A chart of accounts designed around the tax you actually pay
Generic small-business chart templates fail here immediately. They mix inventoriable production cost with disallowed selling expense, bury excise collections inside revenue, and leave no way to prove which dollars belong in COGS.
We rebuild the chart so cost behavior is visible at the point of entry: direct materials, direct labor, allocable indirect production cost, period selling expense, and general administrative cost each have their own home. Departments and classes track by license, by facility and by location, so a group operating in both Columbia and Lee's Summit can see either one alone.
- Inventoriable versus period cost separated at entry, not at year end
- Class or location tracking per licensed facility
- State and local cannabis tax collections held as liabilities, never revenue
- Owner activity, related-party rent and intercompany flows isolated
The monthly close routine
A cannabis close is longer than a normal one because inventory is the centerpiece. Each month we reconcile Metrc quantities to the perpetual inventory record, reconcile point-of-sale or wholesale invoicing to deposits, roll production cost into finished goods, and true up the tax liability accounts.
The close finishes with a variance review rather than a filing. If flower cost per gram moved four points at a cultivation site outside Jefferson City, the operator hears about it in the first week of the following month, while something can still be done.
Cash discipline in a cash-heavy market
Banking access has improved for Missouri licensees but currency volume remains high, especially in retail. Bookkeeping has to be paired with real controls: dual-control counts, sealed deposit logs, shift-level over and short reporting, and a vault reconciliation that ties to the ledger daily rather than monthly.
Those controls are as much an examination defense as an internal one. Reconstructing cash history under audit costs several times what maintaining it does.
What you receive each month
Every engagement produces the same deliverable set on a predictable calendar, so operators, lenders and investors are never waiting on a surprise.
- Balance sheet, income statement and cash flow statement
- Inventory roll-forward with valuation support
- Metrc-to-ledger variance summary with explanations
- Tax liability schedule covering state, local and federal obligations
- Margin reporting by category, license type and location
Frequently asked questions
Can you take over books that are already behind?
Yes. Catch-up and cleanup work is a normal starting point. We rebuild the chart of accounts, reconstruct inventory to a defensible basis, and bring the ledger current before recurring monthly service begins.
Which accounting platforms do you work in?
We work primarily in QuickBooks Online and mid-market alternatives, integrated with your Missouri point-of-sale or seed-to-sale reporting. We keep the stack the operator already runs whenever it can support inventory costing.
How does bookkeeping affect my 280E outcome?
Directly. Every dollar of inventoriable cost that was miscoded as an operating expense during the year is a dollar of gross profit that gets taxed federally with no deduction to offset it.
