MLmunich

I'm getting a little confused with the overlap between the paypal and bank accounts...   Is the date that counts for his bookkeeping the date that a payment lands in his paypal account or the date it lands in his bank account? Because sometimes there is quite a lag between.   And sometimes things are very complicated, like when an owed payment goes to an inkasso and then Ratenzahlungen are made, I get confused calculating what percentage of that was VAT, which is why I said it would be so much easier to just go by the dates of the invoices versus the date money hits the accounts.    

Do you know if Quickbooks is as good as Lexware? Can it also be exported to DATEV?   I'm having a hard time figuring Lexware out and something in my language might help a little.   Thanks.

So I'm finally trying to read and understand everything I can about bookkeeping... I'm starting with the difference between accrual accounting and cash accounting. I think I understand that accrual accounting is when you use the dates of invoices (date of sale, date of purchase), and not the date when you actually submit or receive payment, and cash accounting is the opposite?    What is the rule about when I am supposed to use which one?   Is it when your profit is under 60,000 that you are supposed to use cash accounting, and above that you are supposed to use accrual accounting? And does the same apply to VAT announcements? Or do you always have to use cash accounting when doing VAT?   The reason why I ask is because it would be so much easier to just do things based on invoice dates instead of date paid dates, as there are so many things that he paid in random installments instead of just paying the lump sum and tracking all these random payments is very tedious.

Oh nevermind, I just found out this thing is called a "cash book" and I guess this is not the format I need to be following...  

I'm trying to understand the "Finanzkontenbuch/Kassenbuch" statement he got from the Steuerberater for Quartal II because this is probably her print-off of what I'm trying to make in Excel now, right?   And I see various columns: Lfd, Einnahmen, Ausgaben, Bestand, B, GKTO, Bel-1, Bel-2, Datum, Skonto, Buchungstext   Under Lfd is simply numbered 1-77 for the list of transactions, so would I pick up now with 78, or start over again with 1? Or would these always start over at 1 depending on which dates were selected in her software program, and therefore I should not bother with Lfd, since I'm not using a software capable of starting these numbers all over again based on a selected date range?   Under B, there are some rows with number 9 and some with 8... Not really sure what this means?   Under GKTO, there are various 4 digit codes... It seems that each 4 digit code seems to correspond to a different Buchungstext and I looked GKTO up... I think it's "gegenkonto", and I think I understand that gegenkonto is basically just the name of the company where the money was paid and the type of fee it was, so examples are: MVG, Fedex-Einfuhrumsatzsteuer, Fedex Vorlageprovision... Each one of these categories has a different 4 digit code... Do I need to know these codes or are these random codes assigned by the Steuerberater?   I'm not sure what Bel-1 and Bel-2 are, I'm guessing receipt numbers? But the papers are still at the Steuerberater's office, so I'm not sure...   All of the Einnahmen have the Buchungstext: "Kasseneingang", and I looked up his bank statement and discovered that these are each time he withdrew cash from his bank account... Do you know what Kasseneingang would translate as? Withdrawing from the bank counts as income? I'm a little confused why it wouldn't be an expense... Sorry for being so stupid about this.   Do you think these are all the columns I need? I'm confused why I don't see any paypal/ebay transactions on here, i.e. any of his product sales? Or is this a different kind of statement not relevant to what I'm trying to make now?   Thanks!    

When my husband buys something from a seller on eBay for his business and they do not send him some kind of invoice, because, for example, they are a seller in China or a private seller in Germany, or whatever reason, then can he just print the eBay or PayPal transaction receipt and use this as the invoice? 

So as I'm getting ready to do this, and looking at the papers from the Steuerberater, and remembering our initial consultation and her saying something about how she lists transactions from his paypal and bank account... I'm realizing that I have been going about everything wrong from the beginning. What I mean is... I've been taking his ebay monthly statements and listing the sales/refunds from there in excel and then adding any receipts in that list as well. So I've been using the dates of transactions from his ebay statements, not his bank and paypal accounts...   So I'm wondering, as I list the transactions row by row, which statement should I be using? The paypal one or the bank one? Or a combination of both? So, for example, if he receives money from selling something on ebay on paypal and then transfers this to his bank, do I just write this as a plus to his bank and then be sure not to write that he received this money twice? And if he receives this money to paypal but doesn't transfer it to his bank, do I just write this as a plus to paypal? And what if he didn't refund machines all at once, but is refunding them in Raten? Then I also deduct this VAT in the corresponding increments from his VAT announcements, and not all at once right? In other words, I always go by the date on his bank account or the date on his paypal account? And if my husband owes thousands to customers on returned machines, i.e. he has negative thousands now, can this be deducted from his VAT now, or does he have to wait until his bank shows the negative amount has been returned to that customer before he can actually consider the machine refunded?    Sorry if my questions are very stupid. I feel confused even as I'm asking them. I'm realizing this is a little harder than I thought since I have no bookkeeping experience.

And it's ok to have a negative number here? And it will be refunded shortly or at the end of the year?

My second question is, any idea what software I should use to do all of this bookkeeping versus Excel? What do most Steuerberater use?

For anyone who also wants to know what I wanted to know... the procedure is called "Wohnungszuweisung", you can apply to have a partner move out without necessarily getting a divorce. I've contacted a lawyer about this.

My husband couldn't afford his Steuerberater (620€ for a quarterly VAT statement), so I'm about to do his late 3rd quarter VAT for 2019. :-(   I'm wondering... If a customer bought an expensive machine for which my husband had to forward VAT in the 2nd quarter, but then returned the machine in the 3rd quarter, do I need to do:   1. Berichtigte Anmeldung for 2nd quarter 2. Minus the VAT from the 3rd quarter (but this might end up in a negative number) 3. correct it at the end of the year   I would prefer if it's an option to do 1 or 2 because he needs to get this money back as he owes many huge sums of money right now.   Thank you.

I'm confused too. I do have permission from him to leave the country as long as I want with our daughter. Written on the notarized letter is "immer".    I think I understand now from everyone's posts that it doesn't matter whether my husband and I are married, separated, or divorced... the state of our relationship doesn't matter... I cannot leave the country with my daughter without his permission. It's permission that's critical, not the state of the relationship. Am I correct? Unless I have sole custody and I guess you can only get that if you get divorced, not separated, right?    But my main question is: Is separation something just that two people decide together (they decide that one person goes to live somewhere else)? Or can it also be a legal process, where we apply for a separation and he has to move out then? Because I'm very tired of his pseudo-business (gambling in disguise) and all the stresses it brings on the family, and he says he will move out, but then doesn't because he's used to be me being the all-forgiving all-giving who solves all of his problems.

No, I don't know the answer. But I'm guessing that you're saying I must stay in Germany until my daughter is 18 no matter what? That seems absurd to me.

He has already signed a letter that we had officially notarized saying I can leave the country as long as I want to with our child ("immer"). Actually I'm responding to a post where you suggested that I take my child and leave, so I'm confused.   I just want to know if there is a legal separation process, versus simply a divorce process, which could also make him follow through with his word to move out. He doesn't pay the rent, isn't responsible with taxes, lies, makes lots of debts, etc etc etc. My daughter and I need peace before her childhood passes us by, and he needs a chance to learn how to be financially responsible for himself.

I just reread this comment and I'm wondering if the same applies to "separation". Recently a friend advised me that if I want him to move out of the apartment I can hire a lawyer to do a separation, and force him to move out, versus a divorce. Is this correct? And if so, does it also mean I must stay in Germany as long as my daughter is 18?   So the only way I wouldn't have to stay in Germany until she's 18 would be if I stayed with him but got his permission to leave the country and not come back?