The answer
How much does catch-up bookkeeping cost?
A bookkeeper or accounting firm charges $300 to $500 to clean up one to three months, $500 to $1,500 for four to six months, $1,500 to $3,500 for a full year, and $3,500 to $10,000 or more beyond two years. The quoted timeline is three to eight weeks, after a discovery call and a proposal.
Those are the real numbers, including for our competitors. Below: what moves the price inside those ranges, and what Titan charges.
Titan, for comparison
- Up to 6 months behind$499
- Up to 12 months behind$999
- Up to 24 months behind$1,899
- Your first month, closed and tied out$0
01 / Market rates
What a bookkeeper or firm charges for cleanup.
Prices for a business with roughly 50 to 300 transactions a month, starting from bank and card statements. Higher volume moves every row up.
How far behind
Published range
Timeline
1 to 3 months behind
$300 – $500
3 – 8 weeks
1 to 3 months behind
4 to 6 months behind
$500 – $1,500
3 – 8 weeks
4 to 6 months behind
Twelve months behind
$1,500 – $3,500
3 – 8 weeks
Twelve months behind
Two years or more
$3,500 – $10,000+
3 – 8 weeks
Two years or more
Nobody surveys this market, so these are ranges firms and CPA sites publish, each quoted for real only after a call. Hourly rates behind them run $50 to $300, and one source below quotes 1 to 2 weeks rather than 3 to 8 when the backlog is light.
Sources · retrieved 2026-09-11
- Steph's Books publishes $500 to $1,500 at 3 to 6 months behind, $5,000 to $10,000+ past two years.
- SDO CPA publishes $300 to $500 at 1 to 3 months behind, $3,500 to $8,000+ past a year.
- Xendoo publishes catch-up bookkeeping starting at $295.
- Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes $24.36 an hour, median, for bookkeeping clerks in May 2025.
Hourly engagements run roughly $40 to $100 an hour for a bookkeeper and $150 to $400 an hour at a CPA firm. A year of cleanup is commonly quoted at 20 to 40 hours, which is how the fixed quotes above are built.
02 / What moves the number
Five things decide where in the range you land.
Transactions per month
The only number that really scales the work. A contractor with 60 lines a month and an e-commerce seller with 900 are two different jobs at the same number of months behind.
How many months
Priced per month almost everywhere, and the per-month rate falls as the count rises. Twelve months rarely costs four times what three months costs.
What state the records are in
Bank PDFs only is the normal case. A half-finished QuickBooks file with duplicate imports and a plugged balance is more expensive than starting from the statements, because someone has to undo it first.
Whether payroll and sales tax are in scope
Payroll allocation, sales tax by jurisdiction, and inventory each add real hours. Many quotes exclude them and you find out later.
How current the year needs to be
A cleanup that must be filed by a deadline gets rush treatment, and rush is a surcharge at most firms.
03 / The three options
Twelve months behind, priced three ways.
What you pay
- Bookkeeping firm
- $1,500 – $3,500
- QuickBooks, yourself
- $30 – $90 per month, forever
- Titan
- $999, once
When you get statements
- Bookkeeping firm
- 3 – 8 weeks
- QuickBooks, yourself
- When you finish the work
- Titan
- Within days
Before you commit
- Bookkeeping firm
- A discovery call and a proposal
- QuickBooks, yourself
- A free trial of a tool
- Titan
- One month of your books, closed
Who does the categorizing
- Bookkeeping firm
- A bookkeeper, by hand
- QuickBooks, yourself
- You
- Titan
- Titan, with every guess flagged
Bank credentials
- Bookkeeping firm
- Often required
- QuickBooks, yourself
- Required
- Titan
- Never
Ongoing commitment
- Bookkeeping firm
- Usually a monthly retainer after
- QuickBooks, yourself
- A subscription
- Titan
- None
A firm is the right answer when your books need judgment a document cannot supply — a messy partnership split, inventory reconstruction, years of commingled personal spending. Titan is the right answer when the facts are all sitting in statements you can download.
04 / Titan's price
Public, fixed, and payable on this page.
Close one month free before you buy anything. Drop one statement and read the closed month, tied out to the ending balance your bank printed.
05 / Questions
The rest of what people ask.
- How much does catch-up bookkeeping cost per month behind?
- Human firms typically charge $100 to $300 per month of cleanup, with the rate falling as the number of months rises. A year behind lands between $1,500 and $3,500 for a business with normal transaction volume. Titan charges $999 for up to 12 months, which is $83.25 per month closed.
- Why is the price range so wide?
- Two businesses that are both twelve months behind can differ tenfold in transaction count, and a half-finished accounting file costs more to unwind than a clean stack of bank statements. Volume and the condition of the existing records explain most of the spread.
- How long does a cleanup take?
- Three to eight weeks is the normal quoted timeline at a firm, because the work is queued behind their monthly clients. Titan closes the first month as soon as the statement arrives and the remaining months within days.
- Can I do catch-up bookkeeping myself in QuickBooks?
- You can, and it is the cheapest option in dollars. QuickBooks is built to keep books current rather than to reconstruct a year from PDFs, so the categorizing, the reconciling and the tie-out are all still yours to do, month by month.
- Do I need a CPA as well?
- Yes, for the return. Titan produces the ledger, the reports and a handoff export a preparer can work from. We do not file returns and we do not give tax advice.
- What happened to Bench customers?
- Bench shut down on December 27, 2024. Employer.com bought it days later and put the number of customers cut off at roughly 12,000, with a March 7, 2025 deadline to export. Reconstructing those years from bank statements is exactly the cleanup job priced above.
Read one month of your own books first.
No discovery call, no proposal, no card. One statement, one closed month, tied out to the figure your bank printed.
Read next
A closed month, in full
The finished deliverable on sample data: the tie-out, the reports, the flag list, the ledger, and every figure traced to its printed line.
Instant cleanup cost estimate
Two sliders: what a firm would quote you, the fixed public price for the same months, and the per-month rate on both.
Eight months behind on bookkeeping
One page per distance behind — three months to two years — with the size of the job, the deadline and the package that covers it.
Bench shut down — what now
The shutdown in dates, what your export is actually worth, and how to rebuild the years behind you.
Reconstruct books from bank statements
The eight-step method, the tie-out that proves a month is finished, and the five errors that cost the most time.
Bookkeeping cleanup for contractors
A contractor chart of accounts, the six statement lines that get miscategorized, and what a trade shop gets quoted.
Shopify seller, behind on books
One payout taken apart, why the deposit is not your revenue, and the chart of accounts an online seller needs.
Catch-up bookkeeping in California
The CDTFA and FTB calendar, the $800 annual tax, and the LLC fee tier only a closed year can answer.
Catch-up bookkeeping in Texas
The May 15 franchise report, the no-tax-due threshold, and a year of deposits taken apart.
Catch-up bookkeeping in Florida
The May 1 Sunbiz report, the $400 late fee nobody can waive, and the sales tax band your ledger picks.
Catch-up bookkeeping in New York
The LLC fee ladder keyed to gross income, the March 15 date with no extension, and the city layer on top.