Catch-up bookkeeping
Behind on your books by a few months or a few years? We go back to where things stopped and get every month categorized and reconciled, so your CPA has books they can file from. Then monthly bookkeeping keeps you current.
Falling behind is normal
Usually it's a busy season. The books wait for a slow week, and the slow week doesn't come. Sometimes a bookkeeper quits or stops answering, or the business started with a checking account and QuickBooks never happened.
Nobody here is going to lecture you about it. Tell us how far back it goes and what's due next, and we'll start there.
Where are you starting from?
A few months behind
QuickBooks is set up and the bank feeds kept pulling in transactions, but nobody sorted them. We categorize the backlog, reconcile each month, and you're current.
If there's a deadline coming, like quarterly estimates or a loan application, tell us when you reach out.
A year or more
We work one year at a time, starting with whichever year your CPA needs first. Bank feeds only reach back so far, so older months get rebuilt from your statements.
If you're also behind on filing, that part belongs to your CPA. Our job is getting the books to where they can file. Don't have a CPA? We can point you to one.
Never set up
No QuickBooks, maybe a spreadsheet, maybe just a bank account. That's fine. We set up QuickBooks Online with accounts that fit a service business, then build your history from bank and card statements.
More on setup on the QuickBooks bookkeeping page.
How catch-up works
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Statements
You send bank and credit card statements for every month you're behind. If you already have QuickBooks, we start from what's in there.
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Categorize
Every transaction gets categorized. Business and personal get split apart, and payments to subs get tracked for 1099s.
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Reconcile
Each account gets reconciled to its statements, month by month, so the balances in QuickBooks are the real ones.
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Hand off
You get a clean profit and loss and balance sheet for each year, ready for your CPA. Monthly bookkeeping picks up from there.
Receipts and invoices help with anything a statement doesn't explain, like a big transfer or a check with no memo. We'll ask about those as we go instead of making you dig everything up first.
Paid subs and never sent 1099s?
You'll know once catch-up is done. With every payment categorized, you can see exactly who you paid and how much, which is what you need to sort out 1099s. The 1099 guide covers the rules, and createw9.com is our free tool for collecting W-9s from your subs.
What it costs
Catch-up is a one-time fee, quoted before any work starts. It depends on how many months you're behind, how many accounts you have, and how busy they are.
After that, monthly bookkeeping runs $200 to $600 a month, and most quotes land between $300 and $400. There's no contract. The pricing page has the full breakdown.
After you're caught up
Monthly bookkeeping starts where catch-up ends, so the backlog doesn't build back up. See how that looks for contractors, home service companies, and the self-employed. We're based in Carmel, Indiana, and it all runs through QuickBooks Online, so you don't need to be local.