How people end up here
Almost never through carelessness. Usually through one of these.
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The bookkeeper stopped.
They got overloaded, or took the retainer and went quiet, and by the time it was obvious, half a year had gone by. Now there is a deadline and a gap.
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You have been doing it yourself.
It worked while the business was small. Then it got busy, bookkeeping became the thing that could always wait a week, and a week became a year.
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The books exist but they are wrong.
Nothing is missing. It is all just in the wrong place, and the totals have not tied to anything real in a long time.
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Something forced the issue.
A lender wants financials, the CPA refused to file from what you sent, or a notice arrived. Suddenly the books are urgent.
How cleanup gets priced
This is where most people have been burned before, so it is worth being precise about.
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We look first
A review of the actual file and whatever source documents exist. We find out how many periods are affected, whether the prior work can be salvaged or has to be rebuilt, and where the structural errors are.
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Then we quote a fixed price
Once we know the scope, you get a number and a timeline. Not an estimate that moves later. If we misjudge it, that is our problem, because we are the ones who looked. Where the work genuinely cannot be bounded up front it runs at $120 an hour against a ceiling you approve first.
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Then the work happens
Reconstructed from source documents and reconciled period by period, so the closing balance of each month is defensible rather than assumed.
We do not give blind flat fees on books nobody has opened. That practice is why so much of this work has to be done twice.
What you have at the end
Reconciled accounts for every period covered, financial statements your CPA can file from, and a written note of anything we found that you should know about, including the things you will not enjoy hearing.
From there, most people move onto monthly work so it never happens again. Some take the clean file and carry on themselves, which is a perfectly good outcome and we will set you up to do it.
Questions we get
How far behind is too far behind?
There is no such thing. We have picked up files that were years behind with no reconciliations in between. It changes the scope and the price, not whether the work can be done. Being embarrassed about it is the only thing that actually delays people.
How much does cleanup cost?
Cleanup runs at $120 an hour, and in most cases we convert that into a fixed price once the review has shown us the scope. It is quoted after we look, never before. Anyone giving you a flat price for books they have not opened is either padding heavily or about to come back asking for more.
How long does it take?
A single messy year is usually a few weeks. Multiple years, or a file where the prior bookkeeper made structural errors, takes longer. You get a timeline with the quote, before you commit to anything.
What if my last bookkeeper made a mess?
That is most of this work. We are not going to make you feel bad about it, and we do not need to speak to them. We reconstruct from source documents: bank statements, merchant reports, payroll records and loan documents.
Will this fix my tax situation?
It gives your CPA something accurate to file from, which is often the actual problem. We do not prepare returns. If the cleanup surfaces something that needs a tax professional, we will tell you plainly and you can take it to yours.
Start with a look at your actual books.
No cost, no obligation, and no sales pitch. You get a straight answer about where your books stand, and you can do whatever you want with it.
Prefer to talk first? (833) 653-7545 or hello@gotomybookkeeper.com