Dedicated offshore catch-up specialists clean up backlogged books at a flat per-month rate. Whether you're months behind or years behind, we scope the cleanup on a call and send a written quote within 48 hours. Typical full cleanup: 4–8 weeks.
Catch-up scope
Most businesses we do catch-up bookkeeping for aren't failing; they're just growing faster than their bookkeeping can keep up. The bookkeeper left six months ago and the owner hasn't had time to hire. An acquired entity's books were never properly integrated. The family friend who was doing it got sick. QuickBooks was set up wrong from day one and three years of transactions are living in uncategorized limbo. These are the scenarios we see every week, and they all resolve the same way: dedicated offshore catch-up staff, a flat quote, a calendar, and a finished set of books at the end.
The 15-minute scoping call covers three questions: how many months are you behind, what software is involved, and what's the monthly transaction volume. From there we can usually quote a flat per-month price within 24 hours. Typical ranges: $400–$800 per month of cleanup for small businesses with 50–300 monthly transactions; $800–$1,500 per month for mid-market businesses with higher volume or multi-entity complexity.
Most catch-up engagements finish in 4–8 weeks. A dedicated specialist can handle 2–4 months of cleanup per week on a standard single-entity file. So 12 months of backlog finishes in 4 weeks; 24 months finishes in 8 weeks. Multi-entity or highly complex files (ecommerce with Shopify + Amazon, construction with WIP, manufacturing with inventory) go slower; simple service businesses go faster.
Once books are caught up, you have three options: (1) take them back in-house with a clean foundation, (2) hand off to a US CPA firm for ongoing work, or (3) roll into our ongoing monthly bookkeeping at standard rates. Most clients pick option 3 because the specialist who did your cleanup already knows your books; starting over with someone else re-costs the ramp. But no pressure – cleanup is a standalone service and we charge monthly bookkeeping separately.
For ongoing work after cleanup see offshore bookkeeping. If you're a CPA firm with multiple CAS clients needing cleanup, see offshore CAS. For the offshore accounting overview, see our homepage.
FAQ
Typical range: $400–$800 per month of cleanup for small businesses, $800–$1,500 for mid-market. Flat per-month rate, quoted after a 15-minute scoping call. So a business 12 months behind usually runs $4,800–$9,600 total, billed monthly as the work progresses.
Not a problem in most cases. Banks can typically provide up to 7 years of statements on request. We work with whatever you have – and for reconstruction, we can cross-reference from tax returns, loan documents, and counterparty records.
We prepare the books. Back tax return filing is typically done by a CPA or EA firm. We get the books to tax-preparer-ready and hand off. If you don't have a tax preparer, we can recommend firms.
IRS and state penalties for late returns/filings are the client's responsibility and get calculated by your tax preparer. We handle the accounting cleanup that lets those returns get prepared. For sales tax voluntary disclosure programs (VDAs), we coordinate with state-specific specialists where it makes sense.
Typically 1–2 weeks from signed engagement letter to work starting. Faster than our standard 3-week onboarding because catch-up engagements don't require the same process documentation setup – it's project work with a defined scope.
Yes. We've handled files 5+ years behind, reconstructed books from scratch for businesses with no prior records, and cleaned up inherited messes from multiple prior bookkeepers. The process is the same – it just takes longer.
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