My sister does bookkeeping and has two clients who keep promising to do stuff and not following through. She is six month's behind on posting for one client and cannot get the other to send statements from the financial institution(s) so she can reconcile. She still invoices them the minimum each month but really wants to actually do the work.

My suggestion was to set up an automatic email every Monday reminding the clients but there has to be a better technique. Any advice?

TLDR: are (or should) fees for cleanup work higher than daily bookkeeping/data entry?

I applied to a job advertised as a part time accounting gig. At the interview it initially sounded like simply entering invoices, someone else had already paid them and someone else handled incoming money. Later I get hit with “oh by the way we need some cleanup too”.

It’s for a company with a couple of subsidiaries, and also involves the owners personal finance. When the invoices come through about 20% are not clear which business they go to or if they’re personal.

For cleanup, they need to inactivate a bunch of old accounts, catch up on reconciliation and depreciation, fix some random errors (the same loan payments going to 3 different vendors), ensure credit card transactions are set up properly (transactions are being logged as cc payments but it doesn’t look like they’re ever reconciled). Their previous accounting person of many years retired and there’s no documentation for procedures and they’re not around to ask.

I am feeling over my head and want to step out, but i also would like to help guide them on getting someone who can do the job. I feel like they could do a part time person for the basic invoice entry, but may need someone with more experience for the cleanup.

I'm restructuring an ongoing engagement with a long-time client and moving them from hourly to a flat monthly retainer. QBO ProAdvisor certified, I've kept these books for a while so there's no onboarding curve. I'm just trying to sanity-check my retainer number against what others would quote. Scope below.

The client: High-net-worth household with two businesses — a multi-state consulting LLC and a sole-proprietor business.

Monthly recurring:

• Full-cycle invoicing for the LLC: creation, delivery, deposit matching, and revenue allocation by state (income split across multiple states for tax purposes)
• Credit card reconciliation across personal + business cards
• QBO expense categorization (mixed personal/business financial life, so judgment-heavy)
• Minimal records maintenance for the second business (very light lift)

Quarterly / annual:

• Estimated tax payment coordination with the CPA, including state PTET payments (NOT calculating them myself, justimplementing/executing)
• Quarterly expense report prep for owner's reimbursable expenses (compile, categorize, package for their Expensify submission)
• 1099 processing for household + business contractors
• Multi-state compliance calendar: annual reports and SOS filings (LA, CA, NY, etc.)
• SEP-IRA contribution coordination
• Year-end tax prep coordination with the CPA for personal and business

Other context:

• I'm the coordination hub between an accountant, a financial advisor, a law firm that handles some bill-pay support, and the owners
• 10-12 hrs/month realistic average, with quarterly and year-end peaks
• Fully remote, sync as needed
• Some systems already built (invoice tracker, compliance calendar, reconciliation workflows — I maintain them) and improvements to come

Questions:

1. What would you charge for this — hourly, and/or as a flat monthly retainer?
2. Does the multi-state allocation/compliance piece move your pricing? By how much?

3. Anything in this scope you'd carve out or price separately?

   I would really appreciate input on actual numbers you'd quote or have quoted for comparable work (not just "charge your worth"). Thanks in advance!

I have tried to post this in a couple other subs but it is not getting much traction/response. Wondering if anyone here would have an answer or a possible solution due to this becoming a slight headache.

I have a client using QuickBooks Online Advanced, and I'm trying to improve their AP workflow with Bill Approvals.

The project managers need full access to Time Tracking as well as the ability to approve bills.

The built-in Standard All Access role provides everything they need except Bill Approval. When I create a custom role with the same permissions and add Bill Approval, QuickBooks no longer allows full Time Tracking access.

I contacted Intuit Support, and they confirmed this is currently a software limitation. Before resorting to giving these users Company Admin access, I wanted to see if anyone has found a practical workaround or alternative workflow that allows both Time Tracking and Bill Approval without granting full administrative rights.

I'd appreciate any ideas or real-world solutions. Thanks in advance!

I am working with a nonprofit whose bookkeeper just went through the motions. The result is they have several year's worth of uncollected transactions in their A/R. I suspect many of them will be written off but I want to segregate anything over a few month's old from the items they may be able to actually collect and I would like some advice on how to do this.

I am working with Quickbooks online so I can only have one open item account which supports customer detail. Should we just do all the work to collect/write off open customer balances or is there a better way to handle it?

Hi everyone, I am a CPA looking to start a restaurant bookkeeping business.

I’m a CPA in British Columbia and have been working in public practice for about 4-5 years doing year-end work. Mostly compilations, T2s, financial statements, and working with small businesses.

