Guide · Pricing
Catch-up and cleanup bookkeeping: how to scope and price it
Books that are months behind, or full of errors, are a project, not a month of normal service. This guide shows how to scope the work before you quote, price it from the hours it will really take, and move the client onto a monthly service once it is done.
Catch-up and cleanup are different jobs
Catch-up
The books haven't been touched for a while. The work is mostly recording what happened: collecting statements, categorizing transactions and reconciling each month in turn.
Cleanup
The books were kept, but badly. The work is finding and fixing what is wrong: duplicate entries, miscategorized transactions, unreconciled accounts and balances that don't match the statements.
Many jobs are both. Scope each part separately, because a month of fixing errors can take much longer than a month of recording.
Scope the work before you quote
Get read-only access first.
Look at the file before you promise a price.
Count the months and the accounts.
List every bank, card and loan account and how many months each one is behind.
Check the statements are available.
Missing statements are the biggest risk to your timeline.
Sample the problems.
Reconcile one month of the main bank account to see how much is wrong.
Write down what is out of scope.
For example, tax filings, payroll corrections or years before a set date.
Price it as a project
Estimate hours per account per month.
Use what your sample showed, with separate rates for catch-up months and cleanup months.
Add time for chasing and questions.
Catch-up clients often need several rounds of requests.
Quote a fixed fee with clear assumptions.
Say which months and accounts are included, and what happens if the client finds more.
Take a deposit.
Ask for part of the fee before you start, and the rest at agreed milestones.
A worked example
HypotheticalA hypothetical client and firm, for illustration only. The hourly cost matches the example firm in the UpFirm sample report; the hours, months and margin are made up.
The client is 6 months behind on 2 bank accounts and 1 credit card, so there are 18 account-months to bring up to date.
A sample month took about 1.5 hours per account, including questions, so the work is about 18 × 1.5 = 27 hours.
Cost of the work: 27 hours × $42 an hour = $1,134
With a 40% target margin: $1,134 ÷ (1 − 0.40) = $1,890 for the project
Hypothetical figures, not data from a real firm.
Turn the cleanup into a monthly client
Once the books are current, offer the monthly service with a clear scope and due dates, so the client never falls behind again. Set up bank feeds and a monthly document request as part of the handover.
Common mistakes
Quoting before looking.
A price based on a phone call rarely survives the first month of statements.
Folding catch-up into the monthly fee.
It hides the real cost and makes the monthly price look unprofitable.
No limit on scope.
Without a list of months and accounts, a fixed fee becomes open-ended.
Starting without the statements.
Work that has to be redone when the statements arrive costs twice.
Questions
Should I charge hourly for catch-up work?
A fixed project fee with clear assumptions is easier for the client to agree to, and it rewards you for working efficiently. If the scope is very uncertain, quote the scoping step on its own first.
What if the client can't find old statements?
Ask them to request copies from the bank, and only start those months once the statements arrive. Note in the quote that missing statements may delay the work or change the price.
How do I price catch-up work alongside the monthly service?
Quote them separately. The catch-up fee covers the past, and the monthly fee starts once the books are current.
Find the hours that eat your margin.
The free Snapshot takes about 3 minutes and works from your own answers.