Key points
- Delayed periods are reviewed, reconciled, corrected and formally closed.
- Four workstreams: account review and reconciliation, correction of entries, approved financial statements, readiness for examination.
- Every correction is documented and approved before it is posted.
- The cost of closing a period rises for as long as it stays open.
- A written scope, timeline and fee proposal is issued after one assessment visit.
Delayed periods do not stay still. Every month they remain open, the cost of closing them rises and the figures you are deciding on drift further from reality.
This package takes the records as they are — incomplete, out of order, sometimes contradictory — and produces a closed, defensible position for each period: reconciled accounts, corrected entries, financial statements you can put in front of a bank, and a documented trail explaining every adjustment that was made.
Who this is for
This package is for a company whose books stopped being current at some point and never caught up: a year that was never closed, a bank account that has not been reconciled in months, balances carried forward that nobody can trace to a document.
It is usually triggered by an external event — a bank asking for statements, a partner asking for a valuation, an examination, a new investor — and by then the work is urgent. It is cheaper and calmer to close a period before something forces you to.
What we do
Account review and reconciliation
We start with the accounts that carry value: bank, cash, inventory, customers and suppliers. Each is reconciled to an external source — a statement, a count, a confirmed balance — rather than to another internal ledger. Where a difference cannot be explained, it is quantified and reported instead of being absorbed quietly into a suspense account.
Correction of erroneous entries
Wrong entries are corrected through documented adjustments, with the reason recorded next to each one. Nothing is deleted and nothing is overwritten: the original entry, the correction and the justification stay visible, because a correction you cannot explain later is a new problem rather than a solved one.
Preparation of approved financial statements
Once the accounts are reconciled, we prepare the financial statements for each closed period and walk through them with you line by line before they are approved. The purpose is not the document; it is that you can defend every figure in it to a bank, a partner or an examiner.
Readiness for examination
The closed period is left in a state where it can be examined: statements supported by schedules, schedules supported by documents, and an index that shows where each document is. Preparing this while the work is being done costs a fraction of assembling it under a deadline.
Deliverables
Reconciliation schedules per account
- Format
- Spreadsheet and PDF
- Approved by
- Company owner and the responsible accountant
Documented adjusting entries with reasons
- Format
- Spreadsheet and PDF
- Approved by
- Company owner and the responsible accountant
Financial statements per closed period
- Format
- Written document (PDF)
- Approved by
- Company owner or delegate
Document index for examination readiness
- Format
- Written document (PDF)
- Approved by
- Finance manager or the owner
Closing minutes per period
- Format
- Signed minutes
- Approved by
- Company owner or delegate
Duration and engagement model
Duration: Set per company. The timeline follows the size of the business and the state of the records already kept, so it is measured during the assessment visit and fixed in writing in the scope of work — we do not estimate it before seeing the books.
Periods are closed in order, oldest first, because a later period cannot be trusted while an earlier one is still open. Each period is approved and signed off before the next one starts.
Payments are staged against delivered and approved outputs. Where documents are missing, we tell you what is missing and what the consequence of that gap is before you decide how to proceed.
What is not included
- Tax representation before the authorities.
- Statutory audit or the issuing of an audit opinion.
- Building a new system going forward — that is the Foundation Package.
- Government and statutory fees.
Stated up front so a proposal never contains a surprise. Each of these is either a separate package or somebody else’s work.
Frequently asked questions
- How far back can you go?
- As far back as the records allow. The limit is set by what documents still exist and by how the books were kept, not by a policy of ours, so it is established during the assessment visit and written into the scope of work before anything starts.
- What if some documents are missing?
- We work from the documents that exist and list the gaps explicitly. Where a balance can be reconstructed from other records we show how; where it cannot, it is reported as unsupported rather than estimated into place. Nothing is filled in silently.
- Will this change figures we have already filed?
- It can. Where corrected records differ from what was filed, we show the difference and its cause in writing. What to do about a submitted return is your decision, taken with whoever represents you before the authorities — tax representation is not part of this package.
- How long does closing a delayed period take?
- It follows the company: the number of periods, the volume of transactions in them, and the state of the records already kept. It is measured during the assessment visit and fixed in writing in the scope of work — we do not estimate it before seeing the books.
- Does our team keep working normally during the cleanup?
- Yes. Current operations continue while the closed periods are worked on separately; only stock counts need a scheduled pause.
- Who approves the corrections before they are posted?
- Every adjusting entry is reviewed with the responsible accountant and approved by the owner or their delegate before it is posted, with the reason recorded alongside it.
Related packages
No prices are published. How our fees are determined