Read-only review of a QuickBooks / Xero export · prepared 2026-08-09
| File reviewed for | Northgate Plumbing & Heating LLC (sample file) |
| Export analysed | demo-plumbing-general-ledger.csv (qbo-general-ledger) |
| Period covered | 2025-01-01 → 2026-02-14 |
| Transaction lines read | 4,714 |
The file needs rebuilding in places. Balances should not be relied on for tax or lending decisions until the items below are resolved.
The ranges are an indication for scoping, not a quote. They are built two ways and widened to cover both: the estimated hours above at $75–150/hr, and $2–10 per transaction line — the two bases practitioners quote from. Cleanup pricing observed in the market for a file a year behind runs roughly $2,000–6,000, and $5,000–15,000 for larger projects.
332 of 902 bank/credit-card lines (37%) carry no reconciled flag, spanning 12 month(s).
Until the bank feed is reconciled, no balance in the file can be relied on — this is normally the first and largest block of cleanup work, and it gates everything downstream.
| Date | Type | Payee / contact | Account | Description | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-01-06 | Expense | First National Bank | Bank Charges | Bank Charges | $248.34 |
| 2025-01-14 | Expense | First National Bank | Bank Charges | Bank Charges | $406.65 |
| 2025-01-21 | Expense | First National Bank | Bank Charges | Bank Charges | $172.57 |
| 2025-01-22 | Expense | First National Bank | Bank Charges | Bank Charges | $31.79 |
| 2025-02-05 | Expense | First National Bank | Bank Charges | Bank Charges | $67.66 |
Showing 5 of 332 affected line(s); the full list travels with the underlying data.
6 line(s) totalling $23,670.95 sit in 2 holding account(s): Ask My Accountant, Uncategorized Expense.
Every line here is a coding decision nobody made yet. They distort the P&L, and each one needs a human judgement call — this is the part of a cleanup that is hardest to quote blind, because the count is knowable but the research per line is not.
| Date | Type | Account | Description | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-11-07 | Expense | Uncategorized Expense | — | $6,140.00 |
| 2025-10-11 | Journal Entry | Ask My Accountant | To be reviewed | $5,125.40 |
| 2025-03-14 | Expense | Uncategorized Expense | Wire out - ask owner | $4,820.00 |
| 2025-04-30 | Journal Entry | Ask My Accountant | To be reviewed | $3,300.00 |
| 2025-06-02 | Expense | Uncategorized Expense | — | $2,310.55 |
Showing 5 of 6 affected line(s); the full list travels with the underlying data.
Opening Balance Equity nets to $6,860.00 across 2 line(s).
OBE is a temporary account QuickBooks uses during setup or migration; a remaining balance means the conversion was never finished and the balance sheet does not tie. It is a reliable marker of a file set up in a hurry.
| Date | Type | Account | Description | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-01-02 | Journal Entry | Opening Balance Equity | Opening balances | $8,420.00 |
| 2025-07-31 | Journal Entry | Opening Balance Equity | Adjust cash to statement | -$1,560.00 |
4 further line(s) repeat an identical charge later in the period, at no regular interval — $5,619.70 of exposure in total.
Duplicates overstate expenses and can mean a supplier was paid twice. Charges on a regular monthly or weekly cadence are excluded as subscriptions, so what remains is worth a glance each — quick, high-value work, and a good thing to show a prospect first. Matching is deliberately strict on the payee name, so a duplicate entered under a second spelling of the same vendor shows up in the payee-hygiene finding rather than here.
| Date | Type | Payee / contact | Account | Description | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-05-08 | Bill | Ferguson Supply | Accounts Payable | Materials | -$1,842.60 |
| 2025-05-12 | Bill | Ferguson Supply | Accounts Payable | Materials | -$1,842.60 |
| 2025-05-08 | Bill | Ferguson Supply | Cost of Goods Sold - Materials | Materials | $1,842.60 |
| 2025-05-12 | Bill | Ferguson Supply | Cost of Goods Sold - Materials | Materials | $1,842.60 |
| 2025-09-03 | Bill | Watts Water Tech | Accounts Payable | Materials | -$967.25 |
| 2025-09-09 | Bill | Watts Water Tech | Accounts Payable | Materials | -$967.25 |
6 line(s) at or above $3,109.93 carry neither a payee nor a description.
