I found a tax deduction I’ve been missing, and, as it’s not real obvious, I thought I would share. If everyone’s reaction is, “Duh! What an idiot!”, be nice, I’ve only been doing this for thirty years. Anyway, I was examining the credit card receipts for last month, and realized that the amounts on my daily report did not exactly match the amounts deposited to my bank account. Bottom line, what was happening was my new cc processer would deduct a certain percentage of the daily cc total, and deposit the smaller amount. (I don’t think my old cc processer worked this way). Each month, the cc processer would sent a recap of what happened that month, that looked something like this: Total owed cc processer for the month=$500 Amount deducted from daily deposits=$300. Total owed=$200. And that $200 would be automatically deducted from my bank account. I then realized that the “daily deductions” of $300 are not reported, or recorded ANYWHERE except on that monthly recap, and thusly are not listed as an expense, and tax deduction. Something everyone should look for!
I have never heard of a cc processer doing this. Anyway, you gotta keep track of every penny. When I send out a gift card as a door prize I consider that gift card a charitable expense. Make sure that all of your gift cards/gift certificate sales are not counted twice. Once when sold. Not when used.
When you send a gift card write it down as an Advertising expense not Charitable expense. Advertising is 100% deductible, Charitable expenses are only 50% deductible.
Your current processor has you on “daily discount”, which means they are taking the interchange percentage each day upon settlement and depositing the balance left. At the end of the month they reconcile the additional fees that are due to them. They aren’t doing you any favors by having you on daily discount. You should be able to keep 100% of your money until the end of the month, when the fees and interchange are due. A simple request to move from daily to monthly can be facilitated by a phone call to your processor.