We keep running into this issue where a client agrees to a custom rate, a scope change, or a specific billing term over a quick chat thread or text message. Then, weeks later when we’re reconciling or sending the invoice, the paperwork says one thing, the bank feed says another, and the actual agreement is buried in some random chat history nobody can find easily.

It makes auditing a nightmare and causes so much back-and-forth just to figure out the intent behind a transaction.

How are you guys keeping a clean paper trail when business owners keep moving the goalposts in casual digital conversations? Do you just force them back to email, or is there a better way to capture that context?

I’ve reconciled the first month and my register to statement ending balance is off by $898.47.

That balance is made up of uncleared transactions from years ago.

I manually went into to clear them into the cash register and they have a C after I save.

However when I go back to redo the reconciliation they still appear as uncleared?

I went back into the register to reclear and it’s as if I never did it in the first place?

Am I doing something wrong?

When I was first started using QuickBooks for a catch up and clean up work I would see that the bank balance was matching the QuickBooks balance and i thought “ well that account looks complete”. To top it off the previous bookkeeper had reconciled the last 3 months. The owner just said to me - “something’s wrong - the numbers make no sense”.
I undid all the bank reconciliations and redid them. What I discovered was the bank was connected 3 months into a 2 year catch up and the opening balance was posted. The first 3 months revenue and expenses were masked by QBO plugging the balance with an entry to opening balance equity. I downloaded the 3 months coded them and gave tge owner corrected financial statements.

I received an Amazon Payment statement for Mexico with a beginning balance of $74.34 which is for previous reserve balance but the previous statement was zeroed out already and there have been no sales, my question is how do I record this in Quickbooks online to match with my bank account

Basically at the middle and end of the month, I would record all petty expenses record made by the company or staff. They would give me their receipts as proof so I can record it down. What I have been doing is recording down each receipt one entry by one entry.

So for example, 50 receipts = 50 entries

My question now is if im able to lump these 50 receipts into one entry as long as its within the same month, with all the relevant details still recorded (inv no., items of purchase etc.)

So 50 receipts = 1 entry instead

Hello,

My husband and I own a very small construction/remediation business. We have been using quick books office since 2021 and hired a local bookkeeper to manage our bookkeeping. We do not like quick books because it was auto reconciling our transactions and making mistakes; for example, it would log all home depot purchases as materials when we end up buying lots of tools there. The bookkeeper refused to manually reconcile and correct issues leading to all sorts of mistakes, among other issues. We pointed out reconciliation issues and she went off the deep end, making accusations that we tampered with the books to commit tax fraud, when it had been years since we last logged into QBO. Needless to say that the relationship ended.

We decided to save the $1500/month we were paying her since things are slow right now, and I will be doing the bookkeeping in Xero. I am taking classes through the NACPB to help develop my understanding as I have a different career background. I am currently downloading data from quick books so we have it on file in the event of an audit and so we can cancel this monthly subscription.

These are the files I’m downloading, is there anything else I should download for our records and in the event of an audit?

Balance sheets
P&L Statements
Trial Balances
General ledgers
Journal reports
Transaction details by account
A/R aging summary and detail
A/P aging summary and detail
Bank reconciliation reports
The audit log
Chart of accounts
Vendor contact lists
Customer contact lists

Thank you for taking the time to read this and any advice you may have to offer! I feel completely in over my head and I’m trying to not drown 🫠

Many of us do catch up bookkeeping which may cover 1,2,3 or more years. How many bookkeepers try to get receipts to back up the transactions?

Our approach has been to get the accounts caught up and reconciled and then chase down the material items such as fixed asset purchases.

Curious how others approach it.

When you are doing month end close, what financial reports do you give the clients? I was thinking the Balance sheet (YTD and per Month), Income Statement (YTD, and Per Month), Cash Flows. Should I give Statement of Equity if the client has a lot of owners contribution/distribution? Also do you write a page analysis for the client?

We have taken on work from a CPA (white label) who keeps the relationship with the client. It is a good steady addition to our monthly revenue but not having direct client contact and not owning the relationship has been a problem.
This firm can’t get their act together. Late paying us also. Hate to give up the income but it is a continuous chase if the CPA for answers. Should I try to help them figure out how to manage their client or cut them loose?

Hello comrades,

Sole proprieter bookkeeper here. I am just curious how you go about getting bank/CC statements to perform monthly reconciliations. As I am sure many of us are aware, QBO is hit or miss whether it grabs them or not. I know for many the easy answer here is "have your client send them to you". I am looking for alternative software solutions. For context, most of my clients are small businesses (<$500k topline) that are heavily involved in day to day. My point being, when I ask for bank statements every month, it's something I need to follow up on several times. I am looking for autonomy here. Plus, with the "Profit First" method that several small businesses adopt, we are talking a pretty substantial amount of bank accounts for businesses this size. I like the idea of removing one more task from my clients "to-do" list by not having to provide me statements every month. Any suggestions or experiences are helpful 😄

TLDR: I want to be able to grab bank/cc statements automatically every month for reconciliation, where I do not rely on my clients to provide them for me. Solutions?

