Two Connected Businesses, One Bookkeeper’s Brain

When two businesses blur the lines.Our resident Bookkeeping Mensch, Paul Rosenblum,  isn’t just cleaning up books—he’s navigating tangled ones in real time. This episode spends time on a rare challenge: managing finances for two interconnected businesses, where rent flows between an auto shop and the real estate company that owns it, while also handling an LLC-to-corporation transition that’s still overlapping. Add in mismatched credit lines, reconciliation headaches, and a full year-end merge ahead, and it’s clear this isn’t your average summer catch-up. Paul also begins testing alternatives to QuickBooks and shares a clever IT workaround that extends the life of an old office computer. For a behind-the-scenes look at layered bookkeeping decisions and the calm, strategic thinking they require, listen to the full episode.

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Transcript

Episode 63

Hello again and welcome to another episode of me rambling about my summer bookkeeping projects. Summer is actually a busy time of the year for me, but it feels different, since the phone hardly rings, I get few interruptions, and I can actually de-stress, and just plain work.  I can stream in the background or listen to music in the office, and, unfortunately, the only thing that I’m missing is my own private swimming pool with a lounge chair.  I guess life isn’t perfect!  

But before I begin today, I’d like to devote one episode to just your questions.  So, submit your questions as a bookkeeper or questions as a business owner about things that either I’ve discussed in other episodes here or have not discussed.  Email me or leave fan mail with your first name and your question and we’ll tackle them on an upcoming episode.  Don’t be shy! Bookkeepermensch@gmail is the place to write me directlly.  I’m Paul Rosenblum.

In the last episode, I talked about an owner of an LLC who was doing their own bookkeeping who wanted to close the LLC and create a new corporation.  They did everything correctly, set up payroll in the new corporation with everything balancing out, applied for and got credit cards for the corporation and of course the tax ID number and all legal stuff) everything was seemingly ready to go.  

 However, the owner didn’t realize that even though the LLC and the corporation had the same owner, the owner’s personal credit rating did not translate to the new corporation.  So, the credit cards that belonged to the corporation had very low credit lines, since the corporation had no credit rating as of yet. The owner had no choice but to use the LLC credit cards for the corporation as well as the corporate credit cards.

  If I had known the time frame of when they would stop using the LLC credit cards beforehand, I might have combined all the credit cards into the new corporation’s books.  But this is very open ended.  It might continue even into next year, depending on how long it would take the bank to match the corporation’s credit lines to what the LLC’’s was.

  So, rather than doing bookkeeping for only the new company, I have been doing bookkeeping for two companies and at the end of this year, combining the sales and expenses of the LLC into the corporate books as per the tax preparers request.  They are caught up except for one credit card reconciliation that by the time you hear this, will be done.

 And the reason for that is QuickBooks online didn’t let me reconcile the credit card that has multi cards on one statement the correct way. I complained to a bookkeepers group about this, and about 5 people gave me work-arounds to get this done, although not one of them is the RIGHT way!  I am figuring out how I want to reconcile it so no one questions me on why it doesn’t show reconciled.  That’s another episode though!  

Another summer project that I have not talked about is a client of a tax preparer who I work with on other projects as well.  So, in this case, I don’t work directly for the client, I work for the tax preparer.   I was offered to put together the books for a second business which is an auto repair shop that the owner purchased.  I took it on immediately because I knew that the setup and the chart of accounts were going to be very similar to the first auto repair shop for the same owner that I have been doing the bookkeeping for several years, and the tax preparer wanted it done in QuickBooks desktop.  It took me about 4 hours to do 6 months since they were relatively short bank statements.

 Now, the second part of this project has to be done.  This is the same owner, and he also purchased the building that the auto repair shop pays rent to.  This company is also a single member LLC, but this one is going to be a bit more difficult to do the bookkeeping for. There is a mortgage that has to be broken down into principle, interest, and escrow, etc., and even though there are fewer transactions each month, each one has to be tracked properly as the rent will affect both companies. I have to see rent coming into the real estate company and rent going out of the auto body shop.  

I have a few other projects that I haven’t gotten to yet but will spend full days on them in August (it’s still July as I write this).  By the end of September, most of them will be done, except the large one that I am re-bookkeeping everything back from 2017. 

All of that and the monthly bookkeeping.  I am working efficiently these days because of very few interruptions, no pressure of deadlines (except my own internal ones), even with family stuff going on, and constantly thinking about growing old -- but I digress).  Work has always been therapy for me – it has always gotten my head out of the tough parts of life (at least temporarily).  Nice and organized numbers in a quiet environment in my office makes me calm and happy (most of the time).

I am also using the summer to really look at bookkeeping systems other than QuickBooks desktop and QuickBooks online.  There’s really a lot to choose from.  I am going to spend some time with several of them and get to know them as much as I can. And when I decide on one, I’ll offer to use it for an existing client or a new client.  There seems to be some hybrid software.  The software is installed on a computer, but you pay a monthly fee to be able to use it. I’ll report to you what I find.  And most of them are more affordable than QuickBooks Online, which is the most popular (but not the best) …  still.  

I also keep up with the technical aspects of upgrading computers, for an example, since I am a small business owner and I am my own IT department.  I recently read an article that had a link to a YouTube video explaining how to upgrade a windows 10 computer that doesn’t meet the Microsoft requirements and, in the article, I read that Microsoft changed their policy and it’s perfectly legal and safe to do.  So, I tried it on an older computer in my office, and it worked flawlessly.

 This one thing will extend the life of this one computer years. I am getting ready in August to shred many bankers’ boxes of paperwork to make room for the end of the year, which will be here quicker than I think. So, all the admin stuff (like putting together my own books), that I don’t have time to do 10 months a year (except for the accounts receivable and incoming payments of course) gets done during the summer months. I order supplies that we are running low on (I order ink cartridges 12 months a year), but things like paper clips, binder clips, sharpies, etc.) to last us for many months, even until the end of the tax season of next year. And of course, working on this podcast and continuing it through the summer although many other pods take the summer off. 

I find myself getting to the office after 9am and leaving by around 4.  Taking advantage of the summer. But even with the reduced hours, I am more focused and more productive than usual. I don’t especially love the month of July, since many clients are on vacation and don’t pay their monthly invoices until they get back, which could be at the end of the month.  But then August is when it gets made up for with the Accounts Receivable coming into my bank account in droves. 

So, it’s a laid-back summer, but focused on work at the same time. Catching up on some streaming series that have been on the list for months, enjoying the swimming pool and not rushing around all the time. I hope yours has been the same.  

Next episode, I will be speaking about some of the income tax differences for 2026 and even though we are still waiting for specifics with the 1099 situation, I’ll report on the latest there too.  

Enjoy your pre-labor day month ---   I’m Paul Rosenblum