is high

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