What monthly bookkeeping includes
Bookkeeping is not data entry. The point of the general ledger is to produce numbers a business owner can make decisions from, which means the coding has to be consistent, the reconciliations have to be complete, and the close has to happen while the information is still relevant.
- Bank, credit card and merchant account reconciliations for every account, every month
- Accounts payable: bill entry, approval routing, scheduled payment runs
- Accounts receivable: invoicing, aging review, collections follow-up
- Chart of accounts design that matches how you actually run the business
- Sales tax calculation and filing across every state where you have nexus
- Fixed asset schedules, depreciation and prepaid amortization
- Month-end close with a documented checklist and a review step
How the close works
We close by the tenth business day of the following month. The sequence is fixed so nothing gets skipped: transactions are coded and reconciled in the first week, accruals and prepaids are booked, the balance sheet is reviewed line by line, then the package goes out with a short written commentary on what moved and why.
You get a P&L, balance sheet, cash flow statement, and an AR and AP aging. If something in the numbers needs explaining, it gets explained before you have to ask.
Catch-up and cleanup work
Most companies come to us with a backlog. Uncategorized transactions running into the thousands, a balance sheet with suspense accounts, prior year books that do not tie to the filed return. That is normal and it is fixable.
Cleanup is scoped separately from the ongoing monthly work. We reconstruct the ledger from source documents, tie the opening balances to the last filed return, and document every adjusting entry so your CPA and any future auditor can follow the trail.
The software we work in
We work in your stack rather than forcing a migration. QuickBooks Online and Xero for the ledger, Bill.com for payables, Gusto for payroll, Ramp or Brex for spend, Avalara for sales tax. If you are on something we would not recommend, we will say so, but we will not make a conversion a condition of working together.
Frequently asked questions
How quickly can you take over our books?
Onboarding usually takes two to three weeks. We need read access to your accounting file and bank feeds, the last filed tax return, and a short call to walk through how revenue and costs are structured. If there is a backlog to clear first, that runs in parallel.
Do we keep using QuickBooks?
Yes. We work inside your existing file and your existing subscriptions. You retain ownership of the data and the login at all times.
Is bookkeeping separate from tax filing?
They are separate engagements but they are designed to connect. Books maintained with the return in mind mean no scramble in March and no surprise adjusting entries after the fact.