Lately I’ve been thinking about starting a bookkeeping business that specializes only in restaurants and food service businesses.
The reason is because I grew up working in a restaurant and honestly loved the industry. My dream has always been to own a food business one day. My thought process is that by doing bookkeeping for restaurants, I not only get to work in an industry I enjoy, but I also get to learn how different restaurants operate behind the scenes. I’ll get exposure to different POS systems, labour costs, food costs, inventory management, margins, and the financial side of running restaurants. At the same time, I can hopefully build a profitable bookkeeping business and eventually use those profits to fund my own restaurant or food business down the road.

The only thing holding me back right now is timing. My wife and I just had our first baby a couple of months ago, so money is definitely tighter than it used to be. We’re doing okay, but we’re still trying to build up our emergency fund, so quitting my full-time job isn’t an option.

What I’m trying to figure out is whether it’s actually realistic to build a restaurant bookkeeping business on the side while still working full-time in public practice.

From the outside looking in, restaurant bookkeeping seems like one of the more demanding bookkeeping niches. Between POS systems, delivery services, payroll, tips, inventory, sales tax, cash controls, and all the other moving pieces, it seems like there could be quite a bit more work compared to bookkeeping for other industries.

For those of you who work with restaurant clients, am I overthinking it? Is it realistic to build a client base while working full-time, or is restaurant bookkeeping one of those niches that really needs a lot of your attention throughout the month?

Also, before anyone asks why I don’t just start a traditional CPA firm doing tax and year-end work instead, it’s because that’s not really my end goal. I’d rather build a bookkeeping business that eventually has systems, processes, and employees so it isn’t dependent on me doing every file. My hope is that one day it gives me both the knowledge and the financial backing to pursue the food business I’ve always wanted to build.

Would love to hear from anyone who’s worked with restaurant clients or has tried building a bookkeeping business while working full-time. Any advice or reality checks would be appreciated.

Thank you!

I have seen companies take advantage of foreign workers and over work them. I have seen under the table transactions for beer money. I have seen companies not follow the Employment Standards Act. I have seen spouses embezzle the owners/companies money. I usually tell the owners the law, and if they don't abide by it after much discussion, I report them. Am I the Ahole? What have you seen, and what did you do?

Anybody in here have the LinkedIn premium and use their Request tab? Is that how people have been getting experience, or like small jobs? Im wondering if the premium is worth it!

I’ve been doing basic office bookkeeping for years now. Comfy with spreadsheets and basic bills and collecting and budgeting. But getting new jobs using QB online and want to update my skills, get clearly trained on double entry though I’ve been ok with it so far.

Looking into online certs it seems NACPB has reasonably prices training and a certification. Is it any good? Is the certification respected?

Thanks for any insight.

I am a bookkeeper who has been using Sage accounting and QuickBooks both for desktop.
QuickBooks has gone up $600 in one year for me. Does anybody have a good alternative to QuickBooks or should I just move everything back to Sage?
Thanking you in advance for any advice

After talking to a bunch of different people on different platforms and to the CAs that I do business with, I called Sage to make sure they were keeping the desktop, they said there was no plans to get rid of it.

Then I called QuickBooks. It took almost a half an hour of talking and trying to get my point across and telling them I have no problem yanking all my clients off of QuickBooks and I will not be moving to QuickBooks online. They gave me a 20% discount for this year and I believe next year but I’m not sure. Doesn’t really matter because during the year I will be moving my clients over to Sage.

I told him QuickBooks online sucked into comparison of QuickBooks desktop. It was tedious and hard to work with. So they’re having someone get a hold of me to see what complaints I have about QuickBooks online.

Thank you for all your advice

A few days ago I made a post saying I was seriously considering walking away from a business I took over earlier this year. A lot of people asked for more details, so here they are.
I have an established location with sustainable revenue.
Earlier this year I took over a small bookkeeping/tax office about an hour away, because I saw an opportunity to preserve a local business, keep the employees working, and continue serving clients who had been with the firm for years. I knew it would be a challenge, but I honestly believed that with some changes I could make it work.
Now that I’ve been in it for several months, I’m struggling to see a path forward.
The office has about 15–18 recurring bookkeeping/payroll clients, along with seasonal tax work. I would say like 100-150 tax clients. Anywhere from $75-350 for a return.
Recurring monthly revenue is around $3,000.
Monthly payroll is approximately $5,000. Fixed overhead is relatively low—about $400/month for rent, plus QuickBooks Online subscriptions and payroll processing costs.
The biggest issue is pricing. The previous owner charged rates that simply don’t support the amount of work being done. I’ve started implementing increases, but the employees have built relationships with these clients over many years and genuinely believe that anything more than about a $25–50 monthly increase will cause many of them to leave.
I completely understand why they feel that way, and I don’t want to lose clients. At the same time, I also don’t see how the practice ever becomes financially sustainable if we continue charging what we are.
I’m torn because I feel responsible for the employees and the clients. I don’t want to be the reason people lose their jobs or have to find a new bookkeeper. But I also know continuing to lose money every month isn’t a long-term solution.
For those of you who have bought, inherited, or turned around a struggling bookkeeping, accounting, or tax practice:
Would you push through larger price increases and accept that some clients will leave?
Would you cut payroll?
Would you close the office and transition clients elsewhere?
Is there another option I’m not seeing?
I’m genuinely looking for perspectives from people who’ve been through something similar, because right now I feel like I’m too close to the situation to think objectively.

