Catch-Up Bookkeeping

Falling behind on books is not a character flaw — it's what happens when running the business eats all the hours. The problem is that the hole compounds: every month of backlog makes the next month harder, and tax season turns into a crisis. Catch-Up Bookkeeping is how you get from "years behind" to "current, reconciled, and boring" — with a fixed fee agreed before we start.

How far behind can you be?

Any amount. Most catch-ups we run are one to three years of backlog; we've cleaned up as much as seven. Partially-complete months, shoeboxes of receipts, a dead bookkeeper's half-finished file, three different spreadsheet systems — we've seen all of it, and the fixed-fee quote absorbs the mess instead of metering it.

What it costs

Catch-up work is priced per month behind, by condition:

• Light — $100/month: mostly-complete months that need reconciliation and polish.
• Standard — $200/month: the typical case — transactions to categorize, accounts to reconcile.
• Heavy — $250/month: messy or reconstructed months with missing documentation.

Your quote is one fixed fee covering the whole backlog, confirmed before any work starts. A business two years behind at Standard condition pays $200 × 24 — not an open-ended hourly tab. When the catch-up ends, most clients roll straight onto a monthly Bookkeeping plan from $250/mo so it never happens again. See the pricing page for the full picture.

How it works

Week 1 — gather and scope. We pull bank and card statements, prior filings, and whatever records exist, then map every month to its condition. You get the fixed-fee quote and a timeline.

Weeks 2–6 — reconstruction. Month by month, oldest first: transactions categorized, accounts reconciled as we go, gaps documented. You'll get short status updates — no silence for six weeks.

Hand-off — current and IRS-ready. You receive a reconciled, documented package your tax preparer can work from directly, plus a clean dashboard going forward. If you want, we roll straight into monthly service so the backlog never rebuilds.

What getting current unblocks

• Accurate tax returns — filed on real numbers, with deductions you can actually document.
• Loan and credit applications — lenders want 1–3 years of clean financials; backlog is an automatic no.
• Selling or raising someday — diligence on unreconciled books is a forensic accounting project; on clean books it's a checklist.
• Sleep. The low-grade dread of unopened bank statements is real, and it's optional.

Who it's for — and who it isn't

For any business that's behind and wants to get current with a known cost: construction outfits mid-project, e-commerce sellers whose books stopped when the store took off, restaurants after a chaotic year.

It's not for you if your books are current but messy — that's a standard Bookkeeping engagement, and it's cheaper. Not sure which you are? The free consultation answers that in 30 minutes.

Catch-up questions, answered

Do you need anything from me? Statements and access mostly — we pull most data from your bank and tools directly. The more you can hand over in week 1, the faster the quote.

Will you judge the mess? No. We've seen seven years of it. The mess is the job.

Can you fix last year before tax season? That's the most common request we get, and yes — scope and timeline are part of the fixed quote, and we'll tell you honestly if your deadline needs a phased approach.

What about the ongoing months while you catch up? We start keeping the current months current as part of the engagement, so the hole stops growing while we dig.