Outsourced bookkeeping for CPA firms

Once a year, priced per client, we hand you a fully categorized and reconciled QuickBooks file with a clean trial balance and a written list of anything that needs a judgment call from you. It's built to be reviewed once, not re-entered, and it is emphatically not a data dump. If a client file is assembled in-house instead, the seven-item handoff checklist (Excel) is free.

The pack works whether the client's file was maintained reasonably well all year or needs real fixing first. A straightforward file gets categorized and reconciled as it stands. One that needs correcting first has that priced separately, as either cleanup or catch-up, so the year-end figure isn't quietly inflated by work the client could have avoided with better upkeep during the year.

Some referred clients need the file current all year instead of caught up once. That's the same monthly bookkeeping offer we run directly, closed by the 5th business day, starting at the Standard band priced above. The close that runs inside that window is seven steps in a fixed order, published, so you can see what a month actually gets before you refer a client into it.

If your firm would rather this work carried no name of ours anywhere the client can see, that's how we run referred engagements by default. The client sees your firm. The file just arrives clean.

A client who starts the year behind doesn't need two separate engagements. Catch-up and monthly close run as one continuous piece of work, with the catch-up portion priced per month of backlog and the monthly cadence starting the moment the file is current, so there's no gap between “caught up” and “current.”

Yes, in batches. Send the client list once instead of a referral at a time and we scope each file individually against your filing deadlines rather than queueing them in the order they arrived. A firm sending 15 clients ahead of an October deadline and 15 more ahead of March gets two separate schedules, not one crowded one.

Each client is still priced as its own handoff pack or monthly engagement. There's no volume figure that quietly changes per-client pricing, because the work on a file doesn't get easier just because more files arrive with it.

Three ways, and they are hard to compare until they are put in the same unit. Software platforms such as Botkeeper charge a licence per client entity, and your own staff still do the bookkeeping. Offshore staffing firms such as QX, TOA Global and Etisson sell hours or a dedicated person, usually with a monthly minimum, so the cost per client depends on how full you keep the seat. A few price per client file, which is how Ledgerbrook works: $99 a client file a month for the standard band, with no minimum and no seat to fill.

The published figures for each, with links to where they came from, are in the provider comparison on this page. Per-seat pricing is usually cheaper per hour once a firm has enough work to keep someone busy all month. Per-file pricing is cheaper below that, and it stops costing anything the month a client leaves.

Handoff packs are scheduled to land before you need them instead of during the week you need them. Most firms send their client list 6 to 8 weeks ahead of a filing deadline, which leaves room to catch and fix a messy file before it's due instead of discovering the mess when the deadline is already close. Send it later than that and we'll still take it on, with a little less flexibility on which client goes first.

A client list with authorization to be added as an accountant user on each file, contact details for whoever at the client company can answer flagged-item questions, and your filing deadlines so we can schedule delivery ahead of them, not on top of them. One authorization email covering the whole batch is plenty. We don't need a separate signed form per client.

If a client's QuickBooks login sits with them instead of your firm, we're happy to send the access request straight to the client with your firm named as the reason, so you're not the one chasing credentials from someone slow to answer email.

Each client's pack arrives within 5 business days of us being granted access, provided the prior year's file is current. For a file that needs catching up first, it runs on the same per-month timeline as any other catch-up engagement, scheduled against your deadline rather than worked one file at a time.

We request accountant access for the batch you've sent, read each file quickly, and send back a per-client status: ready as it stands, needs a small cleanup first, or needs a full catch-up. All of that lands before any work starts, so nothing gets billed as a surprise once filing season is already underway.

A handoff pack closes the bookkeeping gap, not the tax-preparer gap, and nothing here substitutes for your own review of the return. We categorize and reconcile every transaction and flag anything ambiguous, but book-to-tax adjustments, depreciation elections and any entry needing a professional judgment call about the return itself stay in your hands, listed clearly instead of guessed at on your behalf. The routine entries we do post are worked through in the journal entry reference, including the ones that should never be typed as journal entries in QuickBooks Online at all.

Payroll entries come from the client's payroll provider reports, not being reconstructed from bank deposits, so net pay, tax withholding and employer contributions each land in their own account instead of one lump “payroll expense” figure. If the client changed payroll provider mid-year we use both providers' reports, so the split stays accurate across the transition instead of approximated.

CPA and EA firms with clients who keep their own QuickBooks file, well or badly, and would rather hand off write-up work than staff it internally or push it back on the client to fix before filing. It fits equally well for one referred client or a standing batch sent every year.

It's not the right fit if a client's records exist only on paper with no QuickBooks file at all. That's a new file setup first, before a handoff pack has anything to work from.