Bookkeeping in Providence, Rhode Island

Who we work with here

• Multi-office brokerages. Providence brokerages often run offices in more than one city. Each needs its own readable profit and loss statement while commission disbursements, split tracking, and agent 1099s run through one process. See brokerage bookkeeping.
• Restaurants and bars. Federal Hill and downtown volume, tip reporting, third-party delivery deductions taken before the money ever lands, meals and beverage tax alongside sales tax.
• Professional firms. Law, architecture, and consulting practices in the Financial District and around Wayland Square, where the books have to survive partner draws and trust or client-funds accounts.
• Creative and studio businesses. Project-based revenue, contractors paid on 1099s, and grant or commission income that has to be tracked to its restriction.
• Property owners and managers. Multi-unit buildings where each property needs its own statement and security deposits are held separately from operating funds.

Multi-office brokerages, specifically

A brokerage with offices in Providence and elsewhere in the state hits three problems that a single-office brokerage never does:

• Office-level profitability is invisible unless commission income and agent splits are tagged by office from the start. Retrofitting a year of transactions to answer "is the second office actually making money?" is a project.
• Agents move between offices mid-year. Their position against cap has to follow them as one continuous record, or January produces two partial 1099s and an uncomfortable conversation.
• Disbursement has to stay on one calendar. Two offices running different check days is a scheduling problem that turns into a cash-timing problem.

Run remotely, which suits the city

Monthly bookkeeping for Providence clients runs in whatever system the business already has — QuickBooks Online for most, a brokerage back-office platform for others. That suits a city where a visit means finding parking downtown: bank feeds, document sharing, monthly reporting, and the questions that come up in between all work without one.

Rhode Island payroll

A Providence employer owes state unemployment tax and the Job Development Fund assessment, withholds Rhode Island income tax for the Division of Taxation, and deducts employee-funded TDI and TCI. Employees who live in Massachusetts or Connecticut and commute in — common here — raise withholding questions that depend on where the work is performed, not on where the office is. Details on the Rhode Island payroll page.