Home/Industries/Hardware Stores
From The Bolt Bin To The Balance Sheet
Hardware stores carry thousands of items, sell plenty of them by the foot or the pound, and run credit accounts for contractors. We keep the books as organized as your aisles should be.
Hardware Store Accounting In Michigan
A hardware store is thousands of small decisions on a shelf. Nails by the pound, rope by the foot, keys cut while the customer waits, paint mixed to order, and a back room full of snow shovels in April. Every one of those items has a cost, and the books have to keep up with all of them.
We work with hardware stores across Michigan and virtually nationwide. Hardware is one of the retail industries we know well, and it rewards cost accounting done properly: the kind that shows which departments carry the store and which ones just take up floor space.
Two Rushes And A Lot Of Snow
A Michigan hardware store gets two busy seasons: spring projects when the cottages open, and the scramble for salt, shovels and heat tape before the lake-effect snow arrives. Both are bought for months in advance. We plan cash and purchasing around them, so you know ahead of time whether the money will be there when the invoices come due.
The Money Problems Behind The Counter
Hardware books carry a few problems most retail never has to think about.
Keeping Every Department's Margin In View
How we run the books for a hardware store, month after month.
Books Built Around Your Departments
We set up QuickBooks Online so sales and cost of goods sold report by department: fasteners, plumbing, electrical, paint, lawn and garden, tools and seasonal. Monthly bookkeeping keeps it current, so department margin is on every statement.
Inventory Tied To Your Counts
Our retail and inventory accounting ties the books to your cycle counts every month, records rebates and patronage dividends against cost, and values leftover seasonal stock before it inflates the balance sheet.
House Accounts Kept Current
Contractor charges and payments are posted, statements go out on schedule, and you get an aging report showing who owes what and for how long, so you decide who stays on terms.
Sales Tax Reconciled To The Register
Contractors, resellers and tax-exempt buyers all come through the same checkout. Our Michigan sales tax filing checks that exemption certificates, usually Michigan Form 3372, are on file for exempt sales and reconciles each return to what you recorded.
Counts, Credit And Rebate Questions From Hardware Owners
Do we really need to count more than once a year?
You do not have to, but it helps. A full count once a year tells you what went wrong after the fact. Cycle counts, a few aisles at a time through the year, catch miskeyed costs, receiving errors and shrink while they are still small, and they make the year-end count faster.
How should co-op rebates and patronage dividends be recorded?
Generally as a reduction in what your goods cost, recorded when they are earned or received depending on how they are paid. Dividends paid partly in stock or certificates need careful tracking, because that portion can be taxable even though no cash arrived. We sort it out as part of the monthly review, not at tax time.
What happens when a contractor account goes unpaid?
The aging report makes it visible early, which is when collection is easiest. If an account truly cannot be collected, we write it off as a bad debt so your receivables stop overstating what you will collect. How that write-off affects your tax depends on your accounting method, and we explain it before the return is filed.
Other Stores Carrying Deep Inventory
Furniture retailers with customer deposits, freight and floor models in their place and margin reported by category.
Furniture stores in detail RetailIndependent retailers with inventory, sales tax and seasonal cash flow handled on a monthly close.
Retail in detail Retail & Inventory-Based BusinessesOur inventory accounting service: valuation, cost of goods sold and margin by product line.
Retail and inventory-based businesses in detail All Industries We ServeCannabis, food and beverage and retail, with the credentials and detail behind each specialty.
Return to IndustriesPut Every Department's Margin On Paper
Tell us how your store is laid out and how your contractors pay. We will sketch how your departments, house accounts and rebates would sit in the books.