Service
Bookkeeping cleanup
Your books exist, but you don't trust them. Dave finds what's wrong, fixes it, and documents what changed.
Cleanup is for books that are present but wrong. Expenses in the wrong categories. Duplicate transactions from a bank feed gone sideways. Accounts that haven't been reconciled in a year. Business and personal spending sharing a card. Income overstated because refunds never got recorded, which is the expensive kind of wrong.
Dave starts by reviewing your books and telling you what he finds, including what's already fine. Then he works through it: recategorizing, removing duplicates, reconciling every account, and separating what belongs to the business from what doesn't. You get a record of what changed and why.
One example from his desk: a business owner arrived with 18 to 19 months of messy, uncapped books. They left with clean records, reports they could read, and books their CPA could file from. That project is typical of what cleanup looks like.
Cleanup projects are paired with ongoing monthly service, planned as at least a year together. Books that get cleaned once and then abandoned drift right back. Dave would rather fix them and keep them fixed.
Cleanup fits when
- Your reports don't match reality and you've stopped looking at them
- Your CPA sent your books back with questions you can't answer
- Business and personal spending are mixed together
- You're switching from DIY or a bookkeeper who let things slide
What a cleanup includes
- A full review of your books, with an honest assessment first
- Recategorized transactions and removed duplicates
- Every bank and credit card account reconciled
- Business and personal spending separated
- Documentation of what changed
- A monthly plan so it stays fixed
Questions about bookkeeping cleanup
How long does a cleanup take?
It depends on how many months and accounts are involved. Dave scopes it after reviewing your books, and the proposal includes a clear timeline. Simple cleanups take days; deep multi-year tangles take longer.
Will Dave judge the state of my books?
No. In his words: he has seen worse. Owners apologize for their books on almost every first call, and the apology is never necessary. Being behind is normal. Staying behind is the problem.
What if my books are in spreadsheets, not QuickBooks?
That's workable. Dave has done books in Google Sheets and can either clean up what you have or move you into QuickBooks with a proper setup as part of the project.
What's the difference between cleanup and catch-up?
Cleanup fixes what was entered wrong. Catch-up records months that were never entered at all. Many businesses need both, and Dave scopes each after the review.
Keep reading
Stop avoiding your books.
Book a free consultation. Dave will look at where your books stand, tell you what they need in plain language, and you will know if it's a fit. If you're embarrassed about the state of things, don't be. He's seen worse.