Monthly bookkeeping
Bookkeeping done once a year is a reconstruction. Done every month it is a record, and the difference shows up in what the year end costs and what you knew while the year was still running.
Quick answer: Monthly bookkeeping means every account reconciled each month, not just the bank: transactions coded consistently, sales tax filed on schedule, payroll run and remitted, and a set of books that closes at year end rather than being rebuilt. From $300 a month, scaling with transaction volume.
What is included
- Every account reconciled monthly — bank, credit cards, loans, and the balance sheet accounts nobody usually checks.
- Consistent coding against a chart of accounts built for your business rather than the software default.
- Sales tax prepared and filed on your reporting period.
- Payroll run and remitted, with the slips at year end.
- A closing package each month, so the year end starts from a closed file.
- One accountant who knows the file, rather than a queue.
What it changes at year end
A year end prepared from monthly books costs less and takes less of your time, because the questions were answered in the month they arose rather than nine months later. It also means the adjusting entries are small, which is the difference between the year confirming what you thought and the year surprising you.
Where the books are behind, that is a separate piece of work first. Catch-up bookkeeping brings them current and is quoted on its own.
When monthly is not enough
Bookkeeping records what happened. It does not tell you whether the result is right or what to do about it. Where someone outside the business now reads your figures, or decisions are being made on the bank balance, the next rung is oversight rather than more bookkeeping — bookkeeper, controller or CFO sets out the difference.
Who this is for, and who it is not
A good fit: an incorporated business past the point where the owner can keep the books at the kitchen table, especially one with payroll, sales tax and more than a couple of hundred transactions a month.
Not a fit: a business with almost no transactions, where an annual clean-up costs less than twelve monthly closes and loses nothing that matters. In either case we say so on the first call rather than quoting for work you do not need.
Common questions about monthly bookkeeping
Which software do you work in?+
Can we keep our own bookkeeper?+
How much does it cost?+
What if we only want the year end?+
Talk to a CPA about this
One Chartered Professional Accountant, start to finish. Fixed fees, quoted in writing before any work begins, and no obligation from a first conversation.
“Sunny and his team have been completing my bookkeeping, taxes and financials for the last 2 years and they have been amazing. Thank you!”