How much does catch-up bookkeeping cost?
Months of books behind, brought current one statement at a time.
With Neon Link, catch-up bookkeeping costs $2,995 a month for one dedicated, full-time bookkeeper, month to month, with no setup fee, so you pay for the time the cleanup takes rather than a project quote. Working remotely from the Philippines or India on your US business hours, they bring months of unreconciled accounts current against their statements, reclassify a mis-categorized history, fix opening balances and document every correcting entry in QuickBooks Online or Xero. It suits CPA and bookkeeping firms with several client files behind before tax season, and businesses far enough behind to keep someone busy full time; one small file a few months behind is cheaper as a one-time cleanup project.
Rates come from our live rate card. Page updated .
See 3 candidate profiles for your role
Tell us the role. Within 48 hours our team emails you 3 anonymized profiles from people who applied for this kind of work with us: their experience, their region and the software they use.
What your Linker handles
- Gather the bank, card, loan and merchant statements for every month behind, and list in writing what is missing before the cleanup starts
- Bring months of unreconciled bank, credit card, loan, payroll and merchant accounts current, reconciling each one to its statement
- Reclassify a mis-categorized history and clear uncategorized and suspense items, with every correcting entry documented
- Fix opening balances, and set up or clean up the chart of accounts and bank rules so the file stays clean afterward
- Match Stripe, Shopify and other merchant payouts to the sales and fees behind them
- Rebuild payroll entries from the payroll registers and reconcile the payroll liability accounts
- Bring AP and AR current: enter missing bills, apply customer payments to the right invoices and flag aged items that need a decision
- Hand back a file with reconciled balance sheet accounts, the year end workpapers your tax preparer asks for and a written list of every open question
- Keep the books current every month after the catch-up, if you keep the same Linker on
We screen for QuickBooks Online or Xero, ideally both, plus QuickBooks Desktop and a move from Desktop to Online where that is part of the cleanup, and the tools that feed the file, such as Bill.com, Gusto, Stripe, Dext or Hubdoc. If a finalist has not used yours, you'll know before they start.
How the work is measured
What your Linker is measured on. The targets are set with you in the first week, from your volumes and your hours, and written into your statement of work.
- Every account reconciled to its statement for each month brought current, with open items explained instead of carried forward
- Every correcting entry documented, so your reviewer can see what changed and why
- Progress reported every week as months reconciled and questions still open, against the plan set with you
- A cleaned-up file your CPA or reviewer accepts without rework
What a team costs
| Team | Month to month | 6-month plan |
|---|---|---|
| 1 Linker | $2,995 | $2,895 |
| 2 Linkers | $5,990 | $5,790 |
| 3 Linkers | $8,985 | $8,685 |
| 4 Linkers | $11,980 | $11,580 |
| 5 Linkers | $14,975 | $14,475 |
| 6 Linkers | $17,970 | $17,370 |
Per month. 40 hours a week per Linker. No setup fee. Prices from our live rate card.
How we vet your Linker
Our recruiting team in the Philippines runs a strict screening and review of every applicant, using a process built by our founder, Dan Betthauser, from twenty years running outsourced operations across the Philippines, Costa Rica and the United States. Every Linker goes through:
- A screen of the application against your role: the work, the software and the experience you need
- A recorded spoken English sample, reviewed by our team
- A practical skills test for your work, scored in our own system
- A live video interview with our recruiting team
- An ID check and a background check: NBI clearance in the Philippines, police clearance in India and Pakistan
- A workspace check before day one: a quiet, private room, wired internet, a backup connection and a plan for power outages
- A signed confidentiality agreement before they see any of your data
- Your own interview with the finalist: nobody starts until you say yes
How it starts
- Step 1Tell us the work: a 15 or 30 minute call with our team, or the sixty second scope on the homepage.
- Step 2Get a written quote at the published rate, held for 30 days.
- Step 3We recruit and screen for your work and your software, and you interview the finalist before they start.
- Step 4Your Linker works your queue on your hours. A Neon Link manager runs the account and answers when you need them.
- Step 5If the fit is wrong in the first 60 days, we swap them at no cost.
A good fit, and not a fit
- CPA and bookkeeping firms that take on new clients whose books arrive months behind, especially before tax season
- Firms with a backlog of cleanup files their own staff cannot reach during the monthly close
- Businesses a year or more behind, with enough volume to keep a bookkeeper busy full time until they are current
- One small file a few months behind with a light transaction count. A one-time cleanup project from a local bookkeeper costs less than a month of a full-time person
- Books with no statements to work from. Catch-up starts from bank and card statements, so they have to be available
- Filing late returns, answering IRS notices or giving tax advice. Those stay with your CPA or EA
Open roles behind this page
We recruit for this work now. These are the live postings we hire your Linker from:
See 3 candidate profiles for your role
Tell us the role. Within 48 hours our team emails you 3 anonymized profiles from people who applied for this kind of work with us: their experience, their region and the software they use.
Questions owners ask
How much does it cost to outsource catch-up bookkeeping?
$2,995 a month for one dedicated, full-time person (40 hours a week), month to month, or $2,895 a month on the 6-month plan. There is no setup fee, and pay, equipment and management are inside that one number. For comparison, a US bookkeeper costs about $5,870 a month fully loaded, using the BLS median wage plus employer costs.
Is a monthly rate better than a one-time cleanup quote?
For a big catch-up or several files at once, often yes; for one small file, no. Cleanups are commonly priced as one-time projects, which is the better deal when one business is a few months behind. When a firm has a stack of client files to clean up, or one business is far behind with heavy volume, one full-time person at $2,995 a month works through them in order, and month to month is available on every plan, so you are not locked in once the books are current.
How long does catch-up bookkeeping take?
It depends on how many months are behind, how many accounts there are and how fast the statements and answers come back, so we will not quote a timeline before anyone has seen the file. The plan is set with you once your Linker has looked at it, and progress is reported every week as months reconciled and questions still open.
What happens after the books are caught up?
You choose. Keep the same Linker on monthly bookkeeping and close for the files they cleaned up, move them to the next file in your backlog, or end it. If the books need only a few hours a month once they are current, a part-time bookkeeper is the better deal: NerdWallet puts typical small business bookkeeping at about $300 a month.
How is this different from hiring a virtual assistant?
You get one dedicated person who handles your work on your hours, inside your software, and a Neon Link manager runs the account: pay, equipment, replacement if it comes to that, and a phone that gets answered. You never run offshore payroll or manage a freelancer alone. It is not a shared pool, a ticket queue or a 24/7 answering line.
How fast can someone start?
We start recruiting when you say go. You interview the finalist before anyone starts, and the start date is set with you once you pick the person. We would rather take the time to find the right fit than hand you whoever is free.
What if the person is not the right fit?
If the fit is wrong in the first 60 days, we swap them at no cost. After that, if they leave, we recruit the replacement at no charge and manage the handover. Training on your process runs at the normal monthly rate.
Do we have to sign a long contract?
No. Month to month is available on every plan. The 6-month plan trades a longer commitment for a lower monthly rate. A written quote at the published rate is held for 30 days.
Sources: NerdWallet, Bookkeeping prices for small business (updated March 2026) (checked Oct 27, 2026).
Related pages
- Accounting & Bookkeeping: Bank recs, AP/AR, workpapers, payroll prep in QBO and Xero. Staffed before busy season.
- QuickBooks bookkeeper for CPA firms: Reconciliations, AP and AR, payroll entries, month end close and monthly reporting in QuickBooks Online, with schedules your CPA can pick up without rework.
1 US bookkeeper, fully loaded: ~$5,870/mo How we calculate this
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