Most firms will not publish a number for this, and there is a defensible reason: the same words — "a year behind" — describe jobs that differ by a factor of ten.
Still, refusing to say anything is unhelpful. Here are the bands we work in, and more usefully, what actually moves you within them.
The bands
Light catch-up, roughly $350–$750. A few months behind, one or two accounts, transactions largely separated from personal spending, statements available. This is mostly categorisation and reconciliation.
Standard cleanup, roughly $750–$2,500. Up to about a year behind, several accounts, some commingling, a chart of accounts needing repair. The most common engagement.
Deep or multi-year, roughly $2,500–$7,500. Multiple years, or multiple entities, or heavy commingling, or records that have to be reconstructed from statements because the file is unusable.
Above that range it happens, but it is genuinely unusual and always involves something structural — a failed migration, several entities with untracked intercompany activity, or books that were never really kept at all.
What actually drives it
In order of impact, which is not the order people expect.
1. Commingling. The largest single factor. Every mixed personal and business transaction is a judgement call somebody has to make, and judgement calls do not scale the way categorisation does. Two thousand transactions on a clean business account is a smaller job than five hundred on a card that also bought groceries.
2. Whether anything was ever reconciled. Books that were reconciled but not categorised are far quicker than the reverse. If reconciliations were done and just stopped, there is solid ground to build from. If they were never done — or worse, were forced with plug entries — every period has to be established from scratch.
3. Entities and accounts. This multiplies rather than adds. Two years for one company is roughly twice one year. Two years across three entities with money moving between them is considerably more than three times, because every intercompany transaction has to agree on both sides.
4. Record availability. Statements still downloadable is a normal job. Statements that have to be requested from the bank, or reconstructed from whatever exists, is a different one — with a delay attached that you cannot buy your way out of.
The number of months, honestly
It matters less than any of the four above. Twenty-four months of clean, separated, low-volume activity is a very manageable job. Six months of a commingled multi-entity mess is not.
People anchor on months because it is the one number they know. It is close to the least predictive.
Why we quote fixed
Because the uncertainty is ours to carry, not yours. You did not create the ambiguity about how long this will take, and pricing it hourly means you absorb every surprise in a project you cannot estimate.
So we look first — at the actual file, the actual accounts, the actual state of reconciliation — and then give a fixed price and a timeline. If it turns out worse than it looked, that is our problem.
The review carries no obligation and no charge. Plenty of people do it, get the number, and decide to wait. That is a legitimate outcome and a better position than not knowing.
Two things that reduce it
Download every statement now. Bank portals typically hold 18–24 months. Past that you are requesting archives, sometimes for a fee, always with a delay. This costs nothing today and can move a job down a whole band.
Answer questions quickly. The query list is the critical path on almost every cleanup. Turning answers around in a day rather than three weeks materially shortens the project.
The pricing page has the current bands, and what a cleanup actually involves sets out the sequence the work follows.
Behind on Your Books?
We handle your bookkeeping end-to-end — categorization, reconciliation, month-end close, and clean financial statements, so your books stay current and CPA-ready.