Project-Based Service
Catch-Up Bookkeeping
Books that are a year behind do not need a lecture. They need to be rebuilt - sometimes from the ground up - at a fixed rate, to a universal standard. That is exactly this service.
More common than one would think
Not everyone books a catch-up call, and those that do, rarely feel great about it. For the record: falling behind is perhaps the most common bookkeeping situation out there, and it happens for the sanest reason: business was busy, books got deprioritized. Good news is, the books are rebuildable.
The work itself is reconstruction. Bank and credit card statements for the missing period, the transaction history rebuilt and categorized, every account reconciled month by month until the records match reality. The result is the same P&L and balance sheet you would have if the books had never lost the priority fight.
When would you choose to do this?
- Your CPA needs numbers to file, and the numbers do not exist yet.
- A lender or investor asked for financial statements.
- The records you inherited cannot be trusted, either due to previous bookkeeper mistakes, botched data migrations between software, or your personal and business expenses commingled in your books.
- You cannot say whether the business made money last year, last quarter, or what your most profitable business line/product is - and that has started to bother you.
How the project runs
- 01A short call. How far behind, what software, what deadline? Short and free thirty minute call, no pressure.
- 02A fixed quote within 48 hours. Scope, deliverables, timeline, and one price - all in writing.
- 03Reconstruction. The full period rebuilt and reconciled. Your role is answering the occasional "what was this $312 charge?" email.
- 04Handoff. Clean financial statements, in a QuickBooks file you own, and anything unresolved is flagged in writing instead of buried.
On price: every backlog is different, so each project is quoted individually after the call. The number depends on months outstanding, account count, transaction volume, and complexity. What holds in every case is that the price is fixed before work begins, half is paid upfront, and if the rebuild takes longer than quoted, that number does not move.* Most clients pair the catch-up with a monthly plan so this is the last cleanup they pay for. * price does not change unless the quote was based on misleading or incomplete information provided by the client during discovery phase.
In regards to Tax
Catch-up work does not include tax preparation. It produces what tax preparation requires: a reconciled, defensible record of the period. Many CPAs will not touch a return until the books behind it are clean.