Bookkeeping for City of San Diego businesses

Who we keep books for in San Diego

The City of San Diego covers a lot of ground, and its small businesses look different in each part of it. Consultants and agencies work from spare bedrooms in Clairemont and Mira Mesa. Restaurants, salons and boutiques line the main streets of North Park, Hillcrest and Ocean Beach. Contractors and trades run crews out of yards in Kearny Mesa and Miramar. Clinics and therapy practices rent suites near the hospitals in Hillcrest and La Jolla.

What these owners share is a lack of time. The bank feed fills up, receipts pile up in email, and the books fall behind until the CPA sends a request list in February.

What San Diego books usually need

• Bank and card accounts reconciled to the statement every month
• Owner draws and personal charges pulled out of business expenses
• Payroll from Gusto, ADP or Paychex booked by wages, taxes and benefits
• Rental income and costs tracked by property, for owners who also rent out a unit
• 1099 vendors flagged during the year, not in January
• A clean profit and loss and balance sheet for the CPA

What San Diego owners ask us for

• Business Tax Certificate bookkeeping: The city sets most business tax amounts by average employee count. Our guide covers how payroll reports and the books back up the number you give the City Treasurer.
• Short-term rental bookkeeping: Hosts need a Transient Occupancy Tax certificate before the Short-Term Residential Occupancy license, and the Rental Unit Business Tax can apply too. A tracking category per property keeps every one of those taxes visible.
• Small business bookkeeping: Consultants in Clairemont and shops in North Park or Hillcrest often let receipts and bank feeds pile up until February. A steady monthly routine means the CPA's list is already answered.

The city Business Tax Certificate

The City of San Diego requires a Business Tax Certificate before you start doing business. The Office of the City Treasurer says this includes self-employed people, independent contractors and home-based businesses. Each branch or location in the city needs its own certificate.

The annual amount is based on the number of employees, not on sales. The city uses the average head count over twelve months. Owners do not count, but paid corporate officers do, and so does anyone who works ten or more hours a week. Your payroll records are the evidence for that number, so the books and the payroll reports should agree.

Fees and rules change. Check the Office of the City Treasurer for current amounts before you renew.

If you rent out a home or condo

The city also has a Rental Unit Business Tax. It applies to residential property that is rented or advertised for more than six days in a calendar year, and it is generally due March 1. Owners who rent out part of the home they live in can still owe it.

Short-term rental hosts have one more layer: a Short-Term Residential Occupancy license, which needs a Transient Occupancy Tax certificate first. When rental income runs through the same account as your business, these taxes are easy to miss. We give each property its own class or tracking category so the rental side stands on its own.

A typical San Diego cleanup

A marketing consultant runs an LLC from home and also rents out a condo in Pacific Beach. Rent lands in the business checking account. The HOA dues, the mortgage and a new water heater are paid from the same card as software and client lunches. The Rental Unit Business Tax was paid but booked as office expense.

The cleanup separates the two activities. Rent and condo costs move to their own tracking category. The mortgage is split into principal and interest using the lender's statements. City taxes go to the correct accounts. The CPA then gets a business profit and loss and a separate rental summary, which is what the tax return needs.

How working with us goes

1. A short call Tell a bookkeeper what you do, which software you use and how many months are open.
2. File review We look at your accounting file and bank statements and write down what is wrong.
3. Fix the past Open months are reconciled and miscoded entries are moved.
4. Close each month From then on, the books close monthly and you get a short report.

Other taxes the books should support

• California sales and use tax returns, if you sell taxable goods
• Payroll tax filings made by your payroll provider to the IRS and the EDD
• The California $800 annual minimum franchise tax for most LLCs and corporations
• Income tax returns your CPA prepares from the year-end books

Neighborhoods and nearby cities

We work with owners all over the city, including Downtown, Mission Valley, Point Loma, Rancho Bernardo and San Ysidro, and in the cities around it such as Chula Vista and La Mesa.

Bookkeeping services in San Diego

• Bookkeeping cleanupBooks that exist but cannot be trusted, corrected from a known good date forward.
• Catch-up bookkeepingMonths or years with nothing recorded, filled in from your statements and reconciled one month at a time.
• Emergency bookkeepingWhen a deadline is close and the books are not ready, the work starts with what the deadline needs.
• Monthly bookkeepingA bookkeeper closes your books every month, so the numbers are current when you need to make a call.
• QuickBooks cleanupA QuickBooks Online file that drifted away from the bank, brought back into balance one account at a time.
• QuickBooks bookkeepingYour QuickBooks Online file, kept current by a bookkeeper who knows where the software goes wrong.

Nearby in City of San Diego

• Downtown San Diego

Questions