What Actually Happens in a Bookkeeping Cleanup

If your books are behind, one of the scariest parts is not knowing what you’re signing up for. How long will it take? What will it cost? What will I need from you? Is this going to be painful?

So let me pull back the curtain. Here’s exactly what a bookkeeping cleanup looks like when you work with me, step by step.

Step 1: A free discovery call

It starts with a conversation. You tell me what’s going on: how far behind things are, what software you use (if any), and what prompted you to reach out. I’ll ask a few questions and tell you honestly whether I’m the right fit.

There’s nothing to prepare, and nothing you could say that would shock me.

Step 2: The Diagnostic Review

Before I quote a cleanup, I want to actually see your books. Guessing helps no one. In the Diagnostic Review, I look at your accounting software and your bank and credit card accounts to answer a few key questions:

• How far back does the work go?
• What’s missing, miscategorized, or unreconciled?
• Are business and personal transactions mixed together?
• What will it take to get everything accurate and tax-ready?

You get a step-by-step cleanup plan and a firm quote. The Diagnostic Review is $550–$900, depending on how many accounts you have and how far behind things are. You’ll know the exact price before I start.

Step 3: The cleanup itself

Once you approve the plan, I get to work. Depending on your situation, that usually includes:

• Catching up transactions for the missing months (or years)
• Reconciling every bank and credit card account to your statements
• Fixing categories so your reports actually make sense
• Separating out personal transactions
• Tying out your balance sheet so the numbers hold together

Along the way, I’ll reach out with questions about transactions I can’t identify. You won’t need to have every answer. “I don’t remember” is a perfectly normal response, and I’ll help you figure out the best way to handle it.

Step 4: The handoff

When the cleanup is done, you get clean, accurate, tax-ready books and a plain-English walkthrough of your reports. For a lot of my clients, this is the first time they’ve really seen what their business is doing, and it’s a great feeling.

Step 5: Choosing how to stay caught up

A cleanup stands on its own. There’s no obligation to sign up for anything afterward. But most people don’t want to end up back where they started, so I offer a few options depending on how hands-on you want to be:

• DIY Membership (from $79/month): training and simple routines so you can keep things clean yourself
• DIY + Quarterly Review (from $250/month): you do the work, and I review your books each quarter, before a quarterly meeting with you
• Monthly Bookkeeping (from $400/month): I handle it for you and send you clear monthly reports

What a cleanup is not

It’s not a judgment of you, your business, or your choices. Messy books almost always mean a busy owner, not a careless one. My job is to get the numbers right so they can help you make better decisions from here on out.

Ready to see where you stand? Book a free discovery call, or read more about how cleanup works.