Catch-up bookkeeping for small business
Behind on your books? That is the only thing we fix.
Send us your bank, credit card, Stripe, and PayPal statements. We rebuild every month you are missing and hand back clean, tax-ready books in 2–4 weeks. No logins. No meetings. No judgment.
Works from statements alone. If you can download a PDF, you are ready.
Veteran-owned · Colorado-based · Serving all 50 states
Your books · in progress
Sheet No. 001
Miscellaneous
Software subscriptions✓ categorized
$1,214.00
Unknown deposit
Client payment, Invoice 214✓ matched
$3,850.00
Owner draw??
Owner distribution✓ reconciled
$2,000.00
Gross margin ratio
75.0% Great
Profit ratio
4.8% Caution
Resilience ratio (months of cash)
1.1 Low
TIES TO: BANK ****4127 · CC ****9958 · STRIPE · 1 OF 18 MONTHS
See the full sample report →
Entry No. 01 · How it works
Three steps. You only do the first one.
The whole process is built around one idea: your statements already contain everything a bookkeeper needs. Work starts within 48 hours of receiving them.
STEP 1
Send your statements
PDFs or CSVs from every account that moves money in your business, for every month you are behind. That is your entire job.
BANKCREDIT CARDSTRIPEPAYPALSQUAREVENMO
STEP 2
We rebuild every month
Every transaction categorized. Every transfer matched. Every account reconciled to the penny against its own statement, month by month, until you are current.
STEP 3
You get clean books
A month-by-month profit and loss, a fully categorized ledger, a graded scorecard, and a tax-ready package your CPA will actually thank you for. Most projects finish in 2–4 weeks.
Entry No. 02 · What you get
Books you can hand to anyone.
Your CPA, your banker, your buyer, the IRS. Everything ships in formats they already use, graded with the 5 Simple Ratios scorecard.
Deliverable
Month-by-month P&L
A profit and loss statement for every month of the catch-up period, so you can finally see what actually happened.
Deliverable
Categorized ledger
Every transaction from every account, categorized and searchable. No more mystery charges or uncategorized lumps.
Deliverable
Reconciliation reports
Proof that each account ties to its statement for each month. This is what separates real books from a spreadsheet of guesses.
Deliverable
5 Simple Ratios scorecard
The five ratios that run your business: gross margin, profit, operating expense, labor, and resilience, each graded against proven targets so you know if the numbers are good, not just what they are.
Deliverable
Written commentary
What happened, why it matters, and what to focus on next. Written by a real person, in plain English.
Deliverable
Tax-ready package + dashboard
Year-end summaries organized for filing, import-ready files for QuickBooks or Xero, and your numbers in a private client dashboard.
Entry No. 03 · Who this is for
People with a reason. People without one. Both welcome.
Tax deadline
Your CPA needs numbers and you have a shoebox. We turn the backlog into filing-ready books before the extension runs out.
IRS letter
A notice showed up and you need real, reconciled records fast. Clean books are the first step in any response.
Loan or funding
Lenders want financial statements, not screenshots of your bank balance. We build the history they ask for.
Selling the business
Buyers pay for provable numbers. Reconciled books can be the difference between a serious offer and a lowball.
Done avoiding it
No deadline, no crisis. You are just tired of the dread every time you think about the books. That counts too.
Who this is not for
We build cash basis books from statements, which is how most small businesses actually file. If you need accrual accounting, serious inventory tracking, construction job costing, or in-person meetings, we are not the right fit, and we will tell you that on day one instead of billing you to find out.
Entry No. 04 · Pricing
Size up your backlog. Get one flat number.
Catch-up work is priced by the size of the job, not by the hour: $240 per month of backlog at standard volume. Answer three questions, send it over, and get your flat quote within 24 hours. Work starts within 48 hours of receiving statements.
How many months behind are you?
12 months
1 MONTH5+ YEARS
How many accounts move money?
2 accounts
1 ACCOUNT12+
Roughly how busy are those accounts?
Get your exact quote. Free, within 24 hours.
Tax-Ready Guarantee · If your CPA is not satisfied with the work, we fix it free.
Entry No. 05 · Client results
The lecture never comes.
"I kept putting it off because I thought it was going to be a whole thing. It wasn't. I sent over my statements, they handled everything, and two weeks later I actually knew what my business was making. First time in years I could answer that question with a straight face."
"My CPA had been asking for organized records for months. I handed her everything Ketchup put together and she didn't have a single follow-up question. That alone was worth it."
"They found things I wasn't expecting. My salary cap was way over where it should've been and I had no idea. It wasn't comfortable to look at, but knowing is better than not knowing. Now I actually have something to work with."
Entry No. 06 · Fair questions
Fair questions.
How far back can you go?
As far back as you have statements. We have cleared backlogs as old as 6 years. Most banks let you download several years of history, and we can work with whatever you can pull.
How much does it cost?
$240 per month of backlog at standard volume: 1 to 3 accounts and under 300 transactions a month. Heavier books are quoted before you pay anything. Whatever we quote is locked before we start, with no hourly billing and no overages.
Do you need access to my bank or my accounting software?
No logins required. We work from the PDF or CSV statements you send. If you would rather not download them yourself, view-only statement access works too, but it is never required. Either way, we never touch your money or your software.
How long does it take?
Most projects finish in 2 to 4 weeks, and work starts within 48 hours of receiving your statements. Every quote includes a committed delivery date, so you know it before you say yes.
Is this legitimate bookkeeping or some shortcut?
Legitimate. Cash basis accounting from bank records is the standard method accepted by the IRS for most small businesses. Your CPA can use our work directly for tax preparation, with no cleanup on their end. That is the point of the Tax-Ready Guarantee.
What if I am missing some statements?
Send what you have. We will tell you exactly which months and accounts are missing so you can request them from your bank or processor. Nothing ships with gaps in it.
I use QuickBooks or Xero. Will this work with it?
Yes. Your deliverables include files formatted for import, so you or your CPA can bring the caught-up history into your software and continue from there. But you do not need any software for us to do the work.
Do you handle accrual accounting or inventory?
No. We build cash basis books, which is how most small businesses actually file. If you need accrual-basis financials, real inventory accounting, or construction job costing, we are not the right fit, and we will say so before any money changes hands.
Will you keep doing my books every month afterward?
Catch-up is a project, not a subscription. It has a flat price, a delivery date, and an end. When you are current, most clients take their clean books and hand them to their CPA. Some ask us to keep them current from there, and that is a different service with its own name: 5 Simple Ratios, our monthly bookkeeping arm, where the same five ratios are graded every month. Totally your call, zero pressure, and your catch-up quote is the same whether you continue or walk away.
More reading: How much does catch-up bookkeeping cost? · How far behind is too far? · Catch-up vs. hiring a bookkeeper
Final entry · Get started
Catch up. For real this time.
However far behind you are, it is a finite number of statements. Send them over and make it someone else's problem. Ours. Quote in 24 hours, work starts within 48.
Get your free quotehello@ketchupbookkeeping.com · (970) KETCHUP · No call required. Ever.