Catch-up bookkeeping

A two-year catch-up at typical small-business volume takes about 10 business days once source documents are in, because we run the months in parallel. It was never 24 sequential one-month jobs. What really drives the timeline is how quickly the client's bank statements and receipts for the missing period can be gathered, not the number of months. How long catch-up bookkeeping takes breaks down where the days go.

Usually yes. Three years behind is roughly 36 months of backlog priced per month rather than one alarming project fee. The published rate with 20% off is the most it costs, and from 12 months we quote it individually, with a larger discount. Because we work the months in parallel it never takes three years to fix three years: at about 5 business days per year of backlog, three years is roughly 15 business days once statements are in. The cost of leaving a client behind is usually a lender, a buyer or a filing deadline that won't wait, and that tends to be the bigger number.

Whichever months your firm needs soonest, usually the most recent quarter, because that's what a lender or a landlord or a loan application is asking about right now. Everything else runs behind it in parallel instead of waiting for the oldest month to finish first. That's the opposite order most people expect, and it's the reason a multi-year catch-up doesn't take years.

If there's a specific deadline, whether that's a tax filing, an SBA loan underwriting request or a due diligence data room, tell us before work starts. We'll schedule that month or quarter against your date instead of queueing it behind the rest of the backlog.

Client files with real bank and card statements for the missing period, even if nothing was ever entered from them. A restaurant that has run three years on a spreadsheet next to QuickBooks. A contractor whose bookkeeper left and was never replaced. If the source documents exist, we can enter the backlog however long it's been.

It's not the right fit if the months in question were entered at all, even badly, since that's cleanup, the same rate but a different job. Most inherited files turn out to need some of each, and which one a file needs covers the four checks that settle it plus the order to work in. If years of missing records make reconstructing the past impractical, read our guide on whether you should start a new QuickBooks file instead.

Bank and credit card statements for the full backlog period. QuickBooks' bank feed only reaches back as far as the bank allows, from 90 days to 24 months, so older months usually need statements downloaded straight from the bank. Beyond that: accountant-level QuickBooks access, any payroll reports for the period, and loan or lease agreements if the client carries debt. After the file review we send your firm a specific, numbered list instead of a generic checklist. To start gathering before then, the general document request list (Excel) is free.

QuickBooks' bank feed only downloads as much history as the bank allows at connection time, between 90 days and 24 months depending on the bank, so a catch-up reaching back further almost always needs statements downloaded straight from the bank, usually from its own online portal and sometimes by request if the account has been closed. This drives how long a catch-up takes more than transaction volume does, and it's the one part of the schedule that depends on the client rather than on us. What the feed does and does not carry covers the limit and the file formats older history has to arrive in.

Some banks make historical statements genuinely hard to reach, charging a fee per statement or capping how far back an online account shows. Where that happens we flag it specifically instead of letting it quietly stall a month's worth of work.

We request access the day you agree to the engagement, then inventory exactly which months are missing what. Some are missing everything, some just need reconciling. You get a month-by-month plan back with the document list for each, and work starts on whichever months already have statements attached, so the earliest months are never left waiting on the latest ones.

Each missing month moves through the same three states (statements gathered, transactions entered, then account reconciled), tracked as a count of months still open instead of one end-of-project report. Eighteen open at the start of the engagement, five open at the midpoint with a handful still gathering statements, zero open when every month is entered and reconciled to its statement.

Payroll runs are entered from the client's payroll provider reports rather than reconstructed from the bank feed alone, since a single net-pay deposit hides tax withholding and employer contributions that need their own accounts. Loan payments get split between principal and interest using the lender's amortization schedule instead of being booked as one flat expense. That shortcut is common in files nobody entered correctly the first time, and correcting it is one of the more consequential things a catch-up does to the reported profit.