Months or years behind? We rebuild and reconcile your books to a clean, lender-ready set of financials — for one fixed fee, with no judgment about how it got this way.
Free diagnostic review · Fixed fee quoted before work starts · No judgment
Catch-up bookkeeping is recording and reconciling every business month that was never entered — from the last period your books were accurate through today. A bookkeeper works oldest month forward from bank, card, loan, and processor statements, rebuilds the chart of accounts where it's broken, and issues a P&L and balance sheet for each period. Owners and lenders also call it backlog, overdue, delinquent, or retroactive bookkeeping; the work is identical.
Is it worth it? If you file taxes, apply for financing, or price your own jobs, yes. Unreconciled books mean missed deductions, an underwriter who won't proceed, and margins you're guessing at. A one-year catch-up in Houston typically costs less than the deductions it recovers.
Cleanup is priced by formula everywhere: the monthly rate multiplied by how many months are open. Here are the ranges we see in the Houston market, published so you can compare a quote before you sign it.
Per month behind
$250–$400
Houston cleanup is priced per open month. Simple single-entity files sit at the low end; payroll, sales tax, or multi-entity work sits at the high end.
One year behind (typical)
$2,500–$3,500
Twelve open months reconciled, chart of accounts rebuilt, and a year-end packet your CPA can file from.
Ongoing after cleanup
From $150/mo
Once you're current, flat monthly bookkeeping keeps the file clean so you never pay for a second cleanup.
Every project is quoted as one fixed fee after the free diagnostic review — never an open hourly meter. Compare against our 2026 Houston bookkeeping & CFO pricing benchmarks or read what bookkeeping actually costs in Houston.
If you'd rather do the catch-up yourself, this is the order we work in. Following it matters more than the software you use — most DIY catch-ups stall because they start in the wrong month.
Stuck on step three, or out of hours? That's what the fixed-fee cleanup is for — see what DIY bookkeeping really costs in your own hours.
Cleanup, catch-up, back bookkeeping, QuickBooks fix — owners use all of these for the same underlying problem: the books can't be trusted. Here's how we scope each one.
Transactions are in the file but wrong: miscategorized expenses, duplicated deposits, unreconciled accounts, a balance sheet that doesn't tie to statements. Cleanup means correcting what's already recorded and documenting every change for your CPA.
The months were never recorded at all. We enter and reconcile each open period from bank, card, loan, and processor statements, working oldest month forward until you're current.
The file structure itself is the problem — a chart of accounts that doesn't match the business, opening balances that were never set, bank feeds matched to the wrong accounts. We rebuild the file so next year stays clean.
Usually what a lender or the IRS calls it when returns are late or unfiled. We reconstruct the prior years, produce statements per period, and hand your CPA a filing-ready packet.
Whichever one describes your situation, the first step is the same: a free diagnostic review of the file, then one written fixed fee covering every open month. Need the monthly side handled after the cleanup? See our Houston bookkeeping services or compare cleanup and monthly bookkeeping pricing.
Tell us how far behind you are. We review the file free and send back the exact price to get current — no hourly meter, no obligation.
Starting monthly bookkeeping on top of a broken file just documents the mess going forward. If any of these are true, the history has to be rebuilt first.
Every bank, credit card, loan, and merchant account reconciled month by month back to your last clean period — so the balances actually tie to statements.
We rebuild the file itself, not just the numbers. A cleanup that leaves the chart of accounts broken guarantees you'll be back here next year.
Most files we clean up were already being kept by someone. We find what was mis-posted and document what changed and why.
The point of a cleanup isn't tidy data entry — it's usable financials. You leave with statements a CPA can file from and a bank can underwrite.
We look inside the file, count the open months, and tell you exactly what's broken — reconciliations, chart of accounts, payroll, sales tax. No charge and no lecture.
You get one written price for the whole catch-up before any work starts, based on months behind and transaction volume — not an open hourly meter.
We work oldest month forward, reconciling as we go, and send progress updates. Most catch-ups finish in two to four weeks depending on how far back we go.
You get clean statements for every period plus a documented list of corrections for your CPA. From there, monthly bookkeeping keeps it from happening again.
There's no limit we haven't handled. Two months, two years, or a file nobody has touched since the business opened — we reconcile back to the last period that was genuinely clean and rebuild forward from there. Going back further costs more only because there are more months to reconcile, not because it's harder.
