Catch up before the tax deadline
The order to catch up in when a filing date is close: dates first, then statements, then reconcile month by month.
Read moreBookkeeping
Catch-up bookkeeping services
Months behind. Maybe years. We can fix that.
Catch-up brings every missing month into your QuickBooks® file, reconciled month by month until the books are current and your CPA can file. Priced per month behind, from 60–90% of the monthly fee, at a fixed fee in writing before any work starts.
$2,000–$20,000+ · 2–10 weeksWhat sets the price
What you can check before you sign
- Fixed fee, written first
- Your own QuickBooks file
- No hourly billing
If your file needs our paid diagnostic first, its fee is credited in full against the cleanup. Either way, you get a fixed fee in writing before any work starts.
§ 01 · The engagement
What catch-up actually is.
§ The engagement
Catch-up bookkeeping enters the months that were never recorded and brings the books current, for one fixed fee of $2,000–$20,000+ priced by the months behind, typically 2–10 weeks. Each missing month is entered from your statements and reconciled before the next, oldest first. Entries already in the file that are wrong are cleanup, a separate engagement.
A backlog isn’t static — it’s a liability that compounds. Each month you don’t enter and reconcile, the missing transactions get harder to reconstruct, source documents get harder to retrieve, and the eventual engagement gets larger. We call this historical accounting debt: like an unpaid balance accruing interest, the principal is the months of backlog and the interest is the rising complexity of clearing them. Catch-up pays it down — methodically, oldest period first — until your books are current and you’re back on a clean monthly footing.
They took something that felt overwhelming to me as a first-year business owner and made it simple.
What stood out the most was TechBrot Inc’s attention to detail.
Intuit QuickBooks Certification Level 2 and QuickBooks Workforce Certification,
§ 02 · Is it time?
Signs you need catch-up bookkeeping.
01
You stopped doing bookkeeping six months ago — or longer.
Bookkeeping is the easiest thing to deprioritize when the business gets busy. Backlogs compound quickly. Catch-up brings everything current in one engagement. You’re far from unusual, either — and the length of the backlog matters less than how long the books went unchecked against the bank. Our checklist on QuickBooks accuracy walks through how to tell where your file actually stands.02
Tax season is approaching and the books are nowhere near ready.
Pre-tax catch-ups are routine. Book the backlog review call by early February to file on time. Multi-year backlogs may require an extension — we’ll tell you which path fits.03
Your books are structurally fine but transactions are missing.
Different from cleanup. If the chart of accounts works and prior periods were done correctly, catch-up just fills the gap. No restructuring needed.04
You started using QuickBooks but never finished entering historical data.
Common after switching software. Catch-up backfills the missing periods using bank statements and payroll records so the file is complete.05
A lender or buyer needs current financials by a deadline.
SBA applications, lines of credit, and business sales require current books. Catch-up engagements are routinely scoped to a specific lender or buyer deadline.06
You want to start monthly bookkeeping from a known-current state.
Monthly engagements start from a current baseline. Catch-up gets you to that baseline, then the same preparer continues with monthly — seamless transition.§ 03 · At a glance
Catch-up bookkeeping, from scope to sign-off.
