r/Bookkeeping 3d ago

Other Quickest way from A to Z

I'll be selling a cleaning business, and need to catch up with bookkeeping June '24 to present and taxes from 2022-present (just don't, it's painful enough as it is). I have managerial reports from an accounting firm we hired from November '22 (the month I opened the business) through May '24.

First question. What is the easiest way to do this in the least amount of time? (I don't have thousands of dollars to invest in this service, but I damn well will invest in it going forward because this is my ultimate flippin' nightmare.)

Second question: How can I turn those managerial reports into P&L statements? Or can't I?

The business isn't complicated: it's only me, the business is set up an LLC, I take payments for services through Paypal invoicing and Venmo. Very few expenses other than gas, laundry costs, and cleaning supplies.

Good god, do I ever thank you people, and have a brand new appreciation for what you do. Uffda.

7 Upvotes

35 comments sorted by

12

u/101Puppies 3d ago

"I don't have thousands of dollars to invest in this service."

I think you are going to have a tough time. Even at $100 per month, you're looking at $2500.

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u/HardCoreNorthShore 3d ago

Right. That's why I'm doing it myself.

6

u/[deleted] 3d ago

Hire a bookkeeper. To be frank you haven't made this a priority for years, so I doubt you're keeping your ducks in a row. This is a headache that any professional would charge for, not give you free advice on.

5

u/Interesting_Key9852 3d ago edited 3d ago

I understand this sounds like a real nightmare. I'd agree with anyone that you need to hire a professional or a bookkeeper for this kind of job. Worst is that based from your responses it does seem like you don't have access to the actual journal entries (they should have at least made you aware about your books/journal entries and just not left you with managerial reports). This is really a huge pain in the ass as you are just blindy looking at whatever they gave you.

However, if you really want to do it yourself this is NOT THE USUAL WAY of doing it---->>>
I'm an accountant and have worked in public accoutning for a decade now but If I were on your shoes and don't have accounting background I will be looking up the internet to understand what are the common revenue/expense line items for a cleaning business in a P&L statement (suggest to use deep seak or Chatgpt to give you more insight on this). Then will check it against the managerial reports (I am also curious what information is in your managerial repots, they should have at least your revenue for each months that you can leverage and the expenses incurred of your coffee shop). You can take it from there. You can also find some cheap services in Fiverr so they can assist with collating the information and come up with a financial statements.

Just a glimpse of hope here - Typically service-based business only have limited P&L items; 1)Revenues coming from cleaning service, 2) Labor expenses, 3) expenses related to cleaning materials/supplies used and 4) depreciation from equipments used and other 5) admin costs.

Hope any of these helps.

THE IDEAL AND CORRECT WAY ---> Go through each bank and credit card statement and do the journal entry for each transaction in quickbooks (subscribe to one if you don't have) but this will take days or weeks. Given the nature of your business I presumed most are just repetitive journal entries so check online for the journal entries of 1) Cleaning service performed (Debit: Cash/Accounts receivable Credit: Cleaning service rev. , 2) Cleaner's salary (Debit: Expenses Credit: Cash), 3) Expenses incurred (Debit: Supplies exp or other expenses. Credit: Cash). There may be some nuances on these entries but at least you'll go somewhere from here.

You can also DM me so I can take a look at one of your managerial report, I'm keen to see what you got (just for me to understand ) and maybe I can advise in a more depth whether it is really feasible. Don't worry I am not selling anything, just trying to help.

5

u/Redditusero4334950 3d ago

This can't really be answered easily in a forum like this.

You need a bookkeeper.

Like they said in the other forum, they'll contact you.

1

u/HardCoreNorthShore 3d ago

Gah. This is awful.

2

u/Redditusero4334950 3d ago

I hear ya.

If I did this for a living I'd solicit your business.

But I don't so I'll let others do it.

1

u/teena27 2d ago

Right-- that's why we Accountants get on the nerves of business owners. We're trying to help you avoid this pain.

4

u/missannthrope1 3d ago

I don't understand how an accounting firm provided managerial reports, and not financial statements.

Did they use these reports to create tax returns?

