Outsourced bookkeeping
The parent page: what outsourcing the bookkeeping function means, what you hand off, and the cases where an in-house hire is the better call.
Visit the outsourced bookkeeping pageOutsourced bookkeeping
Outsourced bookkeeping for CPA firms
For CPA firms: bookkeeping overflow, cleanup and catch-up you can hand off.
A CPA or EA firm can hand the recording work on a client’s books to an outside bookkeeping firm and keep the work that needs a license or the firm’s own judgment: the tax return, attest work, representation and advisory conclusions. This page sets out that division line by line, the five kinds of bookkeeping TechBrot takes on for CPA firms, how a handoff runs from scope to delivery, how the work is checked, where the client’s data stays, how it is priced, and where our role stops. Want to work with us instead? See Partners.
$500–$2,500+/mo
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 · TL;DR
§ TL;DR
A CPA or EA firm can hand off the bookkeeping on a client file — monthly overflow, QuickBooks cleanup, catch-up bookkeeping, balance-sheet reconciliations and year-end-ready books — and keep the tax return, attest work, IRS representation and the client relationship. Each file is scoped as a fixed fee in writing; monthly overflow runs $500–$2,500+/mo per file.
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,
We keep the books and schedules; your CPA or EA files your returns. We keep and correct books in QuickBooks.
§ 02 · Hand off or keep
What a CPA firm hands off, and what it keeps.
The line is simple to state. TechBrot records, corrects and reconciles the books; the CPA or EA firm draws every conclusion that needs a license or the firm’s own professional judgment. The table sets it out for each piece of work on a client file.
| The work | Who does it | How it passes between the firms |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly categorization and bank and credit-card reconciliation | TechBrot | Done each month in the client’s QuickBooks file against the written scope. The CPA firm receives reconciled books and the month’s open-items list. |
| QuickBooks cleanup of a client file | TechBrot | Scoped after a review of the file. The CPA firm receives the corrected file and a written record of every change and the reason for it. |
| Catch-up of months or years never recorded | TechBrot | Oldest month first, each month reconciled before the next begins. The CPA firm receives books current through the agreed date. |
| Balance-sheet reconciliations: loans, payroll liabilities, clearing and suspense accounts | TechBrot | Each account tied to a statement or schedule. A balance that cannot be explained is listed for the CPA firm, not written off. |
| Year-end-ready books and the handoff package | TechBrot | Delivered to the CPA firm with the year’s reports and a list of the items that need the firm’s decision. |
| Adjusting and reclassifying entries for tax or financial reporting | The CPA firm decides | We record the entries the CPA firm sends in writing, so the books agree with what the return or statements were prepared from. |
| Tax return preparation, signing and filing | The CPA or EA firm | TechBrot does not prepare, sign or file returns. We deliver the books the return is prepared from. |
| Audit, review and compilation engagements, and any other attest work | The CPA firm | TechBrot performs none of these and issues no report or opinion on financial statements. |
| Representation before the IRS | A CPA, EA or attorney | TechBrot does not represent taxpayers. We can supply the books and reconciliations the representative works from. |
| Tax planning, entity decisions and advisory conclusions | The CPA firm | We supply the reconciled numbers those conclusions rest on. |
| The client relationship | The CPA firm | Whether and how we contact the end client is set by the CPA firm in the written scope. |
One test for any task not on this list. If the output is a recorded, reconciled number in the books, it can be handed off to us. If the output is a conclusion — about tax, about whether statements are fairly presented, about what the client should do — it stays with the CPA firm.
§ 03 · In depth
Handing off bookkeeping, section by section.
The five kinds of bookkeeping a CPA firm can hand off, the one test for anything else, the six handoff steps, and where our role stops — set out in full below.
Outsourced bookkeeping · Monthly bookkeeping · Get the free file review · Send the details
§ 04 · The work
Five kinds of bookkeeping a CPA firm can hand off.
Each is bookkeeping: it produces books the CPA firm then works from. None of it is a tax or attest service.
Work 01 · Monthly bookkeeping overflow
Client files the CPA firm’s own staff cannot cover every month, handed to us as a recurring monthly engagement — for tax season or for good. Each month we categorize transactions, reconcile every bank and credit-card account to its statement, keep payables and receivables current where the scope includes them, and close the month. The CPA firm receives reconciled books and a short written list of anything we could not resolve without the client. What the recurring engagement includes is set out on the monthly bookkeeping page.
Work 02 · QuickBooks cleanup
A client file that has been kept, but kept wrong: miscategorized transactions, duplicates, reconciliations that were forced or never done, balances left in Undeposited Funds or Opening Balance Equity, a chart of accounts that no longer fits the business. We review the file, scope the correction as a fixed fee, fix each error at its source, and hand back the file with a written record of what changed and why. See QuickBooks cleanup.