| Question | Catch-up bookkeeping |
|---|---|
| Scope | Records what was never entered: every month the file is behind, up to the current month, entered from bank, credit-card and payroll statements and reconciled period by period, with payroll and sales tax verified. |
| What you provide | Accountant-user access to your QuickBooks file; for every account, the statements for the backlog period (bank, credit card, loan); the payroll reports and sales-tax filings for the same months; the date of the last reconciliation that tied; and answers to one batched list of transactions the statements can’t explain. |
| The steps | 1. Backlog diagnostic and a written fixed-fee scope, within 3 business days. 2. Entry and reconciliation, oldest month first, each month reconciled before the next opens, typically 2–8 weeks. 3. Statements through the current month, typically 3–5 business days. 4. Transition: bank rules and a close checklist, then monthly bookkeeping or your own accountant. |
| An example | A business three to six months behind: each month’s bank and card activity entered from the statements and reconciled before the next month opens, payroll and sales tax checked against what was filed, and statements produced through the current month, typically in two to three weeks. |
| Not included | Correcting entries already in the file that are wrong (cleanup, scoped first when a file needs both); monthly bookkeeping once the books are current (optional, priced separately); late or amended tax returns, which your CPA or EA files from the books we hand over. |
| Timeline | 2–10 weeks: a three-to-six-month backlog, 2–3 weeks; twelve to twenty-four months, 4–6 weeks; a multi-year backlog, 8–10 weeks. The written scope fixes the timeline. |
| What “done” means | Every month of the backlog entered and reconciled to its statement, with any difference investigated and documented, never plugged; payroll liabilities reconciled to the filed returns; P&L, balance sheet and cash-flow statements through the current month, reviewed by a Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor against TechBrot’s written close standard; and a written summary of the periods covered. |
| Next step | Call or send the details. The backlog diagnostic counts the months behind, the transactions outstanding and the accounts to reconcile, and the written fixed-fee scope follows within 3 business days, before any work begins. |
| When it isn’t the right service | Entries already in the file are wrong (unreconciled, miscategorized or duplicated): bookkeeping cleanup, which comes first when a file needs both. A gap of a few months on one or two accounts may be one you can clear yourself: the test below. |
§ 04 · How it happens
Why books fall behind.
Nobody plans to be a year behind. The backlogs we clear start the same few ways, and knowing which one is yours changes what the catch-up has to include.
The bookkeeper left. A part-time bookkeeper, an office manager, a family member who “did the books” — they leave, and the routine leaves with them. Nobody else knows the bank rules or where the receipts go, so the safest thing is to touch nothing. The gap starts the month after the handover that never happened.
The owner was the bookkeeper. It worked at the start. Then the business grew, and bookkeeping became the one job that could be pushed to next week without a customer noticing. Weeks of next week add up to a quarter, and a quarter is where the dread sets in.
A software or bank change broke the routine. A move to QuickBooks with the history never finished. A new bank account whose feed was never connected. A feed that disconnected in a browser update and silently stopped pulling. Everything after that point exists at the bank and nowhere else.
Payroll or sales tax got complicated. A second state, a new payroll provider, a marketplace that started collecting tax on some sales and not others. The hard part stalled, and because the hard part was blocking, the easy part — plain bank entry — stalled with it.
Something happened. An illness, a family emergency, a move, a bad year. The books were the first thing dropped and the last thing anyone wanted to look at afterwards. This is the most common story we hear, and it is not a character flaw.
The return was the only deadline. Many small businesses do the books once a year, for the tax preparer. Between returns, nothing is entered; each spring is an annual catch-up. It works until a lender, a buyer, or a mid-year decision needs current numbers, and there aren’t any.
The last catch-up never became a routine. Books caught up once, then behind again, because the way they were being kept didn’t change. This is why the engagement ends with a transition rather than a handoff — the point of the last section on this page.
§ 05 · Catch-up or cleanup?
Which one do you actually need?
Behind but structured is a catch-up. Messy or wrong is a cleanup. Many files need both — the diagnostic tells you which, in writing, before any work begins. Cleanup, catch-up or monthly: the full comparison.
| Dimension | Catch-up | Cleanup |
|---|---|---|
| Starting state | Books behind but structured correctly | Books messy, miscategorized, or wrong |
| Primary work | Enter missed transactions, reconcile periods | Correct errors, fix categorization, rebuild |
| Typical timeline | 2–10 weeks | 2–8 weeks (more for multi-year) |
| Pricing | $2,000–$20,000+ fixed fee | $1,200–$15,000+ fixed scope |
| Often paired with | Transition to monthly | Catch-up + transition to monthly |
§ 06 · The process
From first call to current books.
- STEP 01
Backlog review call
A 30-minute call. Your preparer quantifies the backlog — months behind, transactions outstanding, accounts to reconcile. Written fixed-fee scope within 3 business days.
