Avoiding the Wrong Decision - Selecting an Accounting Method for Your Media Business - Cash VS Accrual Accounting

Posted by Jack Craven on Tue , Dec 29 , 2015

In the first year of a startup business, you, as a business owner, will need to make certain elections for tax purposes. These start up tax choices (elections) establish precedents for tax years to come. An important election you will make is selecting an accounting method for your business. The two methods commonly used are cash basis  accounting or accrual basis accounting. You may be reading this and thinking, “What do cash and accrual basis mean?” and “What difference does this make to me and my business?”

Making the wrong decisions could cause your business to become just another failure.


Simply put, as our whitepaper explains, under cash basis accounting, a business owner such as yourself recognizes revenue and expenses (and pay taxes) when you receive or pay cash. Under accrual basis, you recognize income and expenses (and pay taxes) when they are earned without regard to being paid. In the attached white-paper, we provide media company tax tips and advice.

Many accountants automatically suggest that all of their small business clients automatically adopt cash basis accounting. As we discuss on the whitepaper that follows, this should not automatically be the case for many media and entertainment companies. The remainder of this paper explains cash basis versus accrual basis accounting and how they impact your business.

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