How important is reconciling accounts for a small LLC (Quickbooks)?
I would suggest opening a new account (credit card and bank) for just your business. This protects you in multiple ways, but is no bigger burden for you other than carrying another card in your wallet.  Then QB can download the transactions from your website and reconciling is a cinch. If you got audited, you'd be in for a world of pain right now.  From personal experience there are a few charges that go unnoticed that reconciling finds every month at our business.  We have a very strict process in place, but some things slip through the cracks.
"Not knowing anything about your situation or what makes it so complex, I would have to agree with the other commenters.  If your accountant screws up your business goes under, but at least your personal finances are safe from that and you'll recover (unless all your wealth is tied up in your business).  If your virtual assistant uses your personal information to take all your money, ruin your credit, or any number of other things, you're going to spend a loooong time trying to get things ""back to normal"". If the few hours per month spent managing your finances is starting to add up, I might suggest looking into other ways to automate and manage them.  For instance, are all of your bills (or as many as you can) e-bills that can be issued electronically to your bank?  Have you set up online bill pay with your bank, so that you can automatically pay all the bills when they arrive?  Have you tried using any number of online services (Mint, Thrive, your bank's ""virtual wallet/portfolio"") to help with budget, expense tracking, etc.? Again, I don't know your exact situation, but hopefully some of these suggestions help.  Once I started automating my savings and a lot of my bill paying, it gave me a lot of peace of mind." If it is more convenient for you - sure, go ahead and create another account. Generally, when you give someone a check - the money is no longer yours. So according to the constructive receipt doctrine, you've paid, whether the check was cashed or not. The QB is reflecting the correct matter of things. It doesn't matter that you're cash-based, the money still laying on your account because you gave someone a check that hasn't been cashed - is not your money and shouldn't be reflected in your books as such. The cost will be around $300-$500 if you do it correctly it in Florida and can be over a $1,000 if you do it in New York (New York is more expensive due to a publication requirement that New York has for LLC’s).  The price ranges I’ve given include filing, state fees, getting a tax ID number (EIN), operating agreement, membership certificates, registered agent fees and publication fees if done in New York. Each state also have licensing boards and city fees that are applicable, so you would want to also make sure that you are keeping compliant there. Yearly paperwork to keep the LLC running won’t be so expensive, expect the state to charge a yearly fee and require some basic information to be submitted.  I had a quick look at Florida, and with someone filing it for you, expect around $200 to $250 a year, plus registered agent fees.  If you are late in Florida the penalty is $400 so you definitely would want a service that provides compliance calendar notifications to make sure you are on time with fees. In regards to bookkeeping and taxes, yearly tax filing will start at $250 to $500 for an LLC and move up from there depending on the services being offered and the amount of time of work.  I recently referred someone to an accountant that will charge $250 to file an almost zero tax return on an LLC.  I think $40 an hour is a little low for a bookkeeper but it all depends on where you are.  I know in some major cities bookkeepers expect $75 an hour or higher. So the expectation in Miami and Manhattan will probably be more expensive than Jacksonville and Albany. If you doing a little business don’t expect the cost to be too much on the bookkeeping. So, breakdown: $300-$500 (FL) - $1,000 (NY) Registration of LLC + any business license, city or other registrations $250 Yearly Fee + Yearly Registered Agent + any business licenses, city or other fee $500 Tax Return + Bookkeeping Fee Banks will charge more than a personal account so expect $120 a year plus. In regards to service I would look at companies that specialize in foreigners setting up  businesses in the US, because they will have services designed to help you more than services that primarily specialize with US clients. You are going to have some different needs, based on not having a Social Security Number or establishing from overseas. I don't think there is a legal requirement that you need a separate bank account. Just remember that you can only take money from your LLC as salary (paying tax), as dividend (paying tax), or as a loan (which you need to repay, including and especially if the LLC goes bankrupt). So make very sure that your books are in order. I think you're making a mistake. If you still want to make this mistake (I'll explain later why I think its a mistake), the resources for you are: IRS.GOV - The IRS official web site, that has all the up-to-date forms and instructions for them, guiding publications and the relevant rules. You might get a bit overwhelmed through. Software programs - TurboTax (Home & Business for a sole