Typical: 3 business days - STEP 02
Transaction Entry & Reconciliation
Missed transactions entered. Each period reconciled. Payroll and sales tax verified. The work happens here.
Typical: 2–8 weeks, inside the 2–10 week total - STEP 03
Statements Through Current Month
Reconstructed financial statements produced. Checked against TechBrot’s close standard before delivery.
Typical: 3–5 business days - STEP 04
Transition to Ongoing
Catch-up delivered. Continue with the same preparer on monthly bookkeeping, or hand off to your existing accountant.
Optional: monthly engagement
What each step actually involves
Step 1, the diagnostic. We ask for one thing per account: the statements for the backlog period — bank, credit card, loan — plus the payroll reports and sales-tax filings for the same months, and the date of the last reconciliation that tied. From those we count months behind per account, transactions outstanding, and accounts to reconcile. That count is the scope, and it comes back in writing within three business days.
Step 2, entry and reconciliation. Oldest period first, always — a later month can’t reconcile until the one before it does. Bank and credit-card accounts before payroll and sales tax, because the liabilities have to tie to the bank activity that paid them. Each month is reconciled to its statement before the next is opened; a difference is investigated and documented, never plugged. Transactions we can’t categorize from the statement alone are batched into one list for you, not sent one at a time.
Step 3, statements. With every period reconciled, the profit and loss, balance sheet and cash-flow statement are produced through the current month and reviewed at firm level before you see them. If the numbers surprise you, this is where we walk through why.
Step 4, transition. The handoff is a set of decisions, not a file: bank rules set so the next month categorizes itself, a close checklist, and the same preparer continuing monthly — or a clean handover to your own accountant. Either way, you leave current, and you leave with a way to stay current.
§ 07 · The scope
What catch-up actually delivers.
Missed transaction entry
Every transaction for the backlog period entered from bank, credit-card, and payroll statements. No gaps left in the file.
Period-by-period reconciliation
Each prior period reconciled against actual statements, month by month, account by account.
Payroll & sales tax verification
Payroll liabilities reconciled to filed returns. Sales-tax accruals verified across multi-state filings if applicable.
Categorization at entry
Transactions categorized correctly as they’re entered. Bank rules configured to prevent backlog regression.
Current-month statements
Reconstructed P&L, balance sheet, and cash flow through the current month, suitable for tax filing or lender review.
Handoff documentation
Written summary of what was caught up, periods covered, and recommendations for staying current going forward.
§ 08 · Timeline & cost
How long it takes, and what moves the cost.
Catch-ups are scoped at two to ten weeks. A three-to-six-month backlog typically clears in two to three weeks; twelve to twenty-four months in four to six; a multi-year backlog in eight to ten. The timeline is fixed in the written scope, and it moves with three things: the number of months, the number of accounts that have to be reconciled through them, and how quickly the statements can be retrieved — a closed bank account or a payroll provider you no longer use can add more calendar time than the entry itself. For a backlog with a filing date on it, see catching up before the tax deadline.
Cost moves with a different variable. Catch-up is priced per month of backlog, so the months set the base; what moves the rate is what has to be verified inside each month. A business with one bank account and no payroll sits at the bottom of the band. Payroll adds liabilities that must tie to filed returns. Sales tax adds accruals, and a second state adds a second set of them. Inventory adds cost-of-goods work. A second entity adds a second set of books. None of it is hourly, and none of it is guessed: the diagnostic counts it, and the fee in the scope is the fee.
§ 09 · Our read
Can you do the catch-up yourself?
Sometimes, yes — and we would rather say so than sell you a scope you don’t need. A competent owner can clear a short backlog when all of the following are true: the gap is a few months, not a year; there are one or two accounts; payroll is either absent or run entirely by a provider that files for you; the chart of accounts was right before the gap; and you can download every statement for the period. The test is practical: reconcile the oldest month to the penny. If that takes an evening and comes out at zero, the rest is repetition. If it doesn’t come out at zero, stop — the problem is no longer a backlog.