Work 03 · Catch-up bookkeeping
A client who arrives with months or years not recorded at all. We rebuild the books from source documents — bank, card and loan statements, bills, invoices, payroll reports — oldest month first, reconciling each month before starting the next, until the books are current through the date the CPA firm needs. See catch-up bookkeeping.
Work 04 · Reconciliations
Reconciliation as its own piece of work, for a file where the day-to-day recording is sound but the balance sheet has not been proven: bank and card accounts, loans, payroll liabilities, sales tax payable, clearing and suspense accounts. Each balance is tied to a statement or a schedule, and each difference is traced to its cause. See reconciliation services.
Work 05 · Year-end-ready books
The books brought to a state the CPA firm can start the return or its engagement from: every bank, card and loan account reconciled through year-end, balance-sheet accounts tied to statements or schedules, uncategorized and suspense balances cleared or listed, and a package of the year’s reports. What goes into the package is agreed in the written scope. See the year-end books review.
§ 05 · How the handoff works
How a handoff runs, from scope to delivery.
Six steps, in order. Nothing starts until step two is in writing.
- 1
A scope call with the CPA firm
The CPA firm tells us which client files are in question, what each one needs — monthly coverage, a cleanup, a catch-up, reconciliations or year-end books — the period involved and the date the firm needs the books by. The call is with the CPA firm. The end client is not involved unless the firm wants them to be.
- 2
Scope and fee in writing
Each file gets a written scope: the work, the period, the deliverables, the fixed fee, who we may contact, and what counts as finished. The CPA firm approves it before any work begins. Anything found later that falls outside the scope is written up and rescoped, never added silently.
- 3
Access to the client’s own QuickBooks file
We are invited as a user on the client’s existing QuickBooks file by whoever administers it, and we receive the source documents the scope lists — statements, bills, invoices, payroll reports — through the channel the CPA firm chooses. We do not need, and do not ask for, any ability to move money.
- 4
The bookkeeping
We do the scoped work in the file: categorization, corrections made at the source, reconciliations to statements. Questions only the client can answer — what a payment was for, whether an account is still open — are collected into a written list instead of guessed at.
- 5
Contact with the end client, on the firm’s terms
The CPA firm decides who talks to the client, and the scope records it. Either every question goes through the CPA firm, which relays it, or we ask the client directly for documents and answers and copy the CPA firm. Either way, a tax question or a question about the CPA firm’s services goes back to the CPA firm.
- 6
Review and delivery back to the CPA firm
Before anything goes back, the work is reviewed by a Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor before delivery. The CPA firm receives the reconciled books, the reconciliation reports, a record of the changes made, and a list of open items with what each one needs. The file is then the CPA firm’s to work from.
Have client files waiting on the books?Tell us which files need monthly coverage, a cleanup or a catch-up. Each one is scoped as a fixed fee in writing before we start, and the books come back to your firm ready to work from.
Get the free file review
§ 06 · Quality control
How the work is checked before it comes back.
Reconciled to the statement, never forced
Every reconciled account ties to its bank, card or loan statement as of the period end. A difference is traced to the transaction that caused it and corrected there. It is not plugged to make the reconciliation screen show zero; an unexplained difference stays on the open-items list, labelled as unexplained. See why forcing a reconciliation causes damage.
Every prior-period change on the record
In a cleanup or catch-up, every change we make to a prior period is listed with the reason for it, so the CPA firm can see what moved and check it against returns already filed. We do not change a period the CPA firm has told us is closed without the firm’s written approval.
A ProAdvisor review before delivery
The finished work is reviewed by a Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor before delivery before it goes back to the CPA firm: reconciliations tie, balance-sheet accounts have support, suspense and uncategorized balances are cleared or listed, and the open-items list is complete. This is a bookkeeping review. It is not an audit or a review engagement, and it gives no assurance on financial statements.
§ 07 · Data and confidentiality
Whose file it is, and who sees what.
The books stay in the client’s own QuickBooks file
We work in the client’s existing QuickBooks file — not a copy on our systems, and not a new file we control. The client, or the CPA firm where it holds the subscription, keeps ownership. When an engagement ends there is nothing to hand back: the books are already where they belong.
Access that can be removed at any time
Our access is a user login on that file, granted by whoever administers it and removable by them at any time. We ask for the access the scoped work needs. We never ask to be a signer on a bank account, or for any ability to pay, transfer or disburse funds.
Confidentiality
We use a client’s records only for the scoped work, and we contact the client only as the scope allows. We do not need tax returns or tax workpapers to do the bookkeeping; it is done from source documents. What a CPA firm may share about its clients with an outside service provider is governed by the firm’s own professional and legal obligations, which the firm confirms for itself before sharing.
