Any business that handles customer money (for example, a lawyer that holds client funds in escrow to pay for services later) is required to maintain separate ac

Any business that handles customer money (for example, a lawyer that holds client funds in escrow to pay for services later) is required to maintain separate accounts. Respectfully: this is not accurate generally or in Japan. Lawyers are special-cased in the laws of several US states for this purpose. Software consultants in Japan, to use one example I am intimately familiar with, are not. If you take a deposit of $50k from a client which isn't your money yet, you book an asset (the money, typically deposited in your bank account, where there is no duty for segregation) and a corresponding 前受金 ("advance payment received") liability. As soon as you provide the service which you've received the money for, you're obligated to decrement that liability and increment sales. (This is important for tax purposes if the two events happen in different calendar or fiscal years, one reason why I have to keep books and report to the friendly local tax office once a year how much of OPM I'm presently holding.) n.b. My understanding of GAAP here would be that Gox would probably hold the money on the books as a deposit (預かり金) rather than an advance payment (前受金) but I'm not positive about that -- my business never had to worry about it.