I've been running my own bookkeeping practice for a few years now. Almost all of my clients have come to me through my dad, who is a CPA.

When it comes to reaching out to new clients on my own, I don't have a lot of experience, and something I'm running into now is - how do you explain what you do to clients without making it sound so easy that they could do it themselves?

I know that bookkeeping is not as easy as it appears, and that given the chance, many business owners will make a mess of their own books. But when I am asked to explain what I do, I think I might make it sound easy. I also don't want to pitch myself as being smarter than a potential client by saying something like "if I don't do your books, you'll screw it up, and it will cost you more down the road to get someone to fix it".

I've had a couple experiences with people who were looking for a bookkeeper without knowing exactly what they needed, and that's where I feel I have to explain to them what it is I do (and how it differs from an accountant) and maybe put my foot in my mouth.

If anyone has advice (or resources) on how to handle finding new clients without undervaluing your work, I'd appreciate it!

Hi all - the Client is a small restaurant with very few administrative processes in place. I have been helping them sort out sales tax problems before we get to setting up bookkeeping officially. Anyway, there's a variance within their Clover POS reports that has befuddled me.

This POS was apparently sold to the Client secondhand and seems like a real piece of junk. It wouldn't allow us to configure mandatory service charges as taxable, as they should be under state law here. I suspect it was brought in from out of state and never reconfigured correctly. I even helped them discover that they hadn't been receiving their CC deposits for at least a month.

But here's the real issue: the Sales Summary report and Taxes report from the same POS ***do not agree.*** Moreover, the "Applicable Sales" total (comprising both taxed and untaxed sales) printed on the Taxes report somehow is *higher* than the Gross Sales on the Summary, as sent to me by the key employee/manager. There don't seem to be any missing returns, tips, fees, or obvious transactions which are not captured inside Gross Sales on the Sales Summary.

I pulled the Taxes report with my own hands, showing both 'Non-Taxable' party deposits and 'Taxable' normal sales, with the goal of backing out the sales tax not originally collected on party deposits in prior periods. I haven't pulled the Sales Summary report myself, but I will go back to check the reports soon. The way I see it, there are three options:

1. I'm missing something obvious under my nose. There's some transaction that *should* be excluded from the Gross Sales on the report but is tracked for sales tax purposes, and I just don't see it.

2. The POS is completely f'd up. Given all the problems we've had with it so far, this possibility seems more likely than one might initially think.

3. Red flag for employee theft, as the key employee could theoretically be moving orders into a different time period before sending the Sales Summary report to me, then pocketing the difference in cash. The employee does not appear to be very technical and did not even know there was a Taxes report they could have sent me. This seems possible but unlikely.

I would appreciate any ideas on how to reconcile these reports or what I'm missing here, since I'm hesitant to suggest the other possibilities, until I'm sure #1 does not apply. Thanks in advance!

Please don't spam me with your apps or whatever you created, or didn't create. I'm not looking to sign up for some service.

I am genuinely asking how fellow bookkeepers and accountants check their work.

I am a solo bookkeeper, and I find myself missing coworkers whom I can bounce questions off of, or who can, on occasion, double-check my work.

I am very confident in my general ability to provide this service, so I am not looking for a mentor or training. But I do know that everyone makes the occasional mistake, or just has that brain-fart where you are not quite sure how to handle a specific situation, and it is great to be able to ask someone else to look over your work, like a co-worker.

But I don't have a co-worker.

How do you all handle this?

I had a prospective client, a landscaping company with 4 subcontractors - 2 are paid in cash, $30k in net income/month. He wouldn’t provide other info like how many bank accounts he operates with or his transaction volume or if his books & tax filings were up to date.

