Seperating Business Accounting for divisions

Ask your accountant.

you dont "need" to, but i would think you would want to...you may (in the future) want to know what each line of business was "doing"..ie: revenue and/or expenses...

On 8 Aug 2005 17:45:02 -0700, in alt.accounting "yayoubetcha" wrote in :

Only if you want to understand whether the two divisions are both worth your effort. Some publicly traded companies are required to break out their businesses if they multiple lines of business, but privately owned businesses are not. Depending on the state, it might be a big advantage for you to split them if you have to collect sales tax for the travel tours, but don't for the services.

Ken,

If you are keeping both businesses under the same LLC, then all you need to do is "departmentalize" your chart of accounts. Each department will generate its own income statement. If you use the right accounting software, it will also generate a "consolidated" income statement, showing the combination of both businesses. Because cash and other assets will probably be mingled, that should handle it. If you don't know how to departmentalize your chart of accounts, it is available in the Preferred Edition of A-Systems Visual Bookkeeper at

for an affordable price. Now, here are the questions. Do you think it's appropriate to have both companies share the liability of the other company? If you recognize the wisdom of having an LLC to limit your personal liability, why not limit the liability of each company to its own operation? That means having two LLCs. It I were doing it, that's what I'd do. Then, you can use Visual Bookkeeper to run both companies, separately.

Just my thoughts,

Arnold

yayoubetcha wrote:

You may want to check in misc.taxes.moderated (if you are in the US). You may need separate schedule C's if that's the way you file.