Cash Basis to Tax Basis balance sheet adjustments??

[awholenoobworld]

My TurboTax balance sheet is out of balance and I feel like I'm missing something. I've put all payroll checks, payroll taxes, sales tax, and other tax REPORTED in 2018 but not paid until 2019 into the liabilities column, and I put sales reported in 2018 but not deposited until 2019 into the total cash in assets, but my balance is off. I'm not sure I've done the correct thing with sales reported in 2017 but deposited in 2018 - I did not list it anywhere except for adding to the assets column for last year. Correct? We're modified cash basis and have no accounts receivable/payable so this is not something I'm super familiar with. Just trying to get numbers reported to tax agencies to match up with numbers in the bank and not sure what I missed. I've got all our assets and depreciation in assets, and our outstanding loan balance in liabilities. Gonna go through and double check expenses and the retained earnings calced by TurboTax but I want to make sure I'm doing the correct thing with the tax & payroll liablities carried over from 2017 and paid off in 2018 by ignoring them since they were zeroed out/paid off. Same with undeposited funds from 2017 deposited in 2018. It doesn't make sense to do anything else with them, to me, but I may not be understanding tax basis balance sheets correctly...

[LudwigVan_fan]

You don't specify which form of business or return you filed.  But for C Corporation, Form 1120, the balance sheet on the return is the BOOK balance sheet.

I'm not at all familiar with TT balance sheet.  However, in my years of auditing,  I've reviewed many balance sheets and the reconciliations of income per books compared to income per tax.  Generally, there were not two different balance sheets, only book balance sheets.  Differences were in book income vs. tax income.  Talking here in generalities is pretty hard to come up with explanation for any differences.

However, first, 2017 and 2018 must be handled in the same manner.

Second, do you have differences between the way you report income and expenses for book and the way they are reported for tax?  If so, Sch M-1 on Form 1120 must be reconciled.  Also, Sch M-2 is for books, and can help to reconcile any differences.

You mention getting things to reconcile with the "numbers in the bank".  I'm not sure what you mean by that, if you're actually trying to reconcile to the bank balance of accounts?  If so, you've got to reconcile the cash received but not deposited from sales.  Also, taxes "reported" appears to be different than taxes paid.  Depending on how you've entered things in the accounting system, that also needs to be reconciled to "bank balance".

Thus, you do have some a/r and a/p based on those items alone.

Beyond that, I don't think I can help short of reviewing all of the information which is not a possibility in this type of forum.

Perhaps other users have a better answer.

[LudwigVan_fan]

Re-read this and need to clarify.  Can't find an "edit" button!

"Also, Sch M-2 is for books, and can help to reconcile any differences".   M-2 is to reconcile retained earnings. 

Also, you mentioned you put recorded but unpaid expenses in liabilities, and recorded sales but not received in assets; thus a/p and a/r.  Depending on how you entered those items, (exactly how you entered debits and credits) may have an impact on you trying to reconcile the balance sheet.  Also, the exact entries to close out net income to retained earnings may have an impact on the B/S.

[Rick19744]

Not sure if you resolved this, but I will add some commentary.

• The balance in TT is basically one in which you need to populate based on your own separate books and records. 
• You indicate that you are modified cash, but based on your facts, that does not appear to be what modified cash is.  Modified cash balance is where nearly all elements of the income statement are recorded using the cash basis, and that accounts receivables and inventory are not recorded on the balance sheet.  Your facts indicate that you have recorded "sales reported in 2018 but not deposited until 2019"; you are not being consistent here as you are recording a sale but there is technically no cash received or deposited yet.
• The same is with your handling of the payroll tax matters.  These items are being reported on an accrual basis in the liabilities and this is also contrary to what should be happening.
• You need to create a balance sheet outside of TT that balances and then input that into TT.
• Keep in mind that another factor is that your cash basis books may not agree to what is being reflected on the tax return as a result of book to tax differences; depreciation, meals and entertainment, etc.
• I would highly recommend that you look into using Quickbooks or something along those same lines which will maintain everything in a balanced state and you can print the balance sheet and just input those figures into TT at the end of the year.
• See the attached discussion on modified cash basis accounting; https://www.accountingtools.com/articles/what-is-the-modified-cash-basis-of-accounting.html