Accounting & Tax 101 For Founders

Yes, Puzzle provides a few options to match your needs:

‍

1. Self-service setup - You can set up your accounting and finances on your own through our software. Puzzle automatically connects to your business systems to pull in data. The setup takes just minutes, after which you can access real-time financial reporting.  There is a guided solution to do most of the work yourself to keep costs low until tax time.
2. Get help when you need it - Get set up yourself, and if you need to, you can hire a bookkeeper, tax preparer, or finance expert through our network to assist you. We help match you to the right expert based on your budget and needs.

‍

Get multiple, real-time views of your business.  Cash, accrual accounting, metrics like burn, runway, ARR, MRR, spend analysis by new vs recurring and top vendors, revenue analysis by product, customer and accounting views, variance analysis and much, much more.

Puzzle provides accurate real-time data and has a robust network of experienced tax experts.

If you are a Delaware C-Corp, the most important tax deadlines are:

• Jan 31: 1099s
• March 1: Delaware Franchise Tax
• April 15: Federal and State Tax Filings

Feel confident as you go into fundraising by knowing your numbers and understanding the key drivers of your business. We give you real-time access to the financial statements and metrics needed for due diligence, with a network of on-demand experts available anytime.

Other systems provide raw transaction data but do not generate financial statements needed for tax compliance, reporting, and decision-making. Puzzle ingests data from these systems into our general ledger to create those reports needed for taxes, compliance, and fundraising.

Switching to Puzzle is easy.

‍

It only takes 3 minutes to onboard. We'll take the reins once you connect your QuickBooks account or upload your general ledger and provide a switchover date. Our team will upload historical journal entries and refine the Chart of Accounts (CoA) to accommodate your customization financials. If you’d like to schedule a call, we’re always ready to answer any questions about Puzzle or the transfer process. Otherwise, it’s a hands-off process; we’ll handle the details.

‍

After revising your books in Puzzle, you can cancel your old subscription and enjoy real-time financial data, the Puzzle business metrics dashboard, and automated accounting processes.

‍

Read here to learn how easy it is to switch from QuickBooks to Puzzle.

‍

Or schedule time with us at support@puzzle.io. We’ll help you set up your account, and if you have historical financials to transfer, we’ll take care of the migration after the 30-minute phone call.

‍

We help founders all the time. Start with this guide to learn more about accounting and tax 101 for founders. You can also use the Founder’s Resource Hub for tips on what to do as you start your business.

No! Founders still need (and value!) experts like you for advice and assurance. Puzzle automates many rote, tedious tasks so you can focus on high-value work. While the system generates draft financials, it lets you focus on exceptions, errors, and an amazing month end review with your clients focused on insights and analysis to improve their business.

Puzzle built a smart general ledger and real-time data platform in a single solution.  Some new capabilities are:

‍

• We automating repetitive tasks such as categorization, reconciliations, auto-detection of potential issues.
• Accrual automation across accounts payable, accounts receivable, fixes assets, prepaids
• Revenue recongnition and ARR/MRR calculations
• Collaboration - tag founders on transactions and get automatically subscribed to their responses
• Smart monthly checklist, helping you focus your time on highest value work
• Financials and reconciliations drafted for you, with an indicator when they are in draft or final state or out of balance.
• Maintained integrations means less time reconnected or copying and pasting data
• Learning categorization - the more your categorize, the better the system learns.

‍

Yes, through a read-only login Puzzle will import your clients historical financial statements, and trial balance from QuickBooks so you don't start from scratch. We can also help map accounts to a new chart of accounts if needed.  This will allow you to retain your historical financial records in Quickbooks format and have comparative financials in Puzzle while cancelling your Quickbooks account (they retain your financials)

‍

note: Currently while the setup and integration just takes minutes, we do the work for you behind the scenes which takes a few hours.  We will share the results with you in a few days, depending on volume of requests. We plan to build a self-serve user experience so you can do this yourself in 2024.

‍

Beyond accounting, Puzzle provides variance analysis, metrics on cash runway and burn rate, breakdowns of expenses by type and vendor, and reporting by customer and product line for SaaS companies. This empowers you to provide more strategic advice.

While every case is different, we see two key outcomes from moving from Quickbooks to Puzzle with your clients:

• You can manage more clients at a higher margin, even if you reduce your fees
• Deliver a better client experience with faster more accurate books, plus key insights.

By having both automation and insights in a single solution, you to focus on more advisory work rather than data entry, delivering a better client experience at a lower cost, higher margin, with more satisfying work.

‍