Bookkeeping Cleanup

Catch-up work for books that are months or years behind. We'll get you current so you know where you actually stand.

What This Is

Cleanup work is for businesses whose books are months or years behind. The bank accounts haven’t been reconciled. Transactions are sitting uncategorized. Receipts are in a shoebox or scattered across email. The whole thing is too big to face, so it keeps getting postponed.

This is a one-time project to get everything current. Go through the backlog, reconcile every account, categorize every transaction, and produce accurate financial statements for the entire period. Once it’s done, you can either maintain the books yourself or hire someone for monthly work.

The Process

Pull bank statements for the entire backlog period. Match transactions to receipts and invoices. Reconcile accounts month by month. Fix errors, remove duplicates, and categorize everything correctly. Produce a complete set of financial statements.

The Timeline

Depends on how far behind you are. A six-month backlog usually takes one to two weeks. A two-year backlog might take three to four weeks. You’ll get a timeline estimate after reviewing your situation.

Why This Matters

A restaurant owner contacted us. His books hadn’t been touched in 18 months. He needed a loan to expand but couldn’t produce financial statements. The bank wanted a P&L and balance sheet. He had nothing to show them.

The longer books stay messy, the more problems compound. You can’t get financing. You can’t make informed decisions about hiring or spending. Tax season becomes a nightmare. Eventually, you’re not running your business based on facts. You’re running it based on whatever your bank balance happens to be that day.

The Paralysis

A six-month backlog feels overwhelming. A two-year backlog feels impossible. The bigger it gets, the easier it is to keep avoiding it. Meanwhile, you’re making decisions blind.

The Tax Problem

Come April, your tax preparer needs organized records. If your books are a mess, they’ll either charge you a fortune to sort it out or file an extension and tell you to fix it first. Either way, it’s expensive and stressful.

What Changes

Your books are current. Every account reconciled. Every transaction categorized. You have accurate financial statements showing what happened during the entire backlog period. You finally know if you made money or lost it.

You can get that loan. You can file your taxes without drama. You can make decisions about your business based on actual financial data instead of guesswork. The weight of that backlog is gone.

Real Numbers

Once your books are clean, you can see which months were profitable and which weren’t. You can identify spending patterns. You can answer basic questions about your business that were impossible to answer before.

A Fresh Start

Cleanup work gets you to zero. From there, you can either keep the books current yourself or hire someone for monthly bookkeeping. Either way, you’re starting from a clean foundation instead of an ongoing mess.

The Valley's Trusted Accounting Firm