These are the lines an accountant cannot code without asking the owner, and the ones most likely to be queried in an audit or a loan application. Each is a round-trip email during the cleanup, which is where cleanup timelines slip.
| Date | Type | Account | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-08-06 | Check | Checking | -$9,250.00 |
| 2025-08-06 | Check | Cost of Goods Sold - Subcontractors | $9,250.00 |
| 2025-02-21 | Check | Checking | -$7,400.00 |
| 2025-02-21 | Check | Cost of Goods Sold - Subcontractors | $7,400.00 |
| 2025-11-07 | Expense | Checking | -$6,140.00 |
Showing 5 of 6 affected line(s); the full list travels with the underlying data.
12 of 12 tax-account line(s) were posted directly from a bill, expense, cheque, deposit or journal.
Tax control accounts are meant to be driven by the tax mechanism, not posted to by hand. Direct entries are the usual cause of a return that does not agree with the ledger — and of amended filings later.
| Date | Type | Payee / contact | Account | Description | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-10-22 | Check | State Dept of Revenue | Sales Tax Payable | Sales tax remittance | $2,471.80 |
| 2025-01-22 | Check | State Dept of Revenue | Sales Tax Payable | Sales tax remittance | $2,407.54 |
| 2025-08-22 | Check | State Dept of Revenue | Sales Tax Payable | Sales tax remittance | $2,312.09 |
| 2025-07-22 | Check | State Dept of Revenue | Sales Tax Payable | Sales tax remittance | $2,292.98 |
| 2025-04-22 | Check | State Dept of Revenue | Sales Tax Payable | Sales tax remittance | $2,131.17 |
Showing 5 of 12 affected line(s); the full list travels with the underlying data.
3 manual journal line(s) hit bank, A/R, A/P, inventory or Undeposited Funds.
Journals into these accounts bypass reconciliation and the A/R/A/P ageing, so the subledgers stop agreeing with the balance sheet. They usually mark someone forcing a balance to match rather than fixing the underlying transaction.
| Date | Type | Account | Description | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-10-11 | Journal Entry | Checking | To be reviewed | -$5,125.40 |
| 2025-04-30 | Journal Entry | Checking | To be reviewed | -$3,300.00 |
| 2025-07-31 | Journal Entry | Checking | Adjust cash to statement | $1,560.00 |
1 payee(s) appear under more than one spelling, e.g. ferguson supply → 2 variants.
Duplicate payee records split the spend history, which is how expenses get coded inconsistently month to month. Cheap to merge, and it stops the miscoding recurring after the cleanup.
| Date | Type | Payee / contact | Account | Description | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-01-02 | Bill Payment (Check) | FERGUSON SUPPLY | Accounts Payable | Payment on account | $829.17 |
| 2025-01-09 | Bill | Ferguson Supply Co | Accounts Payable | Copper pipe | -$897.53 |
| 2025-01-13 | Bill Payment (Check) | Ferguson Supply Co | Accounts Payable | Payment on account | $1,941.86 |
| 2025-01-20 | Bill Payment (Check) | Ferguson Supply Co | Accounts Payable | Payment on account | $1,674.55 |
| 2025-01-20 | Bill | FERGUSON SUPPLY | Accounts Payable | Copper pipe | -$831.06 |
Every finding above comes from a deterministic check run over the export you supplied — the same checks, in the same order, on every file. Nothing was inferred from outside the data, no ledger was accessed, and nothing was changed: this is a read-only review of a file you exported yourself.
Severity reflects how much other work a finding blocks. Unreconciled bank activity ranks above tidy-up items because no balance can be relied on until it is cleared, and the items below it are usually re-worked if it changes.