Bookkeeping Clean Up and Catch Up Services for Small Businesses
Whether you’ve fallen behind on your books or inherited a financial mess, our bookkeeping cleanup services give you a clean slate, quickly and accurately. We handle the catch up bookkeeping so you can get back to running your business.
Why Your Business Needs Bookkeeping Clean Up Services
Bookkeeping clean up is the process of correcting, reconciling and rebuilding a set of accounting records that have fallen behind or gone wrong, so the business can file taxes and read its own numbers again. It is not the same as monthly bookkeeping. Monthly bookkeeping keeps accurate books accurate. Clean up fixes books that are already broken.
Most owners do not notice the problem until something forces them to look. A lender asks for two years of financials. A tax deadline arrives. An investor asks for a balance sheet. At that point the gap between what the books say and what the bank says has usually been growing for months.
GATP Solutions runs clean up as a fixed-scope project, separate from your ongoing work. We take the file as it is, correct the history, reconcile every account to a statement, and hand back financials you can file from. If you want the monthly work handled afterwards, our outsourced bookkeeping services pick up from the closing balances we deliver.
Signs Your Books Need a Clean Up
Your books need a clean up when the balances no longer agree with reality. These are the seven signals we see most often, and any one of them is enough on its own.
- Your bank balance and your book balance have not matched in more than one month.
- Your accounts receivable aging shows invoices you know were paid.
- Your chart of accounts has duplicate accounts, or an “Ask My Accountant” balance that keeps growing.
- Undeposited Funds holds a balance you cannot explain.
- Your last filed return used numbers you had to estimate.
- Prior-year retained earnings changed after the return was filed.
- Nobody has closed and locked a period in six months or more.
The Internal Revenue Service expects you to keep supporting records for three years from the date you filed the return, six years if you under-reported income by more than 25 percent of gross income, and indefinitely if a return was never filed at all. Employment tax records run four years. A backlog is not only a reporting problem. It is a documentation problem, and the clock does not start until the return is filed.
The longer a period stays open, the more of the original context disappears. Statements get archived, staff leave, and the person who entered the transactions is no longer there to explain them.
Comprehensive Bookkeeping Clean Up Services
We handle every layer of a clean up, from a single unreconciled quarter to three years of untouched transactions across multiple entities. Each service below is scoped and priced on its own, so you only buy the part you actually need. Ongoing monthly work runs through our outsourced accounting services once your books are current.
Catch Up Bookkeeping Services
We reconstruct months or years of unrecorded transactions, then close each period properly. Cloud based, so it works no matter how far behind you are. QuickBooks Online, Xero, FreshBooks and Wave supported.
Small Business Bookkeeping Cleanup
Daily transaction categorization, monthly bank reconciliations, error correction and a clean month-end close. We take the file as it is and hand back statements you can file from.
Startup Bookkeeping Cleanup
Accrual-basis rebuild, burn rate reporting, investor-ready financials and a cap-table-friendly chart of accounts, built correctly from day one so your next raise does not stall on diligence.
Historical and Backlog Clean Up
For records one to three years old. We rebuild from bank, credit card and merchant statements rather than trusting a ledger nobody can vouch for anymore.
General Ledger Clean Up
We clear suspense and Ask My Accountant balances, remove duplicate accounts, and rebuild your chart of accounts, then remap history so year-over-year reporting still compares.
Accounts Payable and Receivable Clean Up
We clear duplicate bills, apply unmatched payments, remove invoices already paid, and rebuild both aging reports. Ongoing work continues through our accounts payable cleanup and accounts receivable cleanup teams.
QuickBooks and Xero File Clean Up
Undeposited Funds that never clear, bank feed rules miscategorizing at scale, reconciliation discrepancies carried forward. Our full QuickBooks cleanup services walkthrough covers the twelve-step process.
Emergency and Tax Season Clean Up
A filing deadline, loan decision or audit notice inside thirty days. We prioritize the accounts the return depends on first, with a fixed delivery date.
Outsourced and Virtual Clean Up
A fully staffed finance function with no office overhead. CPA-supervised talent at 40 to 60 percent lower cost, with the same named team from scoping through delivery.
