Editor’s Note: This article is part 2 of a 2-part series on year-end cleanup season. View all of the articles in this series here: Year-end Cleanup
In Part 1, we covered the chaos of year-end cleanup calls. In Part 2, we outline the three cleanup paths you can offer and how to present them with clarity and confidence.
First, here's where we fumble. We see the mess and immediately present ONE option. The most expensive one—and then wonder why the client ghosts us.
Stop doing that. Start thinking like this: You are not selling a product; you are guiding a decision.
Show them options, the trade-offs and what each path gets them. Let THEM choose based on their risk tolerance and budget.
This is where you go back to the point when these accounts SHOULD have been reconciled and fix everything forward.
You're reconciling every bank account and accepting and categorizing every transaction sitting in those feeds. You’re researching every discrepancy and rebuilding the balance sheet from the ground up. When you're done, the client has books they can trust all the way back through 2024 and earlier.
Pros:
Cons:
Investment: This is your $25,000 option, probably more, depending on how deep you and your client choose to go.
This is where you take the balance sheet from their filed 2024 tax return, enter those balances into QuickBooks as your starting point for January 1, 2025, and adjust to that. Then, you’ll reconcile everything going forward.
You're essentially saying, "Whatever the accountant filed is what we're working from. Your 2025 is clean."
As you reconcile each account and accept the 2025 transactions, use adjusting entries to true things up. If you find major discrepancies, you and the client can decide later whether it’s worth going back to fix 2024 or just live with it.
Pros:
Cons:
Investment: Figure $15,000 for 2025 cleanup with this approach.
This is where you draw a line in the sand at today's date. You reconcile every bank account to RIGHT NOW and accept whatever transactions you need from the feeds. Whatever difference exists between the books and reality just gets dumped into an adjusting entry or prior period adjustment.
You're not investigating and you're not fixing. You're just forcing everything to match reality as of today and moving forward clean.
Pros:
Cons:
Investment: Figure $5K-$7K for this scorched-earth approach.
When you present these three paths, here's the framework:
"I've looked at three ways we can handle this. Each one has trade-offs. Pick based on your risk tolerance and what you can invest right now."
Walk through each path clearly, with no judgment, and just present the options. State your recommendation and let them decide. That is guidance, expertise, and advisory.
The exact OPPOSITE of being pushy.
Let's be honest, you feel icky about this because you think confident pricing = pushiness.
Wrong. Confident pricing = respect. Respect for your expertise, the complexity of the work, and for the client. They deserve to know the truth instead of a sugar-coated version that makes you feel less awkward.
When you apologize for the price, you signal doubt. And if YOU doubt it, why shouldn't they? When you state it clearly and stand behind it, you signal certainty. "This is what it costs because this is what it takes."
That's guidance and expertise, which are the opposite of selling.
One more thing about that tax guy who filed the 2024 return. Don't suggest they fire him (or her!). Don’t ever criticize, badmouth or gossip about another professional. It only makes you look worse. That's not your job.
Maybe they are a friend, maybe they've done good work in other areas, maybe there’s history there, or maybe they DID reconcile everything in their own workpapers, and the client just never updated QuickBooks.
Your job is to show the client what you're seeing and let THEM decide what to do with that information. Your client still deserves to know: "The books, as they exist in QuickBooks, weren't in order. I can't work on 2025 until we establish a foundation I can trust. That means picking one of these three paths. Which one makes sense for you?"
You are not attacking anyone. You’re setting a professional boundary. Boundaries are not selling. Boundaries are self-respect.
I screwed this up for years. I'd see a disaster in someone's books, calculate a price to fix it then immediately start negotiating with myself BEFORE I even sent the proposal. "Maybe I could do less..." "Maybe I'm overestimating..." "Maybe they can't afford this..."
I'd send a watered-down, underpriced proposal. I didn't want to appear "pushy" or "greedy"! I used language begging them to say yes. And you know what happened? They still pushed back. I signaled through my words that I didn't believe in my own number.
Now? I present the full scope. Three clear paths with real prices and actual trade-offs. Confident, sure and professional.
The ones who move forward? They're getting the RIGHT work at the RIGHT price from someone who believes in the value of what they're doing.
That's not being pushing, greedy, or aggressive. That's knowing your worth.
Remember that annual miracle phone call on December 15th? The miracle they're asking for - fixing twelve months of chaos in three weeks for cheap - doesn't exist.
But there IS a miracle available. It's the miracle of finally having an accountant who tells them the truth. Who shows them what's wrong and who gives them real options with real prices. An accountant who doesn't apologize for expertise or discount brilliance just to make everyone comfortable.
That's the gift. That's the miracle. That's what they came looking for.