A cleanup brings your books up to date and corrects what's already in them, so the numbers match your bank statements, loan statements, and last filed tax return. It's a defined project with a start and an end, and once it's done, monthly bookkeeping keeps it from happening again.
Being behind is common. When you're buying, renovating, or adding properties, the work on the properties comes first and the recordkeeping waits. It's fine until your CPA needs a full year of numbers at once.
Catching up versus cleaning up
Catching up means recording transactions that were never entered. If your accounting software has an empty stretch, or the bank feed stopped connecting months ago, that's catch-up work.
Cleaning up means fixing what's already recorded: transactions in the wrong category or on the wrong property, duplicates from bank feeds, loan payments recorded as a single expense, personal expenses mixed in, and accounts that were never reconciled.
Most books behind by a year need both.
What the work usually covers
Setting starting balances that match your last filed return, so the new numbers connect to what was already filed
Recording or correcting every transaction for the period, by property
Reconciling every bank, card, and loan account month by month
Splitting loan payments into principal and interest, and matching loan balances to the lender's statements
Separating repairs from improvements so your CPA can treat each one correctly
Recording money you put in and took out of the business
Building a list of contractor payments for 1099s
What you'll need to gather
Bank and credit card statements for the full period
Loan statements, including escrow activity
Closing statements for any purchase, sale, or refinance
Property manager statements, if you have one
Your last filed tax return
Access to your accounting software, if you use one
How long it takes
It depends on the number of accounts, properties, and transactions, and on how quickly statements come in. We scope it after looking at your books, so you know the work and the timeline before anything starts.
Where to start
If your books are behind and tax time is coming, tell us where things stand. We'll go through it on a short discovery call and you'll know what the cleanup would involve.
REVI Bookkeeping works with house flippers and long-term rental landlords anywhere in the US.