Bookkeeping Clean Up by Industry
Clean up looks different in every industry because different transactions break. These are the three we handle most.
Real Estate and Property Management
Real estate clean up centers on intercompany transactions, security deposits booked as income, and improvements expensed instead of capitalized. We rebuild property-level profit and loss so each asset carries its own numbers. See our property management accounting.
E-Commerce and Retail
Merchant settlements arrive net of fees, refunds and chargebacks, so bank deposits never equal platform sales. We rebuild gross revenue, separate processing fees as an expense, and reconcile every payout. See our e-commerce accounting.
Healthcare and Professional Practices
Practice clean up centers on insurance remittances posted gross, payroll and contractor misclassification, and owner compensation split incorrectly between salary and distribution.
How Much Does a Bookkeeping Clean Up Cost?
Bookkeeping clean up is priced by the number of months you are behind and the monthly transaction volume in those months, not by the hour. That is the only fair way to price it, because the work is finite and knowable once we have seen the file.
Three things move the price up: the number of accounts that need reconciling, the number of entities involved, and whether the period being cleaned has already been filed. A filed period costs more because correcting it may require an amended return.
Three things move it down: complete bank and credit card statements provided upfront, a single entity, and a file that is behind rather than wrong.
Every clean up starts with a free scoping call. We look at the file, count the months and the accounts, and give you one fixed fee and one delivery date before any work begins. There are no hourly overruns, because there are no hours on the invoice.
Full service pricing sits on our bookkeeping clean up pricing page. If you want to understand the repair sequence before you hire anyone, our guide covers how to clean up a backlog of accounting records step by step.
Clean Ups We Have Finished
Five Years of Receivables, Resolved
Five years of unreconciled accounts receivable and an aging report nobody trusted. Read the five-year accounts receivable backlog resolved case study.
Four Entities, Twelve Months Behind
Two Years of Payroll, Reclassified
A healthcare services company needed two years of payroll data corrected before an investor review. Read how two years of payroll data reclassified changed the reporting.
Where We Provide Bookkeeping Clean Up Services
We deliver clean up and catch up bookkeeping remotely across the United States and Canada, which means the work does not depend on where your office is. Everything runs through your existing cloud accounting file and a shared document folder.
We currently run active clean up engagements for businesses in Seattle and Bellevue in Washington, Portland, Medford, Klamath Falls, Grants Pass and Roseburg in Oregon, San Diego, Orange County and Laguna Hills in California, Nassau County, Long Island, Buffalo, Erie County and New York City in New York, Milwaukee in Wisconsin, Baltimore in Maryland, Sarasota in Florida, Toledo in Ohio, Atlanta in Georgia, and Honolulu in Hawaii.
Working remotely also means the clean up is not limited to business hours in one time zone. If you are searching for bookkeeping cleanup near you and the local firms are booked through tax season, a remote clean up team is usually faster and cheaper than waiting.
Why Businesses Choose GATP Solutions for Clean Up Services
Tax-Ready Financials, Fast
Every year of catch up bookkeeping we complete comes with a full Year-End Financial Package: income statement, balance sheet, general ledger, and more. Hand it straight to your CPA. Done.
Months or Years - We Handle It All
Our outsourced bookkeeping cleanup team can go back as far as your records need. Whether it is 3 months or 3 years of overdue books, we deliver accurate results.
AI-Powered Accuracy
We use automated import tools and AI-assisted categorization to process your data at scale. Every entry is peer-reviewed by our expert team for total accuracy.
Transparent Pricing
No hourly surprises, no hidden fees. Our bookkeeping clean up is priced per month of cleanup, so you know exactly what you are paying before we start.
Loan & Investor Ready
Dedicated Expert Team
You get a real team of accounting professionals, not a chatbot. From your first discovery call to the final reconciled report, the same team handles your books, start to finish.
How Our Bookkeeping Clean Up Process Works
Our six-step process gets your clean up scoped, started and delivered.
01
Free Discovery Call
We learn about your business, current financial situation, software in use, and how far behind your books are. No pressure, no obligations.
