Messy books, brought back to a trial balance you can rely on.
However far behind it has got, the fix is the same: work through it properly once, reconcile it to source, and hand back figures that hold up — along with an explicit list of anything that could not be resolved from the records themselves.
From £175 · typically 5 working days · fixed price agreed before I start
What gets done
Every transaction coded
Consistently, against a chart of accounts that suits the business rather than a generic default. Where a coding decision is a judgement call, it is documented, not silent.
Reconciled to source
Bank and card accounts agreed to the actual statements, line by line — not to a total that happens to look right. Differences are identified rather than plugged.
Duplicates removed
Double-entered invoices, payments captured from both the feed and a manual entry, the same receipt keyed twice. Found and cleared with a record of what was removed.
Ledgers tidied
Supplier and customer ledgers cleared of stale balances, unallocated payments matched to invoices, and aged listings that reflect reality.
VAT position established
Where you are registered, the treatment applied to each category is set out, recoverable input tax identified, and the return workings prepared for review and submission by you.
Exceptions listed, never guessed
Everything I could not identify from the records goes on a schedule with what I do know and the exact question I need answered. Nothing gets buried in suspense.
What you end up holding
- A reconciled trial balance for the period
- Month-by-month income, cost and profit, so the trend is visible
- Supporting schedules behind the balances that matter
- The exceptions list, with my specific questions
- A short walkthrough of what was wrong and what I changed
- A note on what caused the mess, and what would stop it recurring
If you work with a practice for your year end, this is the package they are asking you for.
How the price is set
By volume and condition, not by hours. I look at a sample of the records first, then quote a fixed figure. If it turns out worse than the sample suggested, that is my problem, not a variation.
The only thing that moves the price is you changing the scope — adding periods, adding entities, adding accounts I had not seen.
If the records are too incomplete to reconstruct honestly, I will tell you before taking the work. There is no version of this where I invent entries to make a period balance.
Then what?
Keep it clean yourself
Plenty of people only ever need the one cleanup. If that is you, an Excel system built around how the business actually runs is usually the thing that makes it stick.
Hand it over monthly
If the reason it got messy is that nobody has time, that will not change after a cleanup. Monthly bookkeeping closes each period as it happens instead.
Send the mess as it is
You do not need to tidy anything first. Tidying it up before sending usually removes the evidence I need.