Catch-Up & Clean-Up Bookkeeping in Knoxville, TN
Months behind, or a set of books somebody else left in a state? We reconstruct the history, reconcile it against the bank, and hand you back something you can file from.
Catch-up and clean-up are two different jobs
Catch-up is when the work was never done: months or years of transactions sitting uncategorised while the business carried on regardless. Clean-up is when the work was done badly — duplicated entries, invented categories, a reconciliation that has not balanced since a date nobody remembers.
Plenty of businesses need both. The order matters, because cleaning up a period you have not yet reconstructed is wasted effort.
How it actually goes
We start with a free 15-minute audit to see the real scope, because the honest answer to “how long will this take” depends entirely on what we find. From there you get a fixed scope and a price before any work begins — nobody wants an open-ended bill on a job like this.
Then it is methodical: pull the statements, rebuild the ledger period by period, reconcile each account until it ties, and identify what is genuinely missing versus what was simply never recorded. Where documentation is gone for good, we tell you rather than quietly guessing.
What you have at the end
A reconciled set of books from a defined starting point, statements for each period covered, and a clear list of anything that could not be substantiated. That is what a tax preparer needs, and it is what a lender or a buyer will ask for.
Most clients move onto monthly bookkeeping afterwards, for the straightforward reason that having just paid to fix it, they would rather not be back here in two years.
Talk it through first
Every set of books is a little different. Tell us what you have and what is going wrong with it, and we will tell you plainly whether this is the right service for you. The first fifteen minutes are free and there is no pressure at the end of them.
Prefer to talk now? Call 423-227-1720, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm.
Questions we get about catch-up work
How far behind is too far behind?
We have not met a set of books that could not be rebuilt when the bank records still exist. Several years behind is a bigger job, not an impossible one.
What does catch-up work cost?
It is quoted per job after the free audit, as a fixed scope, because volume and condition vary enormously. We will not start work on an open-ended hourly basis for something this unpredictable.
I am embarrassed about the state of it. Is that a problem?
No, and you are not unusual. Books fall behind because owners are busy running the business, which is the normal order of priorities. Nobody here is going to make you feel bad about it.
Will this fix my unfiled tax returns too?
It gives your tax preparer what they need to file them. We do the bookkeeping side; the returns themselves go through your CPA or tax preparer, and we will work with them directly.