Get it done professionally when any of these is true. Payroll ran inside QuickBooks, because the liabilities have to tie to the 941s and state returns already filed, and a wrong figure surfaces as a tax notice months later. Sales tax crosses a state line. There is inventory, and cost of goods sold has to be right. The backlog is over a year, or spans a year-end whose return was already filed on numbers that will now change. A lender or buyer is waiting on the statements. Or the books were kept through the gap by someone whose work you can’t verify, which is a cleanup question before it is a catch-up.
What the professional version buys is not the data entry. It is verification — every period reconciled, every liability tied to a filing — a file your CPA can review and prepare from, and the calendar time you get back. If the first test above comes out at zero, keep going and keep the money. If it doesn’t, book the diagnostic and let it tell you what you are actually looking at. For the wider question of when to stop doing your own books at all, see handing off your own books.
§ 10 · After catch-up
Current is a state, not an event.
A catch-up that ends with “you’re current” and nothing else has a predictable future: the cause that produced the backlog produces the next one. So the engagement ends by changing how the books are kept. Bank rules are configured from the categorization decisions made during the catch-up, so next month’s transactions land where the caught-up months did. The close gets a checklist — statements in, feeds matched, each account reconciled, the month locked. And the first monthly close after the catch-up is run as a check on the catch-up itself: if that month reconciles cleanly from the baseline we delivered, the baseline was right.
From there you choose. The same preparer continues on monthly bookkeeping, with the file context already in hand. Or you take the file, the rules and the checklist to your own accountant, or back in-house, with the same routine written down. Both are fine. The catch-up is a project and ends when it is delivered; the point is that you never need this page again.
§ 11 · Pricing
Fixed fee, written scope, priced per month of backlog.
Every catch-up is priced at 60–90% of your monthly fee for each month behind, from $2,000; the written scope fixes the number. Total engagements run $2,000–$20,000+. See the bookkeeping pricing page for ongoing monthly pricing after catch-up.
Short catch-up
Fixed fee, scoped in writingFor: Up to 6 months behind, small business, simple payroll or none.- Missed transactions entered
- Each period reconciled
- Statements through current month
- Handoff documentation
Most common
Standard catch-up
Fixed fee, scoped in writingFor: 7–24 months behind, payroll, multiple bank and credit accounts, sales tax.- Full backlog entry & reconciliation
- Payroll & sales tax verification
- Bank rules & categorization
- Statements through current month
- CPA-ready output
Multi-year catch-up
Fixed fee, scoped in writingFor: More than 24 months behind, multi-entity, inventory, multi-state sales tax, complex payroll.- Multi-year historical entry
- Multi-entity reconciliation
- Inventory & COGS verification
- Multi-state tax accruals
- Statement set per year
How a catch-up fee is set
8 months
times
75%
times
$700
equals
$4,200
8 months behind × 75% × $700 monthly fee = $4,200 (minimum $2,000). The fixed fee is confirmed in writing before work starts.
Not in the fee
- Correcting entries already in the file that are wrong: that is cleanup, scoped first when a file needs both.
- Monthly bookkeeping once the books are current: optional, priced separately.
- Late or amended tax returns: your CPA or EA files them, from the books we hand over.
§ 12 · Who performs the work
Introduced once you sign, checked before it reaches you.
Every close is reviewed before it reaches you. You’ll know exactly who is working on your books and how to reach them. Every engagement is reviewed before delivery.
The standard, every fileCertification. Intuit QuickBooks Certification Level 2 and QuickBooks Workforce Certification, held by TechBrot’s senior reviewer
Vetting. A senior bookkeeper assigned to your file
Accountability. Your senior bookkeeper · every close reviewed before it reaches you
§ 13 · Who works on your books
Your TechBrot team.
Every engagement runs on three roles: a client advisor who scopes it and stays your point of contact, a senior bookkeeper who prepares your setup and monthly close in your software, and a Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor who reviews every close before it reaches you. A U.S.-based bookkeeper is available on request; we can share their public directory profile with you.
