Cleanup & catch-up · QuickBooks Online

Behind on your books? It is fixable.

Months or years of backlog, rebuilt month by month until every account ties out. You get a fixed quote before any work starts, and no lecture about how it got this way.

You are not the exception

Nearly every business that calls me is behind on something.

Books fall behind for ordinary reasons. The business grew faster than the admin. A bookkeeper left. QuickBooks got connected once and never looked at again. A year got busy and then it was two years.

None of that is unusual, and none of it is unrecoverable. Abandoned files, shoebox receipts, three years of uncategorized transactions, a balance sheet with a mystery number nobody can explain. That is the work. It is what cleanup is for.

You will not be judged for the state of your file. You will be told honestly what it will take to fix it.

Signs you need cleanup

If any of these sound familiar, start here.

How cleanup works

Diagnosed first, quoted second, fixed third.

Discovery call. About 25 minutes. How far back the backlog goes, how many accounts, and what you need the finished books for: filing, financing, or a sale.

Diagnostic review, $300. A line-by-line health check of your QuickBooks Online file. You receive a written report of exactly what is wrong, how far back it goes, and what it will cost to fix. The full $300 is credited toward your cleanup. If you decide not to proceed, you still keep the report.

The rebuild. Historical transactions imported, categorized, and corrected. Accounts reconciled back to your actual statements. Duplicates removed, mystery balances traced and resolved, chart of accounts restructured where it is doing more harm than good. Progress reported as each period closes.

Handoff. Reconciled books, a closing summary of what was corrected, and a CPA-ready package. From here you either maintain it yourself or move to monthly bookkeeping so it never happens again.

What it costs

A fixed quote, before any work begins.

Cleanup is priced on transaction volume and how far back the backlog runs, not by the hour. You approve a fixed fee before work starts, and it does not change unless the scope does.

Diagnostic review

A line-by-line health check of your QuickBooks file, credited in full toward cleanup.

$300

Cleanup & catch-up

Backlogged books rebuilt month by month until everything ties out.

$750–3,000

Year-end tax-ready package

A full year reviewed, reconciled, and closed, handed to your tax preparer.

$500–1,200

Most cleanups fall in the middle of that range. The diagnostic review exists so you know your number before committing, rather than after.

Questions, answered

What owners ask about cleanup.

As far as you need. Multi-year rebuilds are routine. The diagnostic review establishes how many periods are genuinely required, and sometimes it is fewer than you fear.

Most cleanups run two to six weeks depending on volume and how quickly missing statements arrive. You get a timeline with your quote, and progress updates as each period closes.

Read-only bank feed and accountant access to QuickBooks Online, plus statements for any period the feed does not reach back to. That is usually the whole list.

Very rarely. In the few cases where rebuilding is not the right call, I will tell you so during the diagnostic and explain the alternative, rather than take the engagement and bill you for it.

No. Cleanup is a standalone project. Many clients move to monthly bookkeeping afterwards because the alternative is falling behind again, but there is no obligation and no contract either way.

No. I do not file taxes. What you get is a clean, reconciled, CPA-ready package so your tax preparer can file quickly, usually at a lower cost than working from unreconciled records.

Get in touch

Find out what it will take to fix.

Start with a free 25-minute call. You leave knowing how bad it actually is and what it costs, with no obligation to go further.