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A working guide for one-person US LLCs: separate the books, set up a chart of accounts that survives Schedule C, run a monthly close, and keep your state filings on schedule.
If you are a solo creator or freelancer who has set up a single-member US LLC, your bookkeeping is not hard — but it is its own thing. It is not the same as a sole proprietorship run out of your personal checkbook, and it is not the same as a multi-staff operation with a controller. This guide walks through the minimum working setup: how to keep your LLC books separate, what your chart of accounts should look like, how to run a close once a month, and what feeds your federal Schedule C and your state filings.
None of this is legal or tax advice; consider working with a CPA for your specific situation. The point is to give you a baseline you can run on your own without mystery.
A single-member LLC that has not elected to be taxed as a corporation is, for federal tax purposes, a "disregarded entity." That phrase does a lot of work — it is the IRS telling you that even though your LLC is a separate legal entity, the LLC itself does not pay federal income tax. Instead, the LLC owner reports the LLC income and expenses on their personal Form 1040 via Schedule C.
Practically, this means two things. One, your federal tax picture is built around Schedule C, not a corporate return. Two, the LLC still needs to behave like an LLC at the bank level: a separate account, a separate credit card, contracts and invoices in the LLC name. Mixing personal and business flows is the single biggest mistake people make — and it is the one that creates the most work at year end, the most risk when you incorporate, and the most friction if you ever need a loan or to sell.
The good news: the bookkeeping for a working single-member LLC boils down to a handful of accounts, a recurring habit, and a clean handoff to Schedule C. The rest of this guide is that boilerplate.
Before you go near a chart of accounts, three things should be in place. Without them, every later decision is harder.
An EIN is a free federal taxpayer ID number for your LLC, issued by the IRS. Even if the LLC is disregarded for federal tax purposes, you still need one to open a business bank account, to issue 1099-NECs to contractors, and to file any state-level tax registrations. You can apply for one online at irs.gov in about ten minutes; the IRS issues it on the spot. Keep the IRS letter in your records — your bank will want to see it.
If your LLC is going to behave like an LLC at tax time, the bank has to see it that way. Open a checking account in the LLC name. Move your recurring inflows — client payments, processor payouts — into that account from day one. Pay your business expenses out of that account. Do not run LLC money through your personal account, even "temporarily." Courts have ruled that commingled funds weaken the very liability protection the LLC exists to give you.
For most solo creators, Mercury, Relay, or a basic local business checking account is plenty. Stripe and Wise payouts can land directly into the business account. If you also have personal accounts at the same bank, that is fine — just keep the LLC account distinct and never use it for groceries.
A business credit card does two jobs at once: it puts a clean, well-categorized stream of expenses on its own statement, and it gives you a quiet 30-day float on operating cash. Pick a card that exports to a CSV or syncs to Plaid — Brex, Ramp, Mercury, Capital One Spark, and most AmEx business cards all qualify. Avoid cards that mix personal and business on one statement; the cleanup at month end is not worth whatever cashback it offers.
A chart of accounts is the list of categorized buckets your books live in. You can always add more later, but starting with too many categories creates noise. The minimum for a single-member LLC doing a few hundred transactions a month looks like this.
Stripe payouts, Wise payouts, and Plaid-connected bank feeds should map into these categories automatically. For categories you want manual — usually meals, travel, contractor 1099 payments — write a one-line note on the transaction at month end so your future self can defend the categorization to your CPA.
A monthly close is the same five moves, in the same order, every month. Doing it on a fixed day matters more than the day you pick. The order below is the one most working LLCs end up with.
Resist the urge to make this a daily ritual. Daily bookkeeping is busy work. Monthly bookkeeping, done on a fixed day, is a 30-minute review and the same recurring habit. The point of the close is to catch issues early enough to fix them — not to stare at every transaction.
If you bill clients, use a system that sends invoices in the LLC name from a LLC-owned email. The invoice is a legal document — it should be in your business identity, contact the client under that identity, and contain your EIN if the client requests a W-9. Keep paid invoices attached to the underlying payment (Stripe or Wise) so later reconciliation is automatic.
If your income comes through payment processors — Stripe, Wise, PayPal, Gumroad, Lemon Squeezy, Shopify — each processor’s payout to your business account is what books as income. The processor takes its fee, the fee is an expense, the difference is the LLC’s revenue. Refunds and chargebacks are negative income, not negative fees — book them as a separate "Refunds and chargebacks" line so you can see the absolute level, not just the net.
If you bill across borders, keep currency conversion in your books in two columns: the original currency, and the USD-equivalent at the day the payout hit your account. The exchange rate on payout day is the right rate — not the rate on invoice day, which is irrelevant for your LLC’s books.
Expenses are where single-member LLCs both leave money on the table and create unnecessary risk. Three habits solve most of this.
First, capture the receipt. A transaction without a source document is a liability — if the IRS asks, you need the receipt, not your memory. Forward every email receipt to a single inbox tied to your bookkeeping tool or open the receipt photo on the same day you incur the charge. Forwarding is faster than logging; do not be afraid to fire-and-forget the email receipt.
Second, categorize to the right grain. "Software and SaaS" is too coarse if you spend $400 a month on a mix of domain tools; your CPA will want to see real categories. Aim for 15-25 named categories, not 80. Common ones, grouped for clarity:
Third, distinguish common write-offs from common pitfalls. Most of these are deductible in some form, but the rules are not uniform — and they are not what they used to be.
Schedule C ("Profit or Loss from Business") is the page that gets stapled to your personal Form 1040 as a sole proprietor — and that is exactly what a single-member LLC is for federal tax purposes. Most of the form falls directly out of a clean chart of accounts.
A few common mistakes to avoid on Schedule C. Mixing personal car / phone / internet / home into the LLC: most solo creators do this lazily and overstate deductions. Either keep separate accounts that genuinely do not overlap, or use the simplified methods with a documented business-use percentage. Forgetting to include 1099 income: some clients send 1099-NECs for work you already booked. Cross-check at year end. Treating owner draws as deductions: draws are not deductible; the LLC profit flows to your personal return as income, and the owner takes cash out as a draw, but neither reduces the other.
When to outsource: if your LLC revenue exceeds a six-figure threshold and you have multiple contractors, a multi-state nexus, or cross-border invoicing, a CPA earns their fee. Below that, a working setup and a once-a-month Close is enough.
Schedule C is one federal filing; it is not the whole picture. In addition, a single-member LLC faces a constant drip of other obligations.
Knowing which of these apply to you is half the work. Missing them is where the late fees, interest, and IRS notices come from. The companion article in this hub — the state-by-state tax-deadline calendar — is the concrete reference for where each of these falls on the calendar.
Note
Hushledger connects your LLC bank, credit card, and payment processors (Stripe, Wise, Mercury). Each morning it shows you a clean monthly P&L and balance sheet, with the Schedule C draft sitting underneath, ready for your CPA when quarterly estimated taxes come around.
The Studio tier adds state tax-deadline flags and an automated Schedule C draft every quarter — see Hushledger pricing to see which tier fits the size of your LLC.
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