Behind or Dealing With Messy Books? Let’s Clean Things Up
Catch-up or clean-up bookkeeping is a one-time service that will reconcile your accounts, sort out your transactions, and prepare your records for tax time. Susan can provide this service regardless of how far behind you are today. Most people who finally call have been putting it off for months, and they usually find that the reality isn’t as overwhelming as they had feared. Susan has seen it all, so don’t be afraid to reach out for help today.
- CA License #96754
- Most cleanups done in four to eight weeks
Redding, CA · 14 months behind
Unknown
Not ready
Tax-ready file: Ready to file
Books Get Behind
While You Are Busy Running a Business
It’s hard to run a small business. It’s not that you aren’t interested in their finances, but it never seems like there is enough time in the day to serve your customers and manage the books. And, as the books fall farther and farther behind, the task begins to feel impossible.
You’ll encounter no judgment when you work with Susan. She has seen the messiest of situations, including backlogs that stretch for years, errors passed down from previous owners, and accounts that have never been reconciled even a single time. Susan will take an objective look at your books to understand what cleaning will require, how long it will take, and much it will cost.
After Susan looks at the file, most of her clients will say that the cleanup was the easy part. The most difficult decision is to make the call.
- Judgment-free: Susan has seen much worse
- Free 15-minute call: No commitment required
Start Wherever You Are. End With Clean Books.
Bookkeeping cleanup is a fixed-scope project. Susan takes your books from where they are to a point where they are fully reconciled, accurately categorized, and ready for tax filing or financial review.
- Full transaction import and categorization: Every transaction from the backlog period coded correctly, and with deductibility in mind.
- Bank and credit card reconciliation: All accounts reconciled back to opening balance and matched to statements.
- Chart of accounts review and cleanup: Clean up duplicate accounts, correct misnamed accounts, and match with tax reporting requirements.
- Duplicate entry correction, misposted entry correction: Identify and correct phantom transactions, double-counted revenue, and split transactions in the wrong period.
- Accounts payable and receivable reconciliation: Outstanding balances checked against the outstanding invoices and bills.
- Prior period error correction: Journal entries to correct opening balances, reclassify transactions and correct any errors made by the previous bookkeeper.
- Clean financial statements: Accurate profit and loss, balance sheet, general ledger at project close.
- Year-end close preparation: If cleanup is completed after December, prepare appropriate closing entries to report the tax year.
- All accounts reconciled back to the start of the backlog period
- Accurate profit and loss statement, ready to read
- Clean balance sheet with verified balances
- Tax-ready QuickBooks file your CPA can open and use
- A clear understanding of the financial situation of your business
- A clean start for bookkeeping or tax preparation purposes
Once cleanup is complete, Susan can move on to monthly bookkeeping, prepare your tax return, or give you a clean file. The choice is yours.
Any of These Are the Right Time to Call
Buyers and their accountants review 3-5 years of records. Clean and credible books fetch a higher price. Rough ones send potential buyers running in the other direction.
A Clear Process with No Surprises
The first step in cleanup is to know what you are dealing with. The scope is known prior to starting work.
Explain the condition of your books, including how far behind they are, what software you are using, and what happened. No commitment, no judgement. Susan will let you know if catch-up is a good option or if another service is more applicable.
Susan checks your QuickBooks file or bank statements, scopes the work, and gives you a fixed-fee quote prior to starting the cleanup. The quote is not based on an estimate of the number of hours, but is based on the actual scope, months behind, and transaction volume.
Categorization, reconciliation, error correction, and chart of accounts cleanup, performed according to the specifications of a tax return. If there are any unusual circumstances that impact scope or the decisions that need to be made, Susan will communicate along the way.
Once the cleanup is finished, Susan will show you what she discovered, what she fixed and where your business is actually at. Clean financial statements are provided. From here, you can transition to continued bookkeeping, have Susan prepare your taxes, or take the clean file anywhere you need it.
