Reconciliation
Bank, card and merchant accounts reconciled weekly, not saved up for month end. Categorized by an accountant, not a rules engine. You find out about a problem while the month is still live enough to do something about it.
The deliverable
Every month, someone senior tells you what your numbers mean
Not a dashboard. Not a PDF you have to interpret. One page, in plain language, from the accountant who reviewed your close.
Send your most recent close. We review it and send you what we found.
Nobody else shows you this
What lands in your inbox
Every provider describes a deliverable. Here is ours, so you can judge it instead of imagining it.
Illustrative example, fictional business
Reviewed by Mary Givens, Partner. Questions on any of this, reply to the email and we will book fifteen minutes.
March close, reviewed
What changed
Revenue came in at 218k against 176k in February. Most of that is the two commercial jobs that closed in the same week, so treat it as timing rather than a step change. Gross margin held at 41 percent.
What looks wrong
Your equipment loan has not amortized since October. The balance has sat flat for five months. Every balance sheet you have handed out since then shows too much debt and too little equity. I booked the catch-up entries. The fix is in this close.
There is also 11,400 sitting in Ask My Accountant, most of it card charges from January. I need ten minutes with you on those.
What to watch
Labor ran 3 points above your twelve month average for the second month running. One month is noise. Two is a pattern worth understanding before it reaches a third.
Reviewed by Mary Givens, Partner. Questions on any of this, reply to the email and we will book fifteen minutes.
One page. It arrives whether or not anything is wrong.
Why it matters
What is missing matters more than what is there
A clean-looking P&L hides plenty:
- A month that never got accrued
- A loan balance that stopped amortizing in spring
- An owner draw sitting in an expense account
- A catch-all account holding whatever nobody could place
Software has no opinion about whether a number looks wrong.
How it works
Four steps, same order, every month
The close
Accruals, prepaids and payroll booked. Month locked. P&L, balance sheet, cash flow. Nothing is crammed in at the end, because the reconciling was already done.
The review
Shawna, the controller, reviews the close. Then Mary reads the month against prior periods. What is absent, what should have moved and did not.
The memo
What changed, what looks wrong, what to watch. If it needs a call, we book one.
There is no secret method to closing a set of books. What is rare is someone senior reading yours after. Those hours cost real money, which is why almost every provider sells them apart, from $1,500 a month up.
Questions
About the review
Who performs the review?
Two people, both named. Shawna, our controller, reviews the close. Mary Givens, the partner, reads the month after that. You are told which close was reviewed and when. It is not handed to whoever is free that week.
How often do you reconcile?
Weekly, not once at month end. Owners who are actively running something get feedback while the month is still live, and nothing has to be crammed into the close.
What if nothing is wrong that month?
You still get the memo. A quiet month is worth knowing about too. Most of the value is knowing someone looked.
I use QuickBooks. Will I have to change software?
No. We work inside your file and you keep your own access throughout.
What happens to the mess I have now?
Most jobs open with a cleanup. We quote it once, on its own, so you can see the cost to fix apart from the cost to keep it clean. More on that here.
How fast does it arrive?
By the middle of the following month, on a schedule we agree at onboarding and then hold. Exact timing depends on how fast your bank feeds and payroll close out.
Stop guessing what is in your books
Send your most recent close. A senior accountant reviews it and puts what we found in writing. Free, and yours to keep.