propriator or single member LLC, Business for more complicated business), or H&R Block Business (only one version that should cover all) are for your guidance. They provide tips and interactive guidance in filling in all the raw data, and produce all the forms filled for you according to the raw data you entered. I personally prefer TurboTax, I think its interface is nicer and the workflow is more intuitive, but that's my personal preference. I wrote about it in my blog last year. Both also include plug-ins for the state taxes (If I remember correctly, for both the first state is included in the price, if you need more than 1 state - there's extra $30-$40 per state). Your state tax authority web site (Minnesota Department of Revenue in your case). Both Intuit and H&R Block have on-line forums where people answer each others questions while using the software to prepare the taxes, you might find useful information there. As always, Google is your friend. Now, why I think this is a mistake. Mistakes that you make - will be your responsibility. If you use the software - they'll cover the calculation mistakes. But if you write income in a wrong specification or take a wrong deduction that you shouldn't have taken - it will be on your head and you're the one to pay the fines and penalties for that. Missed deductions and credits - CPA's (should) know about all the latest deductions and credits that you or your business might be entitled to. They also (should) know which one got canceled and you shouldn't be continuing taking them if you had before. Expenses - there are plenty of rules of what can be written off as an expense and how. Some things should be written off this year, others over several years, for some depreciation formula should be used, etc etc. Tax programs might help you with that, but again - mistakes are your responsibility. Especially for the first time and for the newly formed business, I think you should use a (good!) CPA. The CPA should take responsibility over your filing. The CPA should provide guarantee that based on the documents you provided, he filled all the necessary forms correctly, and will absorb all the fees and penalties if there's an audit and mistakes were found not because you withheld information from your CPA, but because the CPA made a mistake. That costs money, and that's why the CPA's are more expensive than using a program or preparing yourself. But, the risk is much higher, especially for a new business. And after all - its a business expense. This answer assumes you're asking about how to handle this issue in the USA. I generally downvote questions that ask about a tax/legal issue and don't bother providing the jurisdiction. In my opinion it is extremely rude. Seeing that you applied for an LLC, I think that you somehow consider it as a relevant piece of information. You also attribute some importance to the EIN which has nothing to do with your question. I'm going to filter out that noise. As an individual/sole-proprietor (whether under LLC or not), you cannot use fiscal years, only calendar years. It doesn't matter if you decide to have your LLC taxed as S-Corp as well, still calendar year. Only C-Corp can have a fiscal year, and you probably don't want to become a C-Corp. So the year ends on December 31, and whether accrual or cash - you can only deduct expenses you incurred until then. Also, you must declare the income you got until then, which in your case will be the full amount of funding - again regardless of whether you decided to be cash-based or accrual based. So the main thing you need to do is to talk to a licensed tax adviser (EA/CPA licensed in your state) and learn about the tax law relevant to your business and its implications on your actions. There may be some ways to make it work better, and there are some ways in which you can screw yourself up completely in your scenario, so do get a professional advice. I am not a lawyer.  I do however own an LLC. It's setup as a partnership with 50/50 ownership.  You can do it as a sole proprietorship.    In basic terms, if you separate your money and assets from the money and assets of the company then you are personally immune from lawsuit and thus your personal assets are safe.  You have to set it up right (fairly cheap) and keep the records right (ie never mix personal and company assets ) but it provides a nice legal buffer and in some cases tax benefits.    Do not construe this as legal or accountanting advice.  Speak with pros to understand and get it set up right.  But it's worth it. You should be careful about mingling your personal money and that of the business, even if it is a sole prop right now.  It is a good habit to keep separate business and personal bank/credit accounts just so that when you change to an LLC, it is simpler for you to separate what belongs to the company and what is yours personally.  What you're doing makes it more difficult (although only marginally so) to itemize business deductions that were paid with an ostensibly personal credit account.  