Pricing After Susan Reviews the File
Honest pricing requires seeing what’s actually there. Each cleanup quote is based on a diagnostic review. not a rate sheet. Scope is determined by the number of transactions in the months and the number of months behind.
Explain your situation: How far behind are your books? What platforms are you on? There is no commitment when you call.
Scope is determined before any work is done. No hourly billing or unexpected bill at the end of the project. The typical fee range for small businesses that have less than 18 months of backlog is $750 to $3,500.
Cleanup is not an ongoing service. The project is closed when books are clean. No continuous charge unless you opt to move forward with monthly bookkeeping.
Each classification action in a cleanup comes with a tax implication. Most bookkeepers don’t know what those are. Susan signs tax returns, so she knows.
Each transaction Susan codes is done with deductibility in mind. She thinks not only about what account each transaction goes in, but also what it would cost at tax time if the categorization was done incorrectly.
Two years late, four years late, never received, inherited from previous owner: none of this is as unusual as you may believe. The intention is not to pass judgment on how the file came to be this way; it is to leave you with a clean file.
After cleanup, you will receive a walk-through of what was corrected, what was discovered, and where your business is at. Not a black box. A briefing.
Questions About Catch-Up Bookkeeping
There is no limit to how far back Susan can go to repair your books. She has done cleanups of several years of backlog, businesses that were never reconciled, books that were passed on from previous owners, and files that weren’t used in three or four years. The pricing depends on the scope, but as long as bank statements are available, the cleanup can be performed.
Bank and credit card statements are enough to reconstruct the books. Susan can create the file from scratch based on statements, receipts, and any paperwork you have. You can start with raw bank data, but the preferred platform is QuickBooks online or desktop.
Cleanups typically take 4-8 weeks for most small business scenarios, depending on the volume of backlog and transactions. Often, they will take two to three weeks if the business is 6 to 12 months behind and 100 to 150 transactions per month. The larger the file or the longer the backlog, the longer it will take, and the timeline is always discussed prior to work commencing.
Others have a per-month fee, which might be suitable if the scope is well-defined and agreed upon in the beginning, but tends to result in estimates that may not be representative of what’s really included in the month. Susan checks the file after every cleanup to see if there are any errors to be unwound, if the chart of accounts is too complex, if there are any errors to be unwound, or if there are any months behind. This means that you won’t have a monthly rate that will increase as the file is messier than you had thought. You will only have one fixed fee for the entire project.
Yes, and that’s frequently the most efficient way to approach the process. During the cleanup, Susan will get to know the file and have the context to be able to accurately return the file without having to start from scratch. Clean up can be followed by individual and business tax preparation.
Catch-up bookkeeping is a one-time project. It has a defined start and end period. You catch up, clean up, and it's over. Ongoing bookkeeping is a service that maintains the books on an ongoing basis each month. Many clients opt to catch up on work first, then use Susan for bookkeeping on a regular basis, eliminating the backlog issue altogether. Others only require one-time cleaning up and take care of the books on their own after that.
No. One of the most frequent scenarios that Susan sees is books being behind. This is nothing to be ashamed of. Typically, it just involves being in business but struggling with time management. Catch-up bookkeeping is a service that’s done without judgment. What’s important is to get the file clean so you can move forward.
Yes. Cleanup is generally done by correcting prior-period errors. This includes the reclassification of transactions that have been posted to the incorrect account, correcting opening balances that have been entered incorrectly, eliminating phantom and duplicate transactions, and unwinding journal entries that do not represent the actual transaction. If there are mistakes that impact the previous tax year, Susan will mark them and recommend whether it is advisable to file an amended return.
Let’s Get Your Books Current ASAP
Schedule a free 15-minute call. Tell Susan where your books stand, including how far behind you are, what platform you’re on, and what’s been keeping you from fixing it. She’ll give you a straight answer on what cleanup involves, how long it takes, and what it costs. No commitment is necessary.