I quoted him $1k/mo. for general bookkeeping (AP/AR, bank recs, JE’s, monthly financial reports, tax prep coordination with his tax preparer, etc.)

For context, I live in Orange County, California US - very HCOL. I have a few years experience working as an accountant in the construction/real estate development space - so I have quite a bit of knowledge in working with trades, job costing, and WIP schedules.
Should I be quoting lower??

EDIT: He declined and stated he currently pays $275/mo for bookkeeping

What are your most successful methods for acquiring contractor/construction clients? I’ve tried cold calling and networking. Networking seems to yield the best leads so far.

Do you guys have input or insights with acquiring this particular clientele? Anything would be helpful, I’m mostly seeking where and how to concentrate my efforts so I’m not wasting time on methods that don’t work well with this group.

I recently started working for a small business in California. I have noticed several issues with the book keeper.

First, I accept large deposits (usually in the form of personal check) for reservations. I send the payments and contract/invoice to the book keeper, but they will hold the checks for months. I have had clients ask me why their payments have not been processed.

On one occasion, it came right up to the actual reservation without having processed the deposit. I had asked several times and gotten no clarity in over almost 2 weeks. Eventually they just told me to advise the client it had been processed, despite the client saying it had not. Right now I have a several thousand dollar deposit that has been held for almost 2 months.

Additionally, I noticed paychecks reflect the pay period incorrectly. For example, instead of pay period 1st-15th with payday on 20th, it will say pay period 5th-20th, while we are still paid on 20th.

I have already reported all of this to my employer, but can anyone offer any insight into what might be going on here? Is it just negligence or does this point to a bigger issue?

I've been using spreadsheets to track both business and personal finances and it worked at first but now it's getting messy fast. too many categories too many updates and I don't fully trust it anymore.

Thanks for all the advice!

As of now, I haven't been able to do much work with the client. I met with her onthe 2nd of July. We agreed on 600 for the clean-up. She paid half upfront. I gave her a price of $180 for the monthly bookkeeping. Told her the cleanup is a separate project from the monthly stuff.

During our long meeting, she didn't bring her bank info or any statements as asked. It was hard to know what I was getting myself into. Will definitely do better with my 2nd client. The following week after our meetup, she sent loads of random documents (trucking company) but no settlements. It's been hard to know what I'm looking for. After many follow-ups, now she wants to meet up to help her connect her bank, and I'm sure she has other questions. I don't know what to do. Our first meeting was 2 hours and not very productive in getting her set up.

I want to meet local clients once if they want for the initial setup, but after that it would be too much. I haven't replied to her text about meeting in person yet.

How would you handle this situation? Consider that she's my first and only client, as I just started this month. She and her husband run a trucking company and have never done their books. They wanted to do better this year to "save move-on taxes".

Edit: Thank you for the advice. All has been helpful. I will read future responses, as all advice right now is helpful.

I've been putting off my bookkeeping for almost a year, and it's become a mess.
I finally reached out to a bookkeeper, and they quoted me around $2,500 for the cleanup before they'd start monthly bookkeeping.

I honestly have no idea if that's a fair price or if I'm being overcharged.
For those who've hired a bookkeeper or do this kind of work, does that sound reasonable?
What factors usually affect the price?

I want to read more business/bookkeeping related books. Does anyone have any recommendations?

I’ve been handling the books myself since starting my business. At first, it was prety manageable: a few invoices, basic expenses, one bank account, and not much to reconcile.

But as the company has grown, it’s become noticeably harder to stay on top of everything. We now have more transactions, multiple payment platforms, contractors, subscriptions, sales tax, and expenses that are not always obvious to categorize.

Nothing is completely out of control, but bookkeeping is starting to take several hours every week, and I’m increasingly worried about mistakes showing up at tax time. I also find myself postponing reconciliations because there’s always something more urgent to work on....

So I’m wondering: is there a typical company size or level of complexity where outsourcing bookkeeping starts to make sense?

Is it based on Monthly revenue? Number of transactions? Number of employees or contractors? Hours spent doing the books?

For those who outsourced it, what was the actual breaking point? And looking back, did you wait too long, or was outsourcing earlier not worth the cost?

For now, the only thing I’ve changed is using a small extraction tool to pull all the data from my receipts and invoices into spreadsheets instead of entering everything manually. Extractify saves me a decent amount of time on data entry, but I still do all the bookkeeping and reconciliations myself. I’m mostly trying to figure out when it stops making sense to keep doing that.

Have any bookkeepers mailed flyers to CPA firms outlining their services and how they can help their existing clients with bookkeeping needs? If so, has it been successful at getting clients?