Bookkeeping catch-up: the document list

A cleanup is not harder than monthly bookkeeping per transaction. It is harder because of gaps. A missing bank statement means the period either side cannot be reconciled, so work stops, gets set aside, and has to be restarted later with the context gone. Three interruptions like that turn a two-week job into two months.

The complete request list

For the whole period, with no gaps:

• Every bank statement, every account, every month — including accounts that were closed during the period.
• Every credit card statement, every card, every month.
• Loan and finance agreements, plus statements showing balances at the start and end of the period.
• Receipts and invoices for expenses, at minimum everything above an agreed threshold.
• Sales invoices issued, or the sales report from whatever system produced them.
• Payroll reports for every period, plus any payroll tax filings.
• Merchant, POS and payment platform reports for every month.
• The last filed accounts or tax return before the period begins — this gives you opening balances.
• Any adjusting journal entries or trial balance from the accountant covering the period.
• Asset purchases and disposals with invoices, including trade-ins.
• Details of anything unusual: new loans, grants, insurance claims, ownership changes, disputes.
• Access to whatever accounting file already exists, however bad it is.

The documents people forget to ask for

• The prior accountant's trial balance. Without it you are guessing at opening balances, and every subsequent reconciliation inherits the guess.
• Statements for closed accounts. An account closed mid-period leaves a hole nobody notices until reconciliation fails.
• The existing file, even if it is wrong. Knowing what someone else already did — including duplicate or triplicated accounts in the chart of accounts — changes the plan.
• Whether tax returns were filed. A period covered by a filed return is treated very differently from one that is not. Ask directly rather than assuming.
• Personal accounts used for business. Clients rarely volunteer this and it is very often the case.

Getting months of documents at once

A request for eighteen months of records is overwhelming in a way a monthly request is not, and overwhelmed clients stall. Break it up without losing the "complete before starting" principle:

• Request by account, not by month. "All statements for the Chase account" is one download from one portal. "All documents for March" is six separate errands.
• Give them the portal route. Most clients do not know they can download two years of statements in one go. Tell them where the button is.
• Track completeness visibly — a checklist showing 14 of 18 months received tells the client exactly what remains, which a chasing email never does.
• Chase by exception. Only ever ask for what is genuinely still missing.
• Consider bank read-only access where appropriate and permitted, so you can retrieve statements yourself.

Scoping before you quote

• How many months, and does the client actually know when the books were last correct?
• How many bank accounts and cards, including closed ones?
• Roughly how many transactions per month? Ask for one statement to check.
• Were tax returns filed for any part of the period?
• Is there an existing accounting file, and what state is it in?
• Is personal spending mixed in, and how heavily?
• Is there payroll, inventory, or trust money involved?
• Who else is involved — accountant, prior bookkeeper — and are they contactable?

The last question matters more than it looks. A retired bookkeeper who left no documentation and cannot be asked anything turns judgement calls into archaeology.

Fix or start over

For a genuinely broken file, rebuilding from the last known-correct trial balance is often faster than untangling what is there — particularly with duplicated chart-of-accounts entries and years of unreconciled transactions. Make that call early and deliberately. Discovering three weeks in that you should have started fresh is the expensive version.