How much will your QuickBooks
cleanup actually cost?
Behind on your books, or inherited a mess from a cheap bookkeeper? Get a realistic cost range in 30 seconds — built from the rates bookkeepers and CPAs actually quote, not a sales pitch.
Realistic quote range for this cleanup
$3,300 - $6,000
Estimates only, based on publicly quoted practitioner rates (see method below). Your actual quote depends on what a bookkeeper finds once they open the file. This is not accounting, tax, or financial advice.
Why every quote you get will be higher than you expect
Bookkeepers describe cleanup work as a mystery box: they can't see how bad the file is until they're inside it, and most owners won't hand over account access before signing. So practitioners quote high to protect themselves, and the real number "almost always costs much more once you dig in." The single thing that lowers your quote is knowing exactly what's wrong before anyone bills an hour.
That diagnosis is what we're building
BooksAudit reads your QuickBooks Online or Xero export and returns a dated diagnostic report: miscategorized transactions, duplicates, unreconciled accounts, and the common offshore-handoff errors — before you pay anyone to fix them. Diagnostic only: it never touches your ledger. Use the report to scope the fix yourself, or hand it to your bookkeeper so they can quote the real job instead of the mystery box.
What BooksAudit costs
The cleanup itself is the number at the top of this page. Finding out what's actually wrong first — before anyone bills an hour against it — costs this. If you're a bookkeeper or CPA rather than the business owner: that number above is what you'd quote, and the one below is what it costs you to scope the job before you quote it.
One audit
$99 one-time
One business, one QuickBooks Online or Xero export, one dated diagnostic report you can hand straight to a bookkeeper. No subscription, no account, nothing recurring.
Practice plan
$79/month
Only worth it if you scope cleanups regularly: 5 client audits a month, $29 for each one after. Most people should just pay the $99 — tell us below if we've got this the wrong way round.
Nothing is charged today, and there is nothing to buy on this page. BooksAudit is pre-launch and not self-serve yet — we run each report by hand, which is exactly why the early ones are free. Join the list below, we'll run yours at no cost, and paid access opens to that list first. The prices above are what it will cost when it does.
Get a free diagnostic of your books
We'll reply with what to export, run the diagnostic on it, and send back your report — free, no card. In exchange, tell us straight whether $99 is what it's worth to you.
How this estimator works
- Practitioners in public bookkeeping forums (July 2026) consistently quote $2,000-$6,000 for a typical 1-year cleanup, with $5,000-$15,000 common for larger or messier files, and CPA-grade work billed at up to $250/hour.
- Monthly bookkeeping floors quoted repeatedly: $200-$500/month minimum, scaling with transaction volume.
- The pricing mechanic bookkeepers describe using: months of catch-up × an equivalent monthly rate, plus a 10-25% hassle premium; some quote $2-$10 per transaction instead. Never-reconciled books and payroll add real hours.
- This tool applies those same published mechanics to your inputs. It is a range, not a quote, and not accounting, tax, or financial advice.
Related
- See a real report before you send anything — a complete diagnostic, run on a sample ledger.
- For bookkeeping practices: scope a cleanup before you quote it — what the paid audit does, and what it costs.
- 7 signs your bookkeeper messed up your books — and what each one costs to fix.
- DIY QuickBooks cleanup: the checklist, in the order that actually works