QuickBooks Cleanup ServiceBehind, or actually broken

How we tell late from broken

The whole corner of a file should be visible before anyone edits a row. Cash, the hallway accounts, the plug from the day the file was created, and the year already filed belong in one look. Owners often meet that look at the kitchen table, a notice in one hand and the laptop open, still unsure which month the bank and the books parted. We start there. The notice can wait. The month cannot. A company file deserves that compact look, the whole corner at once, before anyone edits a single row.

Owners call both problems by the same name. The books are a mess. Sometimes that means the last reconciliation is three months old and every month since is simply waiting. Sometimes it means cash on the balance sheet and cash at the bank have not agreed in a year, and a handful of accounts have been used as drawers for anything confusing.

We separate those on the first pass. If the last closed month still ties to the bank, the work is a catch-up. We roll forward one month at a time, and we do not reopen the months that already tied just to make the screen look busy. If the last closed month does not tie, the file is broken, and the catch-up waits until we can say why.

The usual reasons are not exotic. Undeposited funds is holding payments that never became a deposit. A transfer between two bank accounts was recorded once on each side and also as income. Opening balance equity still carries the plug from the day the file was created. A feed brought in the same card charge on two dates. None of that means you failed at owning the company. Each one is a row with a cause.

What we hand you first is a sentence, not a binder. The file is behind from this month. Or the file is broken at cash, and these three accounts are why. You should be able to repeat that sentence to a partner without translating it from software.

Only after that sentence do we talk about hours. A behind file has a rhythm. Open the month, match the bank, clear the hallway accounts, save the reconciliation. A broken file has a pause in it. We may spend the first block only on cash, and leave the rest of the chart alone until cash agrees. Doing both at once is how a cleanup becomes a second mess.

People ask whether they should start a new file instead. Sometimes the answer is yes, and we will say so, usually when the history is shorter than the confusion and the open year has not been filed. More often the history is worth keeping, because the filed returns are leaning on it. A new file feels clean the way a new notebook feels clean. It does not remember the checks that never cleared.

If two people have been in the file, we ask who enters what, and we look for the week the styles changed. One person codes fuel to an expense. The other codes it to a card liability and never clears it. Both are trying to be careful. The report looks like the truck costs doubled. The fix is a rule you can say out loud, not a lecture.

Bring the month you last trusted. A blank where the month should be is still a useful answer. We will find the last month the bank and the books were willing to be in the same room, and we will start the story there.