The Situation
The client ran a growing e-commerce business selling home goods through multiple US platforms. Revenue had increased steadily — but the bookkeeping hadn’t kept up. For 18 months, transactions had been flowing into QuickBooks Online largely uncategorized, or miscategorized by a previous bookkeeper who didn’t understand the business.
When the client’s CPA asked for a clean set of financials ahead of the tax filing, what came back was a mess. Bank feeds were connected but unreconciled. Hundreds of transactions sat in an “uncategorized expense” bucket. Inventory purchases were mixed with personal expenses. Contractor payments had been logged inconsistently — some as expenses, some as cost of goods sold, some not at all.
The CPA flagged the issues but didn’t have the bandwidth to fix them. The client was referred to Fidelvice Global for a full QBO cleanup and catch-up engagement before any return could be prepared.
The Approach
The engagement started with a complete diagnostic of the QuickBooks file — mapping what was there, what was missing, and what was wrong. From there, the cleanup was structured in phases:
Reconciliation
All 18 months of bank and credit card accounts were reconciled against statements, with discrepancies flagged and resolved.
Categorization
Every uncategorized or miscategorized transaction was reviewed and correctly coded to the appropriate account using the client’s chart of accounts.
Contractor Review
1099-eligible payments were identified, segregated, and confirmed against W-9 records on file.
Deduction Audit
Once the books were clean, a line-by-line review of business expenses was conducted to identify deductions that had been missed or improperly classified.
Throughout the engagement, the client was kept informed with a simple weekly update — what had been done, what was outstanding, and any items needing their input (such as clarifying whether a transaction was business or personal).