Got roasted by my CPA for mixing personal and biz money, now I wonder if separate cards are even worth it
Last month my accountant looked at my books and flat out told me my record keeping was a mess because every coffee and gas fill up was running through the same card as my LLC stuff. I had been doing it for 2 years thinking it was fine since I tracked it all in a spreadsheet anyway. She said spend 3 hours sorting receipts and I would save myself 10 hours at tax time, which honestly sounded like a sales pitch at first. So now I am curious, do you all run separate accounts for everything or just sort it out later? Trying to figure out if the extra card is really worth the hassle.
Did your accountant actually explain why it matters beyond just the sorting though? For an LLC the real risk is the IRS saying you commingled funds and treating the biz like a hobby, which can wreck your liability shield, so the separate card is less about saving time and more about proof. Three hours of sorting sounds annoying but it beats losing your protections over a gas station run.