Free tool · Cleanup & catch-up pricing
What will it cost to clean up or catch up your books?
Cleanup and catch-up are one-time projects, priced on how far behind you are and how tangled the file is. Answer five questions for a realistic range — drawn from TechBrot’s published fixed-fee pricing, not a guess. It’s an estimate, not a quote: your exact fixed fee is confirmed in writing within 3 business days of a free discovery call.
This tool estimates a one-time project: a QuickBooks cleanup (books exist but are messy — TechBrot range $1,500–$15,000+) or catch-up (months or years not done — $2,000–$20,000+). It is an estimate from public pricing — never a binding quote. The drivers are how far behind you are, transaction volume, accounts, reconciliation state, and payroll. Your exact fixed fee is quoted in writing within 3 business days of a free discovery call.
TechBrot Inc. · independent Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor firm — not affiliated with Intuit Inc.
Cleanup & catch-up cost, in five questions.
How much does a QuickBooks cleanup cost?
TechBrot cleanup is a one-time fixed fee of $1,500–$15,000+. Light tidying of mostly-current books lands near the bottom; deep, never-reconciled, high-volume files run higher. Catch-up (books not done for months or years) is $2,000–$20,000+. The exact fee is quoted in writing within 3 business days of a free discovery call.
What’s the difference between cleanup and catch-up?
Cleanup fixes books that exist but are wrong — unreconciled accounts, miscategorized transactions, a broken chart of accounts. Catch-up builds books for periods that were never done. Many engagements are both. Both are one-time fixed-fee projects, separate from ongoing monthly bookkeeping.
What drives the price of a cleanup?
Five things: how far behind you are, monthly transaction volume, the number of accounts, how reconciled the file is, and payroll. A deeper backlog and a worse reconciliation state mean more forensic untangling, which moves the fee up the published range. The estimator scores these to place you in a band.
Is this estimate a quote?
No. It’s an estimate from TechBrot’s published pricing. Cleanup cost depends on what we find when we open the file, which a five-question form can’t see. The real fixed fee is set after a ProAdvisor reviews your file on a free discovery call, and is always delivered in writing before any work begins.
Do I need a cleanup before monthly bookkeeping?
Often, yes. If the existing books are wrong or incomplete, a one-time cleanup or catch-up gets them to a correct baseline first; then ongoing monthly bookkeeping ($400–$2,500+/month) keeps them there. The discovery call determines whether you need cleanup, catch-up, or both.
Estimate your cleanup or catch-up cost.
Pick the option that fits in each row. The estimate updates as you go. Everything stays in your browser — nothing is sent until you decide to book a call.
Estimated one-time fee
$1,500–$3,500
Light cleanup
Books are mostly current and just need tidying before the monthly close takes over.
This is an estimate from TechBrot’s published pricing — not a quote. Cleanup is forensic work; the real fixed fee is set after a ProAdvisor reviews your actual file, and is confirmed in writing within 3 business days of a free discovery call.
Get your exact fixed feeHow this estimate is calculated.
Cleanup and catch-up are one-time fixed-fee projects, not monthly work. Cleanup ($1,500–$15,000+) is fixing books that exist but are wrong — unreconciled accounts, miscategorized transactions, a broken chart of accounts. Catch-up ($2,000–$20,000+) is building books for months or years that were never done. Many engagements are a bit of both.
The estimator scores five drivers — how far behind you are, monthly transaction volume, number of accounts, how reconciled the file is, and payroll — and maps the total to one of four bands inside those published ranges. The deeper the backlog and the worse the reconciliation state, the more forensic untangling it takes, which moves the estimate up.
The estimate is a range, never a single number. Cleanup pricing depends on what we actually find when we open the file — a five-question form can’t see that. The real fixed fee is set after a ProAdvisor reviews your file on a free discovery call, and is always delivered in writing before any work begins.
| Band | Typical range | Looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Light cleanup | $1,500–$3,500 | Books are mostly current and just need tidying before the monthly close takes over. |
| Moderate cleanup / catch-up | $3,500–$7,500 | A few months behind or partially reconciled, with a moderate transaction load to untangle. |
| Significant project | $7,500–$15,000 | Many months behind, several accounts, never reconciled — real forensic work. |
| Major / multi-year | $15,000–$20,000+ | A year or more of unreconciled, high-volume history across many accounts, often with payroll. |
What each band actually involves.
Light cleanup is a file that is current and reconciled but untidy: a chart of accounts that grew by accident, a few hundred transactions sitting in the wrong category, an uncategorized pile, duplicate vendors. The work is a reclassification pass, a chart rebuild where it helps, and a clean month-end so the monthly close can take over. Nothing is reconstructed.
Moderate cleanup or catch-up is a file that is a few months behind or only partly reconciled. The first job is to find the last month every account tied to its statement — the known-good baseline — and work forward from it: bank and card feeds re-matched, transfers between accounts paired instead of counted twice, sales-tax and payroll liabilities brought back to what was actually filed and paid.
A significant project is a file that was never reconciled, or that carries many accounts and a heavy transaction load. This is forensic: opening balances proven from statements rather than accepted from the file, undeposited funds and clearing accounts emptied, loan and credit-card balances agreed to lender statements, prior-year closing balances agreed to the return your CPA filed. The pattern we see most is what the cleanup page describes as drift — one unreconciled month becomes twelve, and every later balance inherits the error.
Major or multi-year is a year or more of unreconciled, high-volume history, usually with payroll in it. It is rebuilt period by period, with payroll liabilities agreed to every filed 941 and state return, because a payroll balance that does not tie is the one thing a lender or the IRS will find first. It ends with a CPA-ready trial balance for each year, not just the current one.
What the fee covers, what it doesn’t, and what to have ready.
Always included
Every bank and card account reconciled to its statement for the period; transactions categorized to a clean chart of accounts; transfers and owner contributions or draws correctly paired; sales-tax and payroll liabilities agreed to what was filed; a CPA-ready trial balance and financial statements at the end; and a written note of anything we could not resolve without you.
Never included
Filing or amending any tax return, IRS or state representation, tax advice, and the ongoing monthly work after the cleanup — those are your CPA’s, or a separate monthly engagement. A cleanup gets the file to a state your CPA can work from; it does not replace your CPA.
Have ready for the call
Read-only access to the QuickBooks file (or the export, if you are leaving another platform); the last month you know every account was right; bank and card statements for the period; payroll reports if there was payroll; the most recent tax return your CPA filed. With those, the written scope arrives within 3 business days.
Where to go next.
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Questions about the estimate.
Is this estimator a real quote?
How does the estimator decide my range?
Why is cleanup priced as a range, not one number?
Is cleanup a one-time cost or monthly?
Does the cleanup fee include tax filing?
What is the ‘known-good baseline’ and why does it drive the fee?
Can I do part of the cleanup myself to lower the fee?
Is TechBrot affiliated with Intuit?
From estimate to exact number
Get the exact fixed fee to fix your books.
The estimator gets you in the right range. A free 30-minute discovery call — with a look at your actual file — gets you the exact number, in writing within 3 business days, before you commit. No hourly billing, no obligation.