Bookkeeping Cleanup Estimator

Catch-up bookkeeping is priced per month of backlog because that is how the work accumulates: every behind month contains a full cycle of categorization and reconciliation that has to be done regardless of when it happens. The estimator starts with a per-month base tied to your transaction volume, from roughly $100 to $200 for a light month under 50 transactions up to $400 to $700 for months with 400 or more.

Three adjustments scale that base. Each account beyond the first adds about 10%, since every bank and credit card account is a separate reconciliation. The condition of the books applies a multiplier: books that simply stopped are cheapest, partially done books cost about 15% more (existing entries must be verified, and wrong ones undone), and no-system situations run about 35% above base because everything starts from raw statements. Finally, complications stack: payroll during the backlog adds about 15%, sales tax about 15%, and commingled personal spending about 20%, because each adds a category of transactions that requires judgment rather than routine.

Months behind. The dominant factor, and it compounds in a way owners underestimate: waiting longer does not just add months, it degrades the source material. Statements get harder to retrieve, memories of what a $340 charge was for fade, and vendors and processors purge history. A 6-month cleanup started today is cheaper than the same 6 months cleaned up next year.

Condition, not just quantity. The counterintuitive one: books that were "sort of kept" often cost nearly as much as books never kept at all. Wrong entries have to be found before they can be fixed, and an unreconciled ledger cannot be trusted anywhere, so partially done work gets verified line by line. If you are choosing between doing your books badly and not doing them, badly is not obviously cheaper.

Commingling. Personal spending in business accounts is the single most expensive habit per transaction. Every mixed charge requires a decision (business, personal, or split), often a question to you, and a draw or equity entry. It also weakens the liability protection of an LLC or corporation and creates audit exposure, so the cleanup cost is the smallest of its prices.

Compliance layers. Payroll and sales tax during the backlog mean the cleanup is not just bookkeeping: filings may be missing or wrong, and collected-but-unremitted sales tax is a liability that accrues penalties. The cleanup surfaces these so they can be fixed deliberately rather than discovered by a notice.

A hypothetical e-commerce seller stopped doing her books in October and shows up the following July: 9 months behind, about 250 transactions a month across a checking account, two credit cards, and a payment processor. The books were "partially done" (she categorized through October but never reconciled), she has no payroll, she does have sales tax obligations, and a handful of personal charges hit the business cards each month.

The estimator's math: a 150-400 volume base of $250 to $450 per month, a 1.3x accounts adjustment for four accounts, a 1.15x condition multiplier, and 1.35x in complications (sales tax plus commingling). That lands the per-month figure around $560 to $1,010 and the project at roughly $5,000 to $9,000, with a 3-to-5-week timeline. A real quote would land inside that band after an account review, likely toward the lower end if her processor exports cleanly.

Why July matters: her prior-year return is on extension, due in the fall. The cleanup has to finish before the return can be prepared honestly, and rushing it into September costs more than starting in July. This sequencing problem is the most common way a $5,000 cleanup becomes a $7,000 one: the work gets compressed against a deadline that was visible months earlier.

Step 1: Scoping review. The firm looks at your accounts (read-only access or recent statements), counts the real backlog, and converts this page's range into a fixed project fee. Insist on fixed-fee for cleanup work; open-ended hourly billing on a reconstruction project misaligns incentives.

Step 2: Document gathering. You provide statements for every account over the period, processor reports, loan statements, payroll reports, and your last filed return. This is the step that sets the timeline, and it is almost entirely in your hands.

Step 3: Reconstruction and reconciliation. Transactions are imported or entered, categorized, and every account is reconciled month by month against statements. Questions come to you in batches (what was this vendor, is this charge business or personal), not as a daily drip.

Step 4: Review and handoff. The finished books tie to your bank statements and your last filed return, you get financial statements for the period, and open compliance items (missing 1099s, sales tax gaps, unfiled returns) are listed with a plan. From there, monthly service keeps you current, which costs less per month than the cleanup did, precisely because staying current is cheaper than catching up. Our catch-up bookkeeping service follows this sequence, and monthly bookkeeping is the maintenance plan that follows it.