Catch-up & clean-up bookkeeping
Months or years of unreconciled accounts, a shoebox of receipts, a QuickBooks file you stopped opening — we take the whole backlog, reconcile every account, categorize every transaction, fix the prior mistakes, and hand you clean, tax-ready books. No judgment, no lectures. Just caught up.
I started Turnkey CFO to give small businesses and nonprofits clean, reliable books and financial reporting they can actually use. We catch up clients who are years behind, fix files other bookkeepers left a mess, and then keep the books current month after month. Based in Austin, TX; serving clients nationwide. We coordinate with your CPA on tax filings.
QuickBooks Online · Gusto · Ramp — professional liability insured — month-to-month, 30-day notice
Tell us how far behind you are — no prep required.
It rarely happens on purpose. A busy season turns into a busy year. The bookkeeper quit, or the software got confusing, or the receipts piled up and opening QuickBooks started to feel like opening a bill you couldn't pay. Now tax season is coming, a lender wants financials, or you simply have no idea whether the business is actually making money — and the books are too far gone to tell you. You are not the only business owner who has been here, and it is fixable.
What being behind actually costs you
Catch-up rebuilds the months or years that are missing. Clean-up fixes what's already in the file and wrong. Most situations need both — so we do them together, methodically, account by account.
We pull bank and credit card statements for every month you're behind and reconcile each account so the books tie out to reality. Reconciliation is the foundation — without it, every report downstream is a guess. We work backward to the last point your books were clean and forward to today.
Every transaction in the backlog gets reviewed and posted to the right account — income, cost of goods, operating expenses, owner activity. We use your bank feeds, receipts, and a short list of questions to code it correctly, instead of dumping everything into "uncategorized" and hoping.
Miscategorized transactions, duplicate entries, transactions sitting in suspense, payments recorded twice, deposits that were never matched — we find them and fix them. If a previous bookkeeper or a DIY year left the file tangled, untangling it is part of the job, not an extra.
Owner draws, personal expenses run through the business card, business costs paid from a personal account, and informal owner loans get sorted out and recorded properly. Mixed personal and business activity is one of the most common reasons a file looks profitable when it isn't — or the reverse.
When the backlog is reconciled and clean, we produce a tied-out P&L and balance sheet for each year — the financials your CPA needs to file accurately and on time. We coordinate directly with your CPA so the handoff is clean and there's no month of back-and-forth at the deadline.
Catch-up is the hard part — staying caught up is the easy part, once someone owns it. We move you onto monthly bookkeeping with a real monthly close, so you never wake up two years behind again. The books stay reconciled, current, and reporting-ready from here forward.
Tax filings and legal matters — coordinated with your CPA or attorney. Turnkey CFO does not provide tax or legal advice; we make your books accurate and filing-ready and support the process end-to-end.
The realities of cleaning up a behind-the-books situation — done methodically, not guessed at.
Reconstruction works backward to solid ground, then forward to today.
We find the last period your books were actually reconciled and correct, then rebuild every month since. Starting from a known-good baseline means the catch-up has a foundation instead of being a pile of assumptions stacked on top of each other.
Every reconstructed month is backed by an actual bank or card statement.
We don't reconstruct from what you remember spending — we pull the real statements and rebuild from the source records. That's what makes the result defensible if a lender, the IRS, or a future CPA ever asks where a number came from.
We ask you only what we genuinely can't determine from the records.
Catch-up does require some input — what an unusual transfer was, whether a charge was personal, how an owner contribution should be recorded. We batch those into a tight list so you answer once and we keep moving, instead of being interrupted every day with one-off questions.
We work in QuickBooks Online so you and your CPA share the same source of truth.
The cleaned-up books live in QuickBooks Online with role-scoped access. You see your numbers, your CPA sees what they need to file, and there's no emailing spreadsheet versions back and forth. If you're on another tool or spreadsheets, migration is part of the catch-up.
Clean books are the handoff your CPA actually wants.
Most filing-season pain isn't the filing — it's a month of cleanup the CPA has to do first. We deliver tied-out financials so your CPA can file from them directly. If you don't have a CPA, we can refer one who fits your situation.
Falling behind is normal. Fixing it is what we do every week.
We've caught up businesses that hadn't reconciled in three years and files that three different people half-finished. You won't get a lecture about how it got this way — you'll get a scope, a timeline, and clean books at the end. That's the whole job.
A clear path from "I have no idea where to start" to clean, current books.
Tell us how far behind you are, how many accounts are involved, and what's prompting the catch-up — taxes, a loan, or just needing to know the numbers. We scope it on the call.
You get a clear scope and timeline before we start. Then we reconcile every account, categorize the backlog, and fix prior errors — period by period — until you're current.
We hand you tied-out financials your CPA can file from, then move you onto a monthly close so the books stay reconciled and current going forward. No more falling behind.
Once you're current, see the services and industry pages most catch-up clients use.
After we catch you up, our monthly bookkeeping and close services keep the books reconciled and reporting-ready every month. See how pricing works or grab an instant estimate for your situation. For the fundamentals, our guide to small business bookkeeping is a good starting point.
We catch up books for businesses of every kind — restaurant bookkeeping, ecommerce bookkeeping, and construction bookkeeping among them. Once you're current, our writeup on cash flow management for small business shows what clean books make possible.
No. Years behind is normal for us. We reconstruct the books one period at a time — pulling bank and card statements, rebuilding the transaction history, reconciling each month, and bringing you current. The further behind you are, the more it matters that someone does it methodically rather than guessing.
Catch-up is reconstructing missing months or years of records. Clean-up is fixing what's already in the file — miscategorized transactions, duplicates, unreconciled accounts, personal expenses mixed with business, and balances that don't tie out. Most behind-the-books situations need both, and we do them together.
Yes — that's the goal. We produce reconciled, tied-out financial statements your CPA can file from without a month of back-and-forth. We coordinate directly with your CPA on what they need. We don't file taxes or give tax advice; we make sure the numbers are right so filing is clean.
Usually yes — we work in QuickBooks Online so the cleaned-up file is something you and your CPA can both access. If you're already on QBO, we work in your existing file and fix it. If you're on spreadsheets or another tool, we migrate and rebuild as part of the catch-up.
It depends on how far behind you are and how many accounts and transactions are involved — a few weeks for a single year, longer for multiple years or a messy file. After we review your situation on the intro call, we give you a clear scope and timeline before we start.
Once your books are current and clean, we keep them that way. We move you onto monthly bookkeeping so you never fall behind again — a monthly close, reconciled accounts, and reporting you can actually use to run the business.
Everything lives in QuickBooks Online, Gusto, and Ramp — enterprise-grade platforms with role-scoped access. Credentials are never shared by email and we maintain professional liability insurance.
Get your instant estimate, then book a 15-minute call to talk through how far behind you are and what it'll take to get current. No pressure, no judgment.