Which should I use accrual or cash accounting system for a small one man company (consultant)?

I'm setting up Quickbooks for a man I work for part-time. He's a small one-man outfit (consultant) who basically doesn't have steady income, he works from project to project. I work around his schedule (work when there's a project going on, don't work when he's traveling or has nothing going on). Is it better to set up his books on a cash basis? He really doesn't have any monthly recurring payments other than rent and utilities. I'm not in the office regularly to keep up with accruals - would cash accounting be better?

Better to use cash accounting. Accruals need to be closed at the end of the year to either income and expense, unless there is a very good reason for keeping them open. So, in that case the business would have the same Income or Expense at year end. Accruals only work if you need to show a "level" expense throughout each month for reporting purposes. Hope this helps.

Either but probably cash:

http://www.nolo.com/article.cfm/ObjectID...

I suggest that you use a cash accounting system. When revenue accruals it may be paid sometime in the future.

Also, setup a cash receipt and cash payment journals. When cash is received it is always recorded as a debit or increase to cash. This is recorded in the cash receipt journal. When cash is paid it is a credit or decrease to cash recorded in the cash payment journal.