jaylablanco

5 GET and Bookkeeping Mistakes That Cost Hawaii Businesses Money

Fri, 02 Oct 2026 11:11:39 GMT

These are the problems I look for first when I review a Hawaii business's QuickBooks file. Most of them are invisible until a tax notice or a CPA question brings them out.

1. Charging 4.5% GET and calling it even

Maui County's GET rate has been 4.5% since January 1, 2024, when the county added its 0.5% surcharge. Many owners add exactly 4.5% to invoices. The catch is that GET applies to your gross income, and the GET you collect from customers counts as gross income too. That's why the maximum you can pass on in Maui County is 4.712%, not 4.5%.

Here's how it works on a $10,000 job. Charge 4.712% and you collect $471.20, so your gross income is $10,471.20. GET on $10,471.20 at 4.5% is $471.20. It nets to zero. Charge only 4.5% and the difference comes out of your pocket on every invoice.

2. Revenue recorded twice

This happens when an invoice is marked paid and the bank deposit is also categorized as income. Your P&L looks great, your GET return reports income you never earned, and your CPA has to untangle it at year end.

3. Loan proceeds and transfers booked as income

An SBA loan deposit or a transfer from savings shows up in the bank feed looking like a sale. If it gets categorized as revenue, you overpay GET and overstate your profit.

4. Skipping zero-income GET returns

You have to file a G-45 even for periods with no income. A late return carries a penalty of 5% of the tax due for each month or part of a month it's late, up to 25%.

5. Not reconciling, so nothing can be proven

If your accounts aren't reconciled, you can't show that the gross income on your GET returns is correct. Reconciliation is the step that makes every other number in your books defensible.

Not sure whether any of these apply to you? A free book review will show you. You can also read more about GET-ready bookkeeping .

Signs Your Hawaii Business Has Outgrown DIY Bookkeeping

Sun, 20 Sep 2026 11:11:39 GMT

Doing your own books makes sense when you're starting out. Somewhere past $100,000 in revenue it usually stops making sense. The problem isn't that you can't do it. It's that the hours, the risk, and the decisions you make without good numbers start costing more than the bookkeeping would.

Here are the signs.

You're reconciling months at a time instead of every month

If you sit down in March to sort out October, the books are telling you about the past, not helping you run the business.

Your GET filings are estimates

If you're filing G-45s from bank deposits or memory instead of reconciled revenue, you're either overpaying or carrying risk you can't see.

You have more than one or two accounts

Several bank accounts, a couple of credit cards, a loan, maybe a merchant account: every one is something else to reconcile and something else that can go wrong.

Your CPA keeps sending questions back

If year-end means a long email thread about what a transaction was, you're paying CPA rates for bookkeeping cleanup.

You avoid looking at your numbers

This is the most common sign and the most expensive. When you don't trust the books, you stop using them, and pricing, hiring, and spending decisions get made on instinct.

Your time is worth more somewhere else

Work it out. Take the hours you spend on books each month, multiply by what an hour of your time brings in when you're serving customers, and compare that to the cost of a bookkeeper.

What handing it off actually looks like

You keep access to everything. Your bookkeeper reconciles each month, keeps GET-ready records, and sends you a Profit & Loss and Balance Sheet you can actually read. You spend a few minutes reviewing instead of a few hours catching up.

If several of these sound familiar, see how monthly bookkeeping works or request a free book review .

A Month-End Bookkeeping Checklist for Hawaii Business Owners

Thu, 10 Sep 2026 11:11:39 GMT

Most month-end checklists online are written for the mainland. They tell you to "track sales tax" and move on. Hawaii doesn't have a sales tax. It has the General Excise Tax, and it runs on its own calendar. This checklist is built around that calendar.

Week 1: Close out last month

Reconcile every account. That means every bank account, credit card, and loan, matched to its statement. If a balance in QuickBooks doesn't match the statement to the penny, nothing else on this list can be trusted.
Clear the uncategorized pile. Anything sitting in "Uncategorized Income," "Uncategorized Expense," or "Ask My Accountant" should be gone before the month closes.
Check that deposits aren't double-counted. If you invoice in QuickBooks and also record deposits from the bank feed, the same sale can land in revenue twice. That inflates your income and your GET.
Separate transfers and loan proceeds from income. Moving money between your own accounts isn't revenue. Neither is an SBA loan deposit.

By the 20th: GET

File your G-45 if it's due. Periodic GET returns are due by the 20th of the month after each filing period. You must file monthly if you'll owe more than $4,000 in GET for the year. You can file quarterly at $4,000 or less, or twice a year at $2,000 or less.
File even if you made nothing. A G-45 is required even when you had no gross income for the period. Missed zero-dollar returns are an easy thing to fall behind on.
Tie the GET return to your books. The gross income on your G-45 should come straight from your reconciled revenue for the period, not from a separate estimate.

End of month: Review

Read your Profit & Loss next to last month's. You're looking for anything that moved more than you expected, not checking every line.
Look at the Balance Sheet. Is your cash balance real? Are payables and receivables current? Is anything old still sitting there?
Write down one decision. Your books are only useful if they change what you do next month, whether that's raising prices, chasing an invoice, or holding off on a purchase.

Once a year

The G-49 annual GET reconciliation is due by the 20th day of the fourth month after your tax year ends. For a calendar-year business, that's April 20. If your monthly books are clean, the G-49 is mostly adding up what you already filed.

If this list looks like more than you have time for each month, that's what monthly bookkeeping is for. Request a free book review and I'll tell you where your books stand.