Specialists when your books need them.
Senior bookkeepers who specialize in rental portfolios and Xero, and specialist partner practices for trust accounting for law firms and CFO advisory. We bring the right one onto your engagement when your business calls for it, under the same standards and review.
§ 14 · Around the catch-up
Catch-up is often part of a larger engagement.
New York catch-up bookkeeping
The same work for New York businesses, from Erie County to New York City, with sales tax checked against the returns filed.
The engagementBookkeeping cleanup
If the books are messy or wrong (not just behind), cleanup is the deeper engagement. Often paired with catch-up.
The engagementMonthly bookkeeping
After catch-up, ongoing monthly bookkeeping keeps the books current. The same senior bookkeeper continues into the monthly close.
The engagementMulti-year historical cleanup
3+ years of backlog combined with errors. Methodical reconstruction at scale.
The engagementPayroll management
If payroll caused the backlog, we can take payroll management on going forward as part of monthly.
The engagementQuickBooks cleanup cost estimator
A scope-based estimate for a focused, standard, or complex cleanup from your months behind, number of accounts, and transaction volume.
The engagementCleanup vs monthly bookkeeping
How to tell whether the file needs a one-time cleanup, ongoing bookkeeping, or the cleanup first — and the cost logic of each order.
Read more§ 16 · Available in these states
Cleanup & catch-up bookkeeping by state.
The same engagement, written for the state’s own rules — sales-tax, payroll and registration wrinkles included. Delivered remotely in your own QuickBooks file; every state is served from the state directory.
By industry: SaaS · Agency · Retail · not sure where your file stands? Start with the free QuickBooks file review · moving off Desktop? QuickBooks Desktop to Online migration.
§ 17 · Questions
What people ask before scoping a catch-up.
How long does catch-up bookkeeping take?
A catch-up typically takes 2 to 10 weeks. A 3-to-6-month backlog typically takes 2–3 weeks. A 12-to-24-month backlog takes 4–6 weeks. Multi-year catch-ups can take 8–10 weeks depending on volume and complexity.
How much does catch-up bookkeeping cost?
Every catch-up is priced at 60–90% of your monthly fee for each month behind, from $2,000; the written scope fixes the number. Total engagements run $2,000–$20,000+, with small businesses a few months behind toward the lower end and businesses with payroll, inventory, or multi-state sales tax higher.
What is the difference between catch-up and cleanup bookkeeping?
Catch-up brings behind-but-structured books up to date — entering missed transactions, completing reconciliations through the current month. Cleanup is deeper — it corrects errors, fixes categorization, and reconstructs accurate records from a messy state. A file can need both; the cleanup comes first.
Can I catch up my books before tax season?
Yes. Start with a discovery call (or call (877) 751-5575) by early February for most single-year catch-ups to complete in time for March 15 or April 15 deadlines. Multi-year catch-ups may require an extension.
Do I need to catch up before switching to monthly bookkeeping?
Yes. Monthly bookkeeping starts from a known-current state. Catch-up brings your books to that state. After catch-up, you can continue on monthly bookkeeping with the same preparer, or hand the file to your own bookkeeper.
Who actually performs the catch-up work?
Every engagement runs on three roles: a client advisor who scopes it and stays your point of contact, a senior bookkeeper who prepares your setup and monthly close in your software, and a Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor who reviews every close before it reaches you. A U.S.-based bookkeeper is available on request; we can share their public directory profile with you.
Who exactly do I contract with, and how do I pay?
You contract with TechBrot, Inc., a Delaware corporation, under one written scope. You always pay TechBrot, Inc. directly, by ACH or wire. TechBrot invoices every engagement. No one on our team will ask you to pay through a personal link, a gift card or cryptocurrency. TechBrot is an independent firm and is not affiliated with Intuit.
§ 18 · Talk to a client advisor
One call tells you exactly where your books stand.
Tell us what’s wrong with the books. We’ll tell you whether cleanup, catch-up or monthly bookkeeping fits.
What happens when you call