Cleanup and catch-up

Complex Bookkeeping Cleanup.

When your books are years behind, tangled across periods, or wrong in ways your tax preparer keeps finding at year end. We come in, work the file account by account, and give you back financials you can actually trust.

Book a discovery call See the ten items we fix
Scoping
$250 paid diagnostic
Cleanup
Fixed fee from $600
Timeline
Two to eight weeks typical
No. 01 Scope What cleanup includes

Ten areas we rebuild.

Every cleanup engagement is scoped to your specific file, but most involve some combination of the following. You will see a written scope in your proposal with the exact items included and the timeline for each.

No. Item What we do
01
Historical reconciliations
Bank, credit card, and loan accounts reconciled month by month, going back as far as needed. Missing statements requested, uncleared items resolved, opening balances corrected.
02
Balance sheet cleanup
Every account tied out to a real source document. Unexplained balances investigated. Prior-period entries corrected so the balance sheet actually reflects what you own and what you owe.
03
Loan and asset reconciliation
Loan balances matched to lender statements, interest split from principal, amortization schedules built. Fixed assets tied to depreciation schedules and coordinated with your CPA.
04
Payroll liability corrections
Wages, taxes, and benefit deductions traced back to payroll reports and reconciled to what was actually paid. Stale liabilities cleared with documentation.
05
Accounts receivable and payable cleanup
Old invoices reviewed for collectability, duplicate bills identified and corrected, aging reports rebuilt so you can see clearly who owes you and who you actually owe.
06
Equity and retained earnings review
Owner contributions and distributions properly recorded, prior-year retained earnings reconciled to filed tax returns, equity accounts organized by member or partner.
07
Class, project, and location corrections
Prior-period transactions reclassified to the right class, project, or location so historical reports reflect how your business actually operates.
08
Clearing and suspense account cleanup
Transactions parked in Ask My Accountant, Uncategorized, or suspense accounts investigated and posted where they belong. Nothing left waiting.
09
Tax-ready financial reconstruction
Books rebuilt to the point where your CPA can file with confidence. Prior-year adjusting entries booked, workpapers organized, notes documented so nothing has to be guessed.
10
QuickBooks system restructuring
Chart of accounts rebuilt for how your business actually works. Products, services, class tracking, and bank feeds set up so the system supports clean work going forward.
No. 02 Process How the work runs

From messy file to trustworthy books, in four defined stages.

No open-ended hourly billing. No surprise scope expansions. You know what you are paying, what you are getting, and when it will be done before we start.

Stage 01

Discovery call

Thirty minutes, free. We ask about the file, the pain, the deadlines. If it looks like a fit, we ask for view-only access to scope. If not, we say so.

Stage 02

Paid diagnostic

$250 flat. We open the file, run diagnostics, and deliver a written findings document with cleanup scope and a fixed-fee proposal within a week. Credited toward your engagement if you move forward.

Stage 03

The rebuild

Account by account. Weekly progress notes. Questions batched so we do not fill your inbox. Every material change documented in a workpaper file you keep after the engagement ends.

Stage 04

Handoff and options

You get clean books, workpapers, and a summary of what changed and why. Then you decide: hand it to an internal person, hand it to another bookkeeper, or move into ongoing bookkeeping with us.

No. 03 Deliverables At the finish line

What you actually receive.

A cleanup is not finished when we say it is finished. It is finished when you can hand the file to a CPA, a lender, or a buyer and have them believe the numbers.

Every engagement ends with a defined set of deliverables, so nothing about the finish is ambiguous.

  • A.
    Clean QuickBooks file Reconciled through the agreed period, with a rebuilt chart of accounts and a documented structure.
  • B.
    Financial statements Profit and Loss statement and balance sheet for each cleanup period, ready to hand to your CPA or a lender.
  • C.
    Workpaper file Every material adjustment documented with the source, the reason, and the entry made. Yours to keep.
  • D.
    Summary memo A written recap of what we found, what we fixed, what we adjusted, and what still needs your CPA's attention.
  • E.
    Handoff call Thirty minutes to walk through the file, answer questions, and confirm next steps.

After cleanup, most clients choose to stay on.

Not because we push it. Because keeping the file clean going forward is far cheaper than cleaning it again in three years. Ongoing monthly work is what stops the file from drifting back to where it started.

See ongoing bookkeeping
No. 04 Reference Common questions

Questions we hear before the discovery call.

Q.01How far behind can you go?
Multi-year cleanups are common. We have taken on engagements where the last clean set of financials was three or four years old. What matters is not how far behind you are, but whether the source records exist. If we can get bank statements, payroll reports, and loan history, we can rebuild.
Q.02How is cleanup priced?
Fixed fee, calculated from a formula. During the paid diagnostic we set your file's complexity tier and count the months of books to rebuild. The cleanup fee is the number of months times the per-month rate for that tier, with a $600 minimum. You see the math in the written proposal. Once quoted, the total is locked. No open-ended hourly bills.
Q.03What is the paid diagnostic?
A $250 flat-fee engagement that comes before a cleanup. We take view-only access to your file, run diagnostics, and deliver a written findings document with the exact cleanup scope, complexity tier, and price. If you engage us for the cleanup, the $250 is credited back. If you do not, you keep the findings and we keep the fee for the analysis. Honest scoping is real work and it needs to be paid for.
Q.04Do we have to commit to ongoing bookkeeping after cleanup?
No. Cleanup is a standalone project. Most of our cleanup clients do move to monthly bookkeeping afterward because keeping the books clean is far cheaper than cleaning them again, but it is your call. If you want to hand a clean file back to an internal person or another bookkeeper, we make sure it is ready for that.
Q.05Will you work with our CPA?
Yes, and we prefer to. Many of our engagements start as a CPA referral because we make their year-end easier. We keep them in the loop on material adjustments, hand over workpapers, and answer their questions directly so nothing bounces back to you.
Q.06What if we are on QuickBooks Desktop, not Online?
We work in both. Most of our practice is QuickBooks Online, but Desktop files are welcome. If a migration makes sense as part of cleanup, we will scope it in and quote it. If Desktop is the right long-term fit for how you operate, we stay there.
Q.07How long does a typical cleanup take?
Two to eight weeks for most engagements once we have access. Simple single-year cleanups finish in two to three weeks. Multi-year rebuilds with payroll issues, loan adjustments, and prior-year corrections take longer. We give you a timeline in the proposal and keep you posted weekly.
Ready when you are

Thirty minutes. Free. No pitch.

Bring your questions. We will tell you honestly what your books look like, what a cleanup would take, and whether we are the right fit.

Book a discovery call