Can you actually trust your books?You should be able to.
Bookkeeping here isn’t sold on its own. It’s one part of a full finance department, from $5,000 a month. And if you’re the one catching the mistakes... nobody else was being paid to look.
2 minutes. If it’s a fit, you pick a time with Barry. No obligation.
What is outsourced bookkeeping for a $3M+ company?
It’s every bank, card, payment processor, loan and payroll account reconciled to its source, and the month closed on a fixed date. At Core, your books close by the 15th, and the same team uses them to plan your taxes and forecast your cash. It’s part of the outsourced finance department, from $5,000 a month.
Your books can look finished and still be wrong
The bank feed is connected. Transactions are categorized. Nothing’s flagged red. From the outside, that looks like “the books are done.”
The mistakes sit underneath. And they pile up every month nobody looks.
Your P&L and your bank account disagree
Sometimes that’s real. Loan principal, distributions and equipment purchases take cash without showing up as expenses that month. Sometimes it’s the books: transfers booked as income, deposits recorded wrong. You can’t tell which until every account is reconciled.
Payment processors that never match
Stripe, Square and PayPal deposit your money minus fees, refunds and chargebacks, often bundled across several days. Book the deposit and revenue is understated, fees disappear, and your margin is wrong. We reconcile sales, fees, refunds and disputes separately.
Payroll booked as one big withdrawal
Payroll leaves the bank in one or two lumps. Inside are wages, employer taxes, benefits and your own pay. Book it as one line and you can’t see what your people cost. We book it from the payroll reports.
A chart of accounts nobody designed
It’s usually whatever the software set up, plus years of “miscellaneous.” We rebuild it around how you make money, so margin by service is a report you pull.
Differences that get “fixed” with a plug
When an account won’t reconcile, the easy fix is an adjustment that makes it tie. Works great... right up until year end. We track down what’s actually wrong.
The bank reconciled every month. The books were still wrong.
Barry Roach Jr., EA, runs Core. For years, one of his clients, a construction company owner, handed him 23 green ledgers every tax season.
When the company grew and he hired a sales team, he brought in a bookkeeper to move everything into QuickBooks. The first time Barry opened that file, owner draws were sitting on the P&L as an expense. Personal tax payments were booked as a business tax expense.
And the bank account reconciled every month.
The bookkeeper wasn’t lazy or dishonest. Nobody had ever explained the difference between a draw and an expense. On a tax return, though, those entries become deductions the owner was never entitled to. If the return gets examined, that’s a bill with interest, and usually penalties.
That’s why reconciling isn’t where we stop. After your books close by the 15th, a controller reviews the balance sheet, where draws, loans and owner money belong. Then the tax team works from those same books.
What you get every month, by the 15th
- Every bank, credit card, payment processor and loan account reconciled to its statement
- Payroll booked from the payroll reports, so you can see wages, taxes and benefits
- A chart of accounts rebuilt around how you make money
- Books closed by the 15th
- Cleanup of books up to 12 months behind, at no extra charge
- Everything kept in your own QuickBooks Online file, so the books stay yours
- Every close handed straight to controller review and the people doing your taxes
Your books get checked every month, not once in March
Your financial statements, your tax plan and your cash forecast are only as good as the books under them. When one team does all of it, a miscategorized expense gets looked at the month it’s booked... not the next spring.
Your bookkeeper and your CPA may both be good at their jobs. Nobody’s job is the space between them... which is how a draw coded as an expense makes it all the way to a filed return.
Months behind? Bookkeeping cleanup is included, for a selfish reason.
Cleanup is usually its own project with its own invoice. Here, cleanup of books up to 12 months behind is part of month one, with no onboarding fee.
The selfish reason: your tax plan and your cash forecast get built on those books. A cleanup we skipped in October comes back as our problem in April.
Cleanup means every account reconciled back to the last month it actually tied, owner money moved out of expenses, and the chart of accounts rebuilt. More than 12 months behind? That part is quoted before you sign.
Four things we stay out of, and why
We don’t pay your bills or chase your invoices. We report on payables and receivables every month and help set up the process, but your team approves what goes out. We don’t do inventory, WIP or job costing, because this is built for service businesses.
Keep your payroll company, or use our payroll partner. Either way, we book from its reports. And we work in QuickBooks Online only. If you’re on something else, the move is quoted before you sign.
$5,000 a month covers the books, the taxes and the CFO
If all you need is someone to categorize transactions, a stand-alone bookkeeper will cost less. If that’s all you need, hire one. Barry will tell you the same thing on the call.
For $3M-$10M companies, $5,000 a month covers the books, controller review, business and personal tax returns, and CFO advisory. That’s about 2% of revenue at $3M. No onboarding fee. Month-to-month with 30 days’ notice, and your most recent month back if we didn’t do the job to your standard.
What owners ask about their books before the fit call
How do I know if my bookkeeper is doing a good job?
Check three things. Your books close by a set date every month. Every bank, card and loan account ties to its statement. And you could hand your P&L to a lender without apologizing first. If any of those is shaky, it’s worth a second look. At Core the standard is every account reconciled and the month closed by the 15th.
If my bank account reconciles, are my books right?
Not necessarily. Reconciling proves the bank balance matches. It doesn’t prove each transaction landed in the right account. Owner draws booked as expenses still reconcile, and they still overstate your deductions on the tax return. At Core, a controller reviews the balance sheet every month after the books close by the 15th, which is where those errors show up.
Do you do bookkeeping cleanup if my books are months behind?
Yes. Cleanup of books up to 12 months behind is included, with no onboarding fee. If you’re more than 12 months behind, that extra work is quoted before you sign, so you know the full number before anything starts. The cleanup happens in your own QuickBooks Online file.
Can I hire you for just bookkeeping?
No. At Core, bookkeeping comes with controller review, business and personal tax returns and CFO advisory, for one price from $5,000 a month for $3M-$10M companies. If you only need transactions categorized, a stand-alone bookkeeper will cost you less. The point of putting it all on one team is that the books get used to plan your taxes and your cash.
Books you could hand a lender without apologizing first.
You’ve got three honest options. Leave it as it is. Build the finance team yourself. Or hand all four jobs to one team.
If your books looked exactly like this six months from now, would that be okay? If not, tell us your revenue, your role and where your books are today. On a 30-minute call with Barry, you’ll know whether we fit... and if we don’t, he’ll say so.
See if we’re a fit →2 minutes. If it’s a fit, you pick a time with Barry. No obligation.