QuickBooks cleanup service for books that exist but are wrong

The errors found in almost every file

A messy QuickBooks file rarely has a single error. It has small habits that pile up over the months.

• Duplicate transactions. The bank feed imports an expense and someone also enters it by hand or as a bill. The cost shows up twice and profit shrinks.
• Undeposited Funds piling up. QuickBooks parks received payments there until they are grouped into a deposit. When the bank deposit is booked as new income instead, the payment sits there and revenue is counted twice.
• A balance in Opening Balance Equity. QuickBooks uses this account when someone types an opening balance. After setup it should be zero. A balance there points to a bad setup or a forced adjustment.
• Uncategorized Income and Uncategorized Expense. Transactions accepted without a category. The money is recorded, but the P&L cannot tell you what it was.
• Accounts never reconciled, or reconciled with a difference. Reconciliation ties the system balance to the statement. When someone forces it through with a difference, the error hides in the following months.
• A bloated chart of accounts. Three accounts for fuel and categories created on the spot. The reports stop being readable.
• Personal mixed with business. A personal card paying a vendor, family groceries on the company card. Each one has to become an owner draw or a reimbursement.
• Bank rules doing the wrong thing. A rule set up in a hurry books every purchase at one store as job materials and repeats the mistake on its own every month.
• Open invoices that were already paid. The client paid and the deposit came in, but the payment was never applied. Accounts receivable shows money nobody owes.

How the cleanup is done

Order matters, because fixing one account moves the balance of another.

• A record of the starting point. Before any change, current reports and balances are exported, so every adjustment can be traced.
• Diagnosis. A review of accounts, cards, rules and suspicious balances to size the real job.
• Reconciliation from the most recent month backwards. The current picture becomes reliable first.
• Balance corrections. Duplicates removed, Undeposited Funds matched to deposits, Opening Balance Equity moved to the right accounts, invoices applied.
• Chart of accounts cleanup, merging duplicates and fitting the structure to the industry.
• New bank rules, so the error does not come back automatically.
• Maintenance. With a clean file, a monthly routine keeps the mess from building up again.

The work is led by Gustavo Brasil, a Certified QuickBooks PRO Advisor. When a correction touches a year that was already filed, it is agreed with your CPA first. For why delay makes this worse, read the article on books that fall behind.