Startup Accounting
Choosing Your Startup Finance Stack: Banking, Cards, and Expense Management
Collated by Harry Prabandham
Curated by Rubric Financial
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Banking: Mercury vs Brex vs Traditional
- Mercury: built for startups, free, $5M+ sweep into FDIC-insured Mercury Vault (across ~12 partner banks). Strong API + integrations. Best fit for VC-backed startups raising $500K-$50M.
- Brex: also free, integrated with Brex Card + expense management + AP. Best fit if you want a unified finance OS in one vendor.
- Traditional bank (SVB/HSBC/JPMorgan/etc.): venture debt access, banking relationships for later-stage, RIA services, complex international banking. Worth the friction at Series B+.
- Multi-bank strategy: post-SVB, most startups keep 1-3 weeks of operating cash in checking, sweep the rest into MMFs at multiple institutions — the goal is to never have >$1M unfunded at any single bank.
Related Resources
Startup Accounting
GAAP Basics for Startups
Understand the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles that every startup needs to follow, from revenue recognition to accrual accounting.
Startup AccountingCapEx vs OpEx: Expense Classification
When to capitalize vs expense costs — and how misclassification affects your financials and taxes.
Startup AccountingWhy Your Bank Balance Doesn't Match Your P&L
Understand why your cash position and income statement tell different stories — and why investors care about accrual-basis financials over bank balances.
