QuickBooks clean up checklist: 4 steps to clean up your books

If your QuickBooks has a long list of uncleared transactions or if you’ve neglected to follow Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), you’ll need to perform a clean-up with guidance from experts who have experience in your industry. 

While you may also want to engage QuickBooks cleanup services, here’s a basic QuickBooks cleanup checklist to help you get started.

1. Don’t delete QuickBooks historical data

If you have limited experience with business accounting, you might consider restarting your QuickBooks to build an entirely new chart of accounts. 

After all, during the QuickBooks cleanup process, you need to reconcile old transactions, and founders rarely have time to dig through historical data to categorize every transaction appropriately. 

Both QuickBooks Desktop and QuickBooks Online (QBO) allow users to purge historical data — but “starting over" isn’t always optimal, as you’ll need access to historical data to maintain an accurate balance sheet and audit log. 

While you might have backups of important financial documents (for instance, bank account statements and invoices), your QuickBooks file data may include important client information that can help your finance team contextualize the numbers. 

2. Make a list of known issues

Review your chart of accounts and look for any indications that you don’t have accurate financial records. Some common examples:

• You haven’t been reconciling accounts regularly and therefore cannot identify the source of discrepancies on your balance sheet. 
• You haven’t accurately tracked bank fees, loan interest, or fixed asset depreciation.
• You can’t generate an accurate profit & loss (P&L) statement or other key financial statements.
• Your QuickBooks doesn’t include correct information about inventory levels.
• You rely on estimations when filling out tax forms like Schedule C and paying state, local, or federal taxes.
• You have duplicate transactions and journal entry inaccuracies.

Until you address these issues, your business activities are limited: Investors and lenders will need reliable information during due diligence, and you may underpay (or overpay) taxes. 

You also won’t be able to create useful projections or communicate financial goals to your team. 

By identifying problems in your QuickBooks data, you can help your finance team find solutions — and build more sustainable workflow templates for everyday bookkeeping.

3. Review (and consider revising) your QuickBooks chart of accounts

Your chart of accounts allows you to categorize transactions and forms the basis of all key financial statements. Often, founders fail to check the chart of accounts when setting up QuickBooks or use the software’s built-in categories. 

That can be a costly mistake: Miscategorization can affect tax obligations and present an inaccurate image to people outside your business (such as investors).

Put simply, you should tailor the chart of accounts to your business’s operations and industry. 

The goal is to provide an appropriate level of detail — not too much, not too little — to demonstrate historical trends and predict future cash flow or performance. 

4.  Find a long-term bookkeeping team

Whether you hire a QuickBooks cleanup service or not, a bookkeeping cleanup project can be time-consuming, and it isn’t a one-time job.  

Your startup needs a full-time accounting professional who can help you maintain GAAP compliance and structure a chart of accounts that helps you meet your long-term goals.  

Look for a QuickBooks pro—or even a certified QuickBooks Proadvisor—who will prioritize the accuracy of historical data instead of “starting fresh.” 

Most importantly, be open to changing your bookkeeping practices to simplify future reconciliations and attain an error-free picture of your business’s finances from year to year. 

See Also: QuickBooks vs. Accountants: Do You Need Both?

Zeni’s finance team can help you clean up your books and spend less time on bookkeeping.

At Zeni, we understand the challenges of operating a new business. Our finance team can help you with a cleanup process by optimizing your chart of accounts and addressing QuickBooks issues. 

After our QuickBooks Desktop or QBO cleanup, your company will walk away with the organized accounting records and reliable financial statements necessary for long-term performance. 

By drawing on the knowledge of accounting experts with experience in Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), manufacturing, eCommerce, and other industries, we deliver on-target advice and suggestions on automation improvements.

The Zeni platform features an easy-to-use interface with customizable views for different users. You’ll have access to a GAAP-compliant chart of accounts and key reports — without dedicating hours of your time to bookkeeping clean up.