Bookkeeping cleanup, however far behind you are.
Six months behind, two years behind, or a QuickBooks file nobody has reconciled since the last bookkeeper left. We count what is actually in there, tell you the price before we start, and get every prior month closed.
No judgment about how bad it is. We have seen worse.
14 months behind
cleanupWhat a bookkeeping cleanup actually is
A cleanup brings books that have fallen behind, or that were kept wrong, back to a state you can file taxes and make decisions from. It is five jobs: categorizing the transactions nobody coded, reconciling every account against the real statements, correcting entries that were coded wrong the first time, removing duplicates and filling gaps, and formally closing each prior month so the totals stop moving.
Catch-up and cleanup are often used to mean the same thing. Where people separate them, catch-up is work that was never done, and cleanup is work that was done wrong. Most real engagements are some of both, and we price them the same way. Owner-led businesses usually land here after a stretch with nobody on the books, and the ongoing version of that job is what a small business bookkeeper does month to month.
If you are not sure how much of either you need, we do a free twenty-minute teardown. Share accountant access to QuickBooks or Xero and we will give you the ranked list of what is actually wrong before you decide anything.
“Until working with Median, our books were a black box. The platform gave us a real, granular view of where the money was going, and cutting unnecessary spend became obvious.”
Bank-level security. Your accounts connect through Plaid with read-only access. We never store your login and never move your money.
A real accountant on your books. AI does the volume, a real accountant owns the result. You always have a person accountable for your numbers.
What a cleanup costs
Most firms quote cleanup as a separate project, somewhere between a few hundred dollars and five figures, because they are pricing hours they cannot predict. It is worth asking what a monthly price actually includes before you compare two of them.
If you are starting ongoing bookkeeping with us, the cleanup is included. We bring your prior months current as part of onboarding, because books we did not fix are books we would be guessing from every month after. If you want the cleanup on its own, we scope it from the transaction count and quote it in writing before anyone starts. What runs after that is daily bookkeeping, so the backlog does not build back up.
What the cleanup covers
- Every uncategorized transaction coded, across every connected account
- All accounts reconciled to the actual bank and card statements
- Miscoded entries corrected, duplicates removed, missing periods filled
- Each prior month closed, with a P&L and balance sheet you can file from
- A written summary of what was wrong and what we changed
Ongoing bookkeeping after the cleanup is billed on the same published meter. See full pricing.
How the cleanup runs
We look at the file before we tell you anything
You give us read-only access to your books and your bank feeds. We count what is actually there: how many transactions are uncategorized, which accounts have never been reconciled, where the balances stop matching the statements. You get that picture, and a timeline, before you commit to anything.
The volume work runs through software
Every uncoded transaction is categorized against your own history, deposits are matched to payouts, and duplicates and gaps are flagged. This is the part that makes a hand-kept cleanup expensive, and it is the part machines are genuinely good at.
An accountant makes the judgment calls
Owner draws against expenses, commingled personal spending, prepaids that should be amortized, anything the software flagged as ambiguous. Where a document would settle it and we do not have one, we ask you rather than guess.
Each prior month gets closed properly
Accounts reconciled to the statements, month closed, totals fixed in place. You get a P&L and balance sheet for every period we cleaned, so you can file and so the numbers stop changing behind you.
Can AI clean up your QuickBooks?
Most of it, and the volume work is exactly where it helps. Software can code thousands of transactions against your own history, match deposits to payouts, and surface duplicates and gaps in minutes rather than weeks.
What it cannot do on its own is decide. Whether a payment was an expense or an owner draw, how to split a card you used for both the business and groceries, which prepaid should be amortized across the year. Those need an accountant, and where a document would settle it and we do not have one, we ask you rather than guess. All of it happens inside the file you already have, the same way our ongoing QuickBooks bookkeeping runs.
- Software does the categorizing, matching, and duplicate detection
- A real accountant reviews every judgment call before it posts
- Anything unresolvable comes back to you as a question, never a guess
14 months behind
cleanupBooks fall behind for ordinary reasons
The bookkeeper left and nobody picked it up
This is the most common one. Someone was handling it, they stopped, and the gap only became obvious at tax time. Nothing is wrong with the business, the record just stopped.
Bookkeeping for owner-led businessesYou grew faster than the process did
Transaction volume climbed, a Stripe account and two cards got added, and the spreadsheet that worked at the start quietly stopped reconciling. Common ahead of a raise or a diligence request.
Bookkeeping for software companiesCommon questions
Find out what your cleanup costs.
Give us read-only access and we will count what is actually in the file, then tell you what it takes to fix and how long it will run, before anyone starts work.
Or reach out directly: jacob@medianfi.com