Bookkeeping Cleanup and Catch-Up Services
Messy books or months behind on bookkeeping? PacificWestTax cleans up your records fast, accurate, IRS-ready, and stress-free. We have cleaned up books in every condition for businesses across Southern California.
Catch-Up Bookkeeping
We get your books current quickly regardless of how far behind you are, whether that is three months or three years, with full reconciliation and transaction categorization.
Error Identification and Correction
We review prior entries for miscategorizations, duplicate transactions, missing records, and incorrect account mapping that inflate your tax bill or distort your financials.
QuickBooks Repair
We fix corrupted QuickBooks files, correct chart of accounts setup, and rebuild damaged data so your accounting system reflects your business accurately going forward.
Vendor and Customer Reconciliation
We reconcile outstanding accounts payable and receivable, identify aged items, and clear duplicates so your balance sheet reflects real, accurate obligations.
Prior Year Tax Prep Readiness
If your cleanup uncovers missed deductions or errors in prior year returns, we coordinate amended return filing to recover what you are owed.
Ongoing Monthly Service
After cleanup, most clients transition to our monthly bookkeeping service so the problem never recurs and you always have clean, current books.
When a tax return cannot be filed because the books are not ready — or when a CPA reviews the books and discovers they cannot be relied on — a bookkeeping reconstruction is required. We handle cleanup and catch-up projects for businesses that have fallen behind, switched bookkeepers mid-year, or discovered material errors in prior-period records. We scope the work with a diagnostic review before quoting a price, so there are no surprises.
Bookkeeping Cleanup — Full Scope
Diagnostic Review
Before quoting a price for any cleanup project, we conduct a diagnostic review of the current state of the books — identifying the scope of the problem, the period requiring correction, and the estimated effort. Flat-fee quote provided after the diagnostic.
Bank Reconciliation Catch-Up
We reconcile every bank and credit card account for all unreconciled periods — sometimes years — to establish a verified starting balance and identify any transactions that were missed, duplicated, or misclassified.
Transaction Reclassification
Expenses in the wrong categories, personal transactions mixed with business, and owner draws incorrectly recorded are identified and corrected — so the P&L reflects the actual economics of the business.
Prior-Period Adjustments
Errors identified in prior periods are corrected with proper accounting treatment — either as prior-period adjustments or as current-period corrections depending on materiality and the context.
Tax-Ready Close
We prepare the books to a tax-ready state — depreciation schedules reconciled, loan balances confirmed, payroll liabilities verified, and year-end adjusting entries posted — so the return can be prepared without further delay.
Handoff and Training
After the cleanup is complete, we either transition to ongoing bookkeeping management or hand off to the client or their bookkeeper with documentation of what was corrected and how to maintain the books going forward.
Is This Right for You?
Start With a Cleanup Assessment
We have cleaned up books in every condition. Start with an assessment and no commitment required.