Catch-up work is quoted as a fixed fee based on how many months are open and how many transactions run through them per month, not by the hour. A straightforward single-entity file with a few hundred transactions a month costs far less than a multi-entity file with payroll and sales tax issues. You get the full price in writing after the free diagnostic review, before any work begins.
Most catch-up projects finish in two to four weeks once we have bank statement access and prior-year returns. Files with payroll corrections, multiple entities, or missing statements take longer, and we tell you that up front rather than discovering it halfway through.
Read-only or accountant access to QuickBooks Online, statements for every business bank and credit card account covering the open period, your last filed tax return, and payroll reports if you have employees. If statements are missing, we help you pull them from the bank.
They overlap but aren't identical. Catch-up means the months were never recorded at all. Cleanup means transactions are in the file but wrong — miscategorized, duplicated, or never reconciled. Most real projects need both, which is why we scope them together as one fixed-fee engagement.
No. Behind books almost always mean the business was busy growing, not that the owner failed. We've cleaned up files that hadn't been reconciled in three years. We tell you what it takes to fix and we get to work.
Often, yes. Our loan advisory is led by a 40+ year banking veteran, so we know what an underwriter actually opens first. If your timeline is tight, say so on the first call and we'll tell you honestly whether the cleanup can be finished before your application window.
Accounting cleanup services correct books that already exist but can't be relied on — unreconciled bank and credit card accounts, expenses dumped into Uncategorized, duplicated income, personal spending mixed into business accounts, and a balance sheet that doesn't tie to statements. The deliverable is corrected financials per period plus a written list of what changed and why, so your CPA can file and a lender can underwrite from them.
We work with businesses across Houston and the surrounding suburbs — Sugar Land, Katy, Cypress, Spring, Klein, Tomball, Conroe, The Woodlands, Pearland, and Jersey Village. Everything runs remotely through QuickBooks Online and secure document sharing, with calls when you want them, so location never slows the cleanup down.
Yes — most of our cleanup work is exactly that. We reconcile against source statements rather than trusting the existing entries, correct prior-period postings, tie payroll back to the provider's reports, and rebuild sales tax liability so remittances match collections. You get the corrections documented rather than silently overwritten.
Yes. We reconstruct each year separately so every return has its own supporting statements, then hand your CPA or tax preparer a year-by-year packet. If prior returns need amending because the original numbers were wrong, the correction schedule shows exactly which figures moved.
Catch-up bookkeeping is the process of recording and reconciling every business month that was never entered, from the last period the books were accurate through today. A bookkeeper works oldest month forward from bank, credit card, loan, and processor statements, rebuilds the chart of accounts if needed, and produces a P&L and balance sheet for each period. It is also called backlog, overdue, delinquent, or retroactive bookkeeping — the work is the same.
It is if you file taxes, borrow money, or want to know your margins. Without reconciled books you overpay tax on missed deductions, you can't pass an underwriter's review, and you price jobs on guesses. A one-year catch-up in Houston typically runs $2,500–$3,500 — usually less than the deductions most owners recover in the same cleanup.
Pull all twelve months of statements before you touch the file, then work the oldest month first, reconciling each account to the statement before you categorize anything. Clear Uncategorized Expense and Ask My Accountant, separate owner draws from business expense, tie payroll and sales tax to outside reports, and lock each month with a closing date once it reconciles. Working newest-first is the mistake that makes a DIY catch-up take twice as long.
File an extension so you're not filing off numbers you can't support, and start the cleanup immediately. Extensions delay the return, not the payment, so we prioritize reconciling the accounts that drive taxable income first and get your CPA an estimate to pay against while the rest of the file is rebuilt.
Three different jobs — which one your books actually need
Monthly books, QuickBooks setup, loan prep
What monthly bookkeeping and cleanup cost
Sourced market rates you can compare against
What doing it yourself really costs in hours
Once the books are current, forecast the next 13 weeks of cash
Local service area page
What lenders require, step by step
The exact sequence we follow on a Houston cleanup: what to gather, how to reconcile oldest month forward, what to clear before you categorize, and how to close each period so it never reopens.
Answer three questions and we'll show you the likely scope and next step before you send anything. Then we confirm it in writing after looking inside the file — one fixed fee, no hourly meter.