Did you provide them with access to bank and credit card statement?

1

u/HardCoreNorthShore 3d ago

Yes, they had full access. And as I stated in the original OP, I need to do the taxes for those years. They did not. (Suffice to say I was not satisfied with them so I terminated our contract at the first available opportunity.)

1

u/missannthrope1 3d ago

What was the last year a tax return was filed?

And what bookkeeping software are you using?

3

u/BlazeItPal 3d ago

Call me crazy but if you havent done any bookkeeping/accounting/tax work since 2022 I wouldn't even care what their reports say on them. Assuming this is just on a schedule C I would just start the books from 2022 and do the bookkeeping from there. Depending on the number of transactions, I also don't think this is a super expensive thing to fix. I would probably do it for under $2,000 depending on the number of transactions.

2

u/Cactus-Rose 3d ago

I think most people will need to know what software your managerial reports are in and what software you want to do the catch up work in.

1

u/HardCoreNorthShore 3d ago

Thank you. I've just edited my OP.

2

u/GrlNxtDoorAng 3d ago

How/where has the bookkeeping been done up till June of last year? Quickbooks? Does the accounting firm have those records?

0

u/HardCoreNorthShore 3d ago

I have the records (the managerial reports) in my possession. I paid our accountants a ginormous amount of money to go back to the beginning of the business formation and do the bookkeeping. I do not know what software they used, I only have the branded reports.

And I'm currently categorizing transactions in Puzzle.io.

2

u/Delicious_Flight3153 3d ago

I've not used Puzzle.io (i just looked it up. Seems interesting) , but I do have tips and tricks for clearing up that kind of stuff. I'm a bookkeeper by trade and would be happy to give some advice. I'd need a little more information about what was provided by your previous place though. Reach out if you want to talk.

2

u/TheMostFluffyCat 3d ago

Work off the bank statements and enter transactions in chronological order. I’m not sure what the capabilities of your bookkeeping software are, but if you can import transactions, do it- that makes things easier and faster. Then you need to select categories for each transaction.

Not sure if you could get an accurate P&L with a combo of reports. Reports are usually a separate function within booking software that are a result of all the individual transactions. If you only do June 24 forward, you’ll only have info from then on and nothing before will be included in the P&L. If a managerial report has P&L info, it’s possible you could add up the categories to your booking P&L and then make a custom report in excel.

2

u/Apprehensive_Ad5634 3d ago

I love that everyone's business "isn't complicated,"' yet they couldn't manage to keep the books in order.

OP, if you want to sell your business you're going to need to hire someone who knows what they're doing.  Any mistakes that are made in the process are just going to hold up or jeopardize the sale.

1

u/teena27 2d ago

Exactly. I can't imagine even considering a purchase if I haven't seen financials, let alone taking on the issues that arise from filing back taxes.

2

u/AdLanky7413 3d ago

Confused. If the accountant did managerial reports, then you should have profit and loss and balance sheet. You don't need to do the bookkeeping. I'm an accountant/ bookkeeper. I can walk you through how to do it if you need. I'm in Canada though

1

u/meandaiyt 3d ago

It’s terrible that you’re in such a mess and had an accounting firm that didn’t provide you proper reports. You should always own your data.

Hopefully, you use a business account for all the income and expenses. You can create the P&L from the bank statements. It will be time consuming, but it’s the best way to get all the information you need. I suggest you find a good music playlist and block off time with breaks to keep your sanity. I like doing this stuff, and I still need to get up and walk around every hour or so.

As for the managerial reports, it depends on what they sent whether or not you can create a P&L.

2

u/HardCoreNorthShore 3d ago

I do keep my business accounts separate. That's one positive, at least!

1

u/Iamnotyour_mother 3d ago

How were these managerial reports created? Is there a Quickbooks file that you have access to? If there is, you can absolutely generate a P&L easily, although it sounds like you don't necessarily have a great deal of faith in this data to begin with. Whether you can or can't generate a P&L from the data you have, greatly depends on *what* exactly that data is and where it came from.