Barely starting out the week, then dealing with this 🫠

Got an email from my boss asking me to pay an invoice to a vendor we don't use much. Came from his actual address, amount was normal, nothing obviously off. But the way it was written just felt weird — not really how he usually phrases stuff. Ended up texting him before I did anything and he had no idea what I was talking about.

Turned out to be some kind of spoofed email situation. But I almost just processed it because everything looked fine on paper.

Does anyone else pick up on that kind of thing? Like do you trust that feeling when something reads a little off, or do you just go by whether the request itself looks legit?

I recently took over the books for a small business client and the previous Bookkeeper listed every gas station and restaurant as its own Vendor. The Owner of the business has a company vehicle and dines out a lot (with and without clients and there was no chart of accounts breaking up the meals but that is another matter).

I was taught to break up meals by tax deduction in the Chart of Accounts and gas as a Vehicle Sub Account. When recording transactions I place the name of the restaurant or gas station on the Memo line. Any reason not to do it that way?

I asked the Owner if there was any reason they needed all the restaurants to be their own Vendor and he said that was just the way the previous bookkeeper did it. One of those times where what was done seems so atypical that you question yourself!

Hello everyone working on some books and I just finished posting my journal entries on a clean up job.

I reconciled the FICA SS + Medicare and Federal Income Taxes to the Q1 941 successfully. I got the 941 off their Paychex account.

I’m going to reconcile FUTA to the 940 at the end of the year.

I’m going to make an educated guess and say the state has their version of a 941 and 940? And im going to have to gain access to my client’s account on a website in order to reconcile SUTA and the State Income Tax liabilities?

Sorry if it’s such a noob question.

Been running my own books for 4 years. I'm not an accountant, never claimed to be. Just figured QuickBooks was simple enough.

Tax season this year was a wreck. Three weeks of evenings reconciling things I should have caught in real time. My CPA called me twice asking what certain transactions were and I genuinely could not remember. One charge from August was either a Facebook ad or a Stripe payout, no idea, still don't know.

I finally bit the bullet last month and brought on a remote bookkeeper. She's been doing weekly reconciliations for me. Already she's caught two sales tax errors and one duplicate vendor charge I'd have missed.

did anyone else wait way too long to outsource the books? And for those still doing it themselves, what's the actual breaking point? I'm wondering if I should have done this 2 years ago and saved myself the gray hair.

My client didn’t file 1099s and never asked me to file them. He makes all the vendor payments and he also never sent me W9s. My engagement letter says we will only file them if requested. Am I liable for the possible penalties?

Just curious on how bookkeepers and CPA’s feel on delegating and outsourcing their bookkeeping work to offshore help. I’m a firm owner myself, and have done this successfully.

The team I work with has US credentials/licenses. CPA’s and EA’s. Would other firm owners be receptive to this kind of help as long as they are knowledgeable with US accounting and being licensed?

I will be starting an additional company to help bookkeepers and CPA’s relieve the bottlenecks in their business and connecting them with qualified help, while being able to afford the labor.

For context: I’ve been working as a bookkeeper/BAS agent for a few years. I’ve noticed a lot of setups just code 100% of vehicle expenses to business use and claim the gst at bas time as well - even though many of the vehicles are very likely used for personal purposes as well. From what I can see there’s no journals to correct this later, unless accountants are doing a big adjustment at the end of the year that I can’t see, and are they correcting gst as well? Does anyone else see this happening/ have you seen anyone get pulled up on it?

one thing that makes month-end harder than it should be is open-ended document chasing

if the request is just “send receipts when you can,” the client treats it like background noise. then the bookkeeper is stuck checking email, slack, texts, portals and random uploads until the close turns into archaeology

i’d rather make every request have three parts:

• exactly what is missing
• where to upload it
• what happens after the cutoff

not in a threatening way, just clear. “items not received by friday get posted to ask client and reviewed next month” is much easier to manage than silently waiting forever

it also makes scope cleaner. if a client always misses the cutoff, that is an onboarding/process problem, not a bookkeeping emergency every month

how strict are you with document deadlines before closing a file?

The bookkeeping program that my work place has used for 20 years went out of business this year. We swapped to Sage for our bookkeeping but have not loved their A/R options so here I am asking for suggestions.

Our bookkeeping and payroll clients are billed like this:

-Base monthly fee for bookkeeping depending on number of transactions

-Base monthly payroll fee PLUS $5 per payroll check written

So, we need a program that will do recurring transactions at ease as well as invoicing on the spot.

I hope this is enough info. Thanks for your suggestions!

Is it very dry or is it just me?

I'm based in the US, and got laid off over 1 year ago and since then I've been applying to many places with no luck. I have close to 10 years of experience plus a bachelor's degree.

I've managed to find 1-2 small independent clients, but nothing else. I've been open to full time jobs or even part time contracts, but nothing.

Any suggestions? What has been your key to finding clients?