§ 08 · Pricing
How handed-off work is priced.
Every client file is scoped on its own and billed as a fixed fee agreed in writing before work starts. The ranges below are TechBrot’s published figures from our pricing page. Where a piece of work has no published range, it is scoped as a fixed fee in writing.
| The work | Published range | How it is billed |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly bookkeeping (overflow clients) | $500–$2,500+/mo | Fixed monthly fee per client file, set by transaction volume, the number of bank and credit accounts, payroll and entities. |
| QuickBooks cleanup | $1,200–$15,000+ | One-time fixed fee for the structural fix of a QuickBooks file. |
| Bookkeeping cleanup bookkeeping | $1,200–$15,000+ | One-time fixed fee for the structural fix of the books. |
| Catch-up bookkeeping | $2,000–$20,000+ | One-time fixed fee, set by the number of months or years involved and the condition of the records. |
| Reconciliation-only work; year-end-ready books | Scoped in writing | Fixed fee, scoped for each file. |
Before any fee. The discovery call and the QuickBooks file review are free. Who each engagement is with, and who is billed, is set out in that file’s written scope. For how the ranges are built, see monthly bookkeeping pricing and cleanup and catch-up pricing.
§ 09 · The boundary
Where TechBrot’s role stops.
TechBrot is a bookkeeping and advisory firm. On a file a CPA firm hands us, we record, correct and reconcile the books in the client’s QuickBooks file, have the work reviewed before delivery, and deliver it back to the CPA firm with a written list of anything still open. That is the whole of our role. We never:
- Prepare, sign or file a tax return. Returns are the CPA or EA firm’s work.
- Perform an audit, review or compilation, or any other attest work. We issue no report or opinion on financial statements.
- Represent a taxpayer. Representation before the IRS needs a CPA, EA or attorney, and we are none of those.
- Give tax advice to the CPA firm’s client. A tax question from the end client goes back to the CPA firm.
- Hold, move or approve money. We are never a signer on an account, and we never pay, transfer or disburse funds.
- Present ourselves as Intuit or as official QuickBooks support.
If the question is still whether to outsource bookkeeping at all, start at the outsourced bookkeeping page. If a client file’s condition is unknown, the free QuickBooks file review is a place to begin before any scope.
§ 11 · Questions
What CPA firms ask before handing off bookkeeping.
Does TechBrot prepare or file tax returns for our clients?
No. TechBrot is a bookkeeping and advisory firm, not a CPA firm. We deliver the books a return can be prepared from; preparing, signing and filing it is your firm’s work. If we find something in the books that may bear on a return — an unrecorded payroll liability, an asset purchase posted as an expense — we list it for your firm and reach no tax conclusion about it.
Can TechBrot do audit, review or compilation work on a client’s statements?
No. TechBrot performs no audit, review or compilation engagements and no other attest work, and issues no report or opinion on financial statements. The review your senior bookkeeper does checks the bookkeeping — reconciliations, support for balances, open items — and gives no assurance on the statements.
Will TechBrot contact our clients directly?
Only if your firm says so in the written scope. You choose: every question routes through your firm, or we ask the client directly for documents and answers and copy your firm. Either way, a tax question or a question about your firm’s services is sent back to you.
Whose QuickBooks file is the work done in?
The client’s existing file, whether the client holds the subscription or your firm does. We are added as a user and do the work there, so there is no copy to reconcile back and nothing to hand over when we finish. Whoever administers the file can remove our access at any time.
What do you need from our firm to start a file?
A scope call about the file, then a user invitation to the client’s QuickBooks file; bank, card and loan statements for the period; and any payroll reports, bills and invoices the scope lists. For a catch-up or cleanup, also the date the books must be current through, and which prior periods are closed because a return was filed on them.
Can a client file be handed off partway through the year?
Yes. If the file is current, monthly bookkeeping can start from the next month-end. If it is behind, a catch-up brings it current first, oldest month first, and the monthly work begins once the catch-up is delivered. Each is scoped and priced separately, in writing.
What happens to the adjusting entries our firm makes at year-end?
Send them to us in writing and we record them in the client’s file, so the books agree with what the return or statements were prepared from. The next year’s bookkeeping then starts from the same balances your firm ended on. We do not decide tax or reporting adjustments ourselves.
What if you find an error in a year that has already been filed?
We stop and write it up for your firm before changing anything in that period: what we found, the accounts affected and the amount. Whether a filed return is affected, and what to do about it, is your firm’s decision. We make prior-period corrections only with your firm’s written approval.
Bookkeeping you can hand off