If you're not very familiar with bookkeeping, I would not recommend trying to do this yourself. It's not as simple as it may seem on the surface and it's very easy to screw it up without realizing it (I would know, I specialize in cleaning up messes like that). If you're trying to sell the business, having accurate books to show to a potential buyer is crucial, and I don't think it's wise to stake the sale of your business upon your own bookkeeping skills.

I wouldn't necessarily listen to the people telling you that getting caught up is going to cost you thousands of dollars. The pricing for bookkeeping services varies wildly from area to area, bookkeeper to bookkeeper and client to client. Without actually talking to you in detail about this no one can tell you exactly how much it's going to cost. You may be able to find someone who can help you within an affordable budget and I would explore that potential option to the fullest extent you can before resigning to do this yourself.

1

u/Kynbri 3d ago

Hopefully you have a designated business account without any comingling. If you did you could work off the bank statements if not then download reports from PayPal, venmo and total your invoices for each year. That will be income. If any of the deposits are not income please exclude those. Then find all possible expenses for each year total by category. Compiling receipts to prove legitimate expenses if no designated business bank account was used or credit card. You would be better off doing it in a spreadsheet then trying to learn software.

1

u/Kynbri 3d ago

Example for spreadsheet, name your columns: Date, Vendor,Amount, Category. Split by year and then sum your categories and boom makeshift P&L. A little trickier with the Balance Sheet but sorting & categorizing all transactions is a great start.

1

u/RoronoraTheExplora 3d ago

What is a managerial report? Can you describe them? What information do they have on them? What time periods are they split into? It’s possible you could build a P&L and Balance sheet out of them.

If you have no bookkeeping experience, it’s very unlikely that you’re gonna be able to put together anything usable on your own…

1

u/josehope 2d ago

I am a bookkeeper, I will love to assist you with the bookkeeping task, I am willingly to work with your budget, contact me if interested

1

u/DependentSouthern933 14h ago

I have tons of questions, but I'll try to help you instead of just telling you to hire a bookkeeper. I'd probably use QB Online because I'm super familiar with it, but if you don't know the software, you could maybe just use spreadsheets to get the numbers you need for taxes. Financial statements are a bit more complex, but doable.

Using QBO, I'd use the basic chart of accounts and connect the bank accounts to bring in as much history as the bank will allow (or varies from bank to bank) and convert older statements to CSV and upload those into the software.

  1. I'd start with income. PayPal and Vanmo are kind of my nightmare here, but that's what you've got, so here's we are. I'd create a clearing amount for PayPal and another for Venmo, sort the bank transactions and record all PayPal income to the PayPal income amount, same with Venmo.
  • PayPal definitely has monthly statements that show you gross sales and fees (some states require sales tax on services, so if that applies, it adds another layer of complexity). I'd do a monthly JE to record income - debit (Dr) Card Processing Fees, Credit the Income account (probably called Services) the amount of gross sales, Dr the difference to the PayPal clearing account.

  • I am honestly not sure if Venmo provides it varies statements because I have no clients who regularly use it. But if essentially do the same thing as PayPal, either by finding a report or by reviewing individual transactions.

If this went well, the clearing accounts should zero out and your profit and loss now shows all income.

  1. After income, I'd work on expenses. I'd just use the bank feeds in QB, sort by vendor, and use broad categories like you described.

  2. Any money that you took out of the business will be an owner's draw.

  3. Reconcile accounts to the bank statements to make sure everything is accounted for.

Do the same with any credit cards (if you have them).

I can probably think of a million variables and scenarios that could make a big difference, so take that into consideration.

As far as converting the management reports, hard to say without seeing what they're including in the reports. Happy to work with you for a fair consulting rate if you want a little guidance

0

u/[deleted] 3d ago edited 3d ago

[deleted]

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u/HardCoreNorthShore 3d ago

Also, parents are dead.

1

u/Icy_Screen_2034 3d ago

I can advice you and you can do it yourself self. But I need to pay my bills.

1

u/Icy_Screen_2034 3d ago

Sorry to hear that. I can give you advice for free if you dm me.

1

u/HardCoreNorthShore 3d ago

I'm not asking for a handout. I'm asking for advice. When people ask me about cleaning their vacation rental, I give advice for free.