Bookkeeping and tax returns for Georgetown businesses

Georgetown mixes an old square full of independent retail and restaurants with newer medical, professional and home-services businesses spread north along I-35. Retail and restaurants come to us about sales tax and inventory; the service businesses come about payroll and a return that is already late.

We take the books over, bring them up to date and keep them current. You keep your own QuickBooks Online or Xero subscription and see every entry we make.

• Monthly bookkeeping and reconciliation of every bank and card account
• Cleanup and catch-up when the books are behind
• Payroll, new hires, W-2s and contractor 1099s
• Texas franchise tax, sales tax and the federal return, prepared and filed

Who we are, what we do for a Georgetown business, and what the state asks of it.

A shop or restaurant on the square usually has a point-of-sale system that reports gross sales, a card processor that deposits the net, and sales tax sitting inside both. Left alone, the books show the deposit as revenue, the sales tax is never separated, and the return overstates income. We split the three apart every month so the sales tax return and the books agree.

Professional practices tend to be cleaner but later: the owner does the books until the workload wins, then a year has gone by. There we start with a cleanup and move to a monthly close so nothing runs a year behind again.

Texas has no personal or corporate income tax, so the filings that get missed are the state ones. Most entities file an annual franchise tax report with the Texas Comptroller, due May 15, even in a year with nothing to pay. Businesses selling taxable goods or services collect sales tax at the 6.25% state rate plus local rates of up to 2%. Employers file quarterly wage reports and unemployment tax with the Texas Workforce Commission.

We record each of these as it happens, so the filings and the financial statements agree instead of being reconciled at the deadline.

Two suppliers is the normal arrangement here, a bookkeeper through the year and a preparer at the deadline, and the second one re-checks the first one's work before signing.

Best for a Georgetown business that wants the books, the payroll and the return from one team: SF Business Solutions. Our team includes a licensed CPA. We are not a CPA firm, so if a lender asks for an audited statement rather than reports, that is available through our CPA partner firms.

Our Texas business address is in Pflugerville, a business address rather than a walk-in office. Our team is distributed across the US and internationally, working with businesses across the United States, and the work runs by video, phone and email.