02
Document & Access Review
You share bank statements, receipts, invoices, and accounting software access. We audit what is there and what is missing.
03
Automated Data Import
Our AI-powered tools pull in transactions, match records, and flag discrepancies, which saves time and cuts human error.
04
Expert Reconciliation & Error Correction
Our bookkeeping cleanup specialists review every entry, categorize correctly, reconcile all accounts, and fix historical errors.
05
Quality Review
Every month of completed bookkeeping cleanup goes through a peer review process to ensure tax-ready, investor-ready accuracy.
06
Final Reports Delivered
You receive your complete Year-End Financial Package, or monthly reports, ready for your CPA, your bank, or your board.
Frequently Asked Questions About Bookkeeping Clean Up
What exactly is a bookkeeping clean up?
A bookkeeping clean up is a fixed-scope project that corrects, reconciles and rebuilds accounting records that have fallen behind or gone wrong, ending in financial statements you can file a tax return from.
What is the difference between clean up and catch up bookkeeping?
Catch up bookkeeping records transactions for periods that were never entered. Clean up corrects entries that exist but are wrong. Most businesses need catch up first, then clean up on what the catch up exposes.
Which bookkeeping service can clean up messy books fast?
A clean up specialist with a fixed-scope process is faster than a general bookkeeper, because the work is scoped, priced and staffed as a project with a delivery date rather than absorbed into monthly hours. GATP Solutions scopes every clean up on a free call and commits to a delivery date before work starts.
How much does a bookkeeping clean up cost?
Clean up is priced by how many months you are behind and the monthly transaction volume in those months, quoted as one fixed fee after a free scoping call, with no hourly overruns.
How far back can you go? Can you clean up three years of books?
Yes. We routinely clean up three years of records, and we work from bank, credit card and merchant statements rather than from the existing ledger when history that old cannot be trusted.
How long does a bookkeeping clean up take?
Most single-entity clean ups of twelve months or less finish inside two to four weeks from the date we receive complete statements, and the delivery date is fixed before work begins.
When does a business need bookkeeping cleanup services?
A business needs clean up when the bank balance and book balance have not matched for more than a month, when the last return used estimated numbers, or when a lender, investor or tax authority has asked for financials the current books cannot produce.
Do you provide bookkeeping cleanup services near me?
Yes. We deliver clean up and catch up bookkeeping remotely across the United States and Canada, which means you are not limited to firms in your own city, and remote teams are usually faster and cheaper than waiting for a local firm booked through tax season.
Can you clean up my QuickBooks Online file?
Yes. We work inside your existing QuickBooks Online file rather than migrating you, and we fix the recurring problems: Undeposited Funds balances that never clear, bank feed rules miscategorizing at scale, and reconciliation discrepancies carried forward.
Do you handle accrual clean up?
Yes. We convert cash-basis records to accrual and rebuild accounts receivable, accounts payable, prepaid expenses and accrued liabilities. If the conversion changes your tax accounting method, the Internal Revenue Service requires Form 3115, Application for Change in Accounting Method, and we prepare the supporting schedules for it.
Can you fix errors made by a previous bookkeeper?
Yes. Correcting prior work is most of what clean up is, including misposted journal entries, expenses booked to balance sheet accounts, duplicated transactions and retained earnings that shifted after a return was filed.
Can you clean up my books before tax season?
Yes. Tax season clean up is a compressed engagement where we prioritize the accounts the return depends on first, which are bank, credit cards, loans, payroll liabilities and owner equity.
Do you offer general ledger clean up and chart of accounts setup?
Yes. We rebuild the chart of accounts to match how the business actually operates and remap prior periods to the new structure so year-over-year reporting stays comparable.
What happens after the clean up is finished?
You receive reconciled financial statements for every closed period, a reconciliation report for each account, and a closing balance file. You can take those to your own accountant, or we can continue the monthly work from the closing balances we delivered.
Ready for Comprehensive Clean Up Services?
Tell us where your books stand and we will build a custom cleanup plan. Flat-rate pricing, no surprises, no stress.
Scale Faster. Stress Less. Free Consultation, No Contracts. Or Pay 50% Less.