The better habit to get into now is keeping that distinct separation between personal and business. That being said, there's nothing illegal in what you're doing, but it would make an accountant cringe, that's for sure. (chuckle) Hope this helps. Good luck! For purposes of the EIN the address is largely inconsequential. The IRS cannot (read: won't) recover the EIN if you fail to write it down after the website generates it for you. On your actual tax form the address is more consequential, and this is more so a question of consistency than anything. But an entity can purchase property anywhere and have a different address subsequent years. Paying the actual taxes means more than the semantical inconsistencies. The whole purpose of separate accounts is to make an audit easier, so even if someone imagines that some action (such as address ambiguity) automatically triggers an audit, all your earnings/purchases are not intermingled with personal stuff, which just streamlines the audit process. Consequences (or lack thereof) aside, physical means where physical property is. So if you have an actual mailing address in your state, you should go with that. Obviously, this depends on what arrangement you have with your registered agent, if all addresses are in Wyoming then use the Wyoming address and let the Registered Agent forward all your mail to you. Don't forget your $50 annual report in Wyoming ;) How did you open a business paypal without an EIN? Business bank accounts? Hm... this is for liability purposes... I am assuming this is USA. While it is a bit of a pain, you are best off to have separate accounts for your business and personal.  This way, if it comes to audit, you hand the IRS statements for your business account(s) and they match your return.   As a further precaution I would have the card(s) you use for business expenses look different then the ones you use for personal so you don't mess another one up. "You manage this account just as any other account. ""Petty cash"" refers to accounts where the cash money is intended for ad-hoc purchases, where you store an amount of cash in your drawer and take it out as needed. However, other than naming it ""petty cash"", there's nothing petty about it - it's an account just as any other. Many choose to just ""deduct"" the amount transferred to ""Petty Cash"" account and not manage it at all. Here the amount matters - some smaller amounts can fall under ""de minimis"" rules of the appropriate regulatory authority. Since you told nothing about where you are and what your business is - we can't tell you what the rules are in your case. If you track the usage of this account (and from your description it sounds like you are) - then the name ""Petty Cash"" is meaningless. It's an account just like any other. Since you have an employee dealing with this cash you should establish some internal audit procedures to ensure that there's no embezzlement and everything is accounted for. You will probably want to reconcile this account more often than others and check more thoroughly on what's going on with it. Since its a ""personal finance"" forum, I'm assuming you're a sole proprietor or a very small business, and SEC/SOX rules don't apply to you. If they do - you should have a licensed accountant (CPA or whatever public accountancy designation is regulated in your area) to help you with this." Get another LLC.  Not that hard and well worth it.  I have one business endeavor but have 3 different LLC's to handle the three different aspects of it.  That way, should something go wrong with one of the three (and it has in the past), I can kill it without hurting the entire operation.  Then start another LLC to take over the aspect of the operation that was killed. "To take a different tack from qdot - it is advice. Maybe good, maybe bad. In the early 1990s I did exactly what you are intending to do and was stunned at the expenses involved in maintaining the company - primarily the accounting costs. This would have all been different if I'd been making a lot more money out of the situation, but the work was on the side, a few hours a week here and there, and I closed the ""business"" after just one year. Probably broke even on the deal, but certainly did not come out in front. I'd also strongly recommend you take a look at issues like basic book keeping, claiming VAT, setting up corporate bank accounts, and the like. Whether it is ""not a lot of work"" is purely a personal thing - some folks breeze through it all, some hate it. Time Is Money. My 0.02." Book keeping as a sole proprietor will seem like a headache.  Basically you have to have two accounts for everything and track specifics for any company assets that are mixed use (such as mileages).  No real downsides aside from that.   We just bought a start up kit and then modified it an then did a lot of research on proper registrations.  I found out later you can have a legal expert do it for like 250-300.  If we had known that it would have been worth it.  The state and fed registration is a boring headache. Your time is better spent earning. Is it normal in QuickBooks to have credit card expenses being shows as   liabilities? Is there a way I can correct this? If they are expenses they shouldn't be negative liabilities unless you overpaid your credit card by that amount. It sounds like perhaps when you linked the account the credit/debit mapping may have been mixed up. I've not used QB Online, but it looks like you might have to un-link the account, move all the existing transactions to 'excluded' and then link the account again and flip-flop the debit/credit mapping from what it is now. Hopefully there's an easier way. This QB community thread seems to address the same issue.