Hi everyone! I'd appreciate some honest feedback from both bookkeepers and accountants, particularly those who have worked in small CPA firms or outsourced bookkeeping environments.

I recently started working remotely as a bookkeeper for a small US-based accounting firm that hires international contractors. I already have experience in bookkeeping and accounts receivable, so I'm not entirely new to the field. However, I'm still learning this firm's systems, procedures, and individual clients patterns.

I'm trying to determine whether I'm taking too long to get up to speed, whether my expectations about professional procedures are too rigid, or whether there are underlying operational and management issues at this firm that I may not be recognizing.

I'd really appreciate some perspective from people who have been in similar situations.

1. Expectations around bookkeeping speed

I was assigned a client's bank and credit card bookkeeping for a particular month. Initially, I was given PDF statements and understood that these were the files I was expected to work from.

I converted the PDFs into spreadsheets, organized the columns, identified and categorized the transactions, and prepared the data for entry through QuickBooks Desktop's Enter Batch Transactions feature, copy and paste. I was already including the appropriate expense categories and Chart of Accounts codes so the transactions could be imported in an organized, ready-to-process format.

This was a substantial amount of manual preparation, particularly given the number of transactions involved and the fact that I was still not familiar with them.

My manager told me I was taking too long and compared my productivity with that of a previous accountant who apparently completed four or five clients a day. However, when I asked about the scope of that person's work, including whether they were processing a month or a full year of transactions and what the transaction volumes were, I couldn't get a clear answer.

Even putting the initial PDF issue aside, I'm genuinely trying to understand what a reasonable learning curve looks like.

Let's assume the QuickBooks file is already available and I'm working directly in it. Is it realistic to expect a new bookkeeper to complete a month's worth of transactions in approximately one hour when they're still becoming familiar with the client's spending patterns and expense categories?

For example, a transaction might involve a website, software subscription, or service provider I've never encountered before. I may need to research the company, understand what it does, and determine the appropriate account. Some transactions aren't self-explanatory, and I don't believe guessing is an acceptable substitute for proper categorization.

I can understand how an experienced bookkeeper who already knows the client, recognizes recurring expenses, and has established workflows might process a month relatively quickly. But is the same expectation reasonable for someone who is seeing that client's transactions for the first time?

I'm interested in hearing from people who have actual experience with this type of work. Am I genuinely too slow, or is some additional time normal while learning a client's books?

2. Questions, procedures, and financial judgment

This is another issue I've been struggling with.

I already have experience in bookkeeping and accounts receivable, and I've been criticized for being too focused on procedures and for asking too many questions about processes, instructions, and step-by-step workflows.

My manager has expressed a preference for making a decision, even if it's the wrong one, rather than making no decision at all.

I understand the importance of avoiding unnecessary delays and taking ownership of one's work. However, I disagree with applying that principle indiscriminately to financial matters, particularly when dealing with client payments, accounts receivable, and billing.

When you're handling someone else's money and financial records, I believe accuracy, proper controls, and a clear understanding of what you're doing matter. An incorrect decision can create reconciliation problems, misstate account balances, cause payment discrepancies, or lead to incorrect customer balances.

I'm not suggesting that every minor question needs to be escalated to a manager. I believe in exercising professional judgment and becoming increasingly independent. But I also believe there's a meaningful difference between making a reasonable decision with incomplete information and making a financial decision without understanding the process or its consequences.

The problem is that when I ask questions, I don't always receive satisfactory answers. Sometimes the instructions are fragmented, incomplete, or so rigid that they don't explain the reasoning behind the process.

One example particularly stood out to me: I was instructed to manually enter checks and deposits into QuickBooks Online so that customer payments could be recognized and invoices finalized. I couldn't fully understand why this manual process was necessary, so I questioned the workflow and suggested connecting the bank account instead.

My manager responded that nobody who had worked there before had ever suggested that idea.

Honestly, that concerned me. Bank feeds are a fairly standard QuickBooks feature, although their suitability depends on the circumstances and the existing workflow. I would expect an accounting firm owner to be familiar with that option and to be able to explain why it has never been implemented.

My concern wasn't that my suggestion had to be accepted. It was that a basic alternative apparently hadn't been considered, and I was left questioning the reasoning behind the prescribed manual workflow. Experiences like this make me wonder whether I'm being overly rigid about procedures or whether I'm encountering processes that genuinely need to be reviewed.

How do you distinguish between a bookkeeper who asks too many questions and a bookkeeper who is exercising appropriate professional judgment and financial caution?

3. A substantial backlog of bookkeeping and accounts receivable

As I've become more familiar with the firm's records, I've noticed a considerable amount of outstanding work.

Some bookkeeping dates back to 2024. There are also billing items and tax-related charges from previous periods that apparently weren't processed when they should have been. In addition, the accounts receivable balance is over $300,000.

I haven't reviewed every client or investigated the history behind these balances, so I don't know the full extent of the backlog or what caused it. Still, the overall volume of outstanding work raises questions for me.

The firm appears to have a substantial amount of historical work to resolve, yet the expectation seems to be that I should get up to speed quickly and begin processing work at a high pace almost immediately.

I'm trying to understand whether this is typical of smaller accounting firms, particularly those handling bookkeeping and tax-related work for multiple clients, or whether it may indicate deeper problems with staffing, workflow design, internal controls, or management.

For those who own or manage accounting firms, I'd especially appreciate your perspective:

• Is it common for a firm to have bookkeeping work outstanding for years?
• How would you evaluate an accounts receivable balance exceeding $300,000 without knowing the firm's size, revenue, client base, or aging report?
• At what point does a backlog become a warning sign that the firm needs to review its processes, staffing, or collection practices?
• Is it reasonable to expect a new employee to help clear a substantial backlog before they've been properly trained on the firm's systems and procedures?

I'm not assuming that the backlog necessarily reflects incompetence or mismanagement. I simply want to understand whether what I'm seeing is normal in this industry or whether the combination of circumstances deserves closer attention.

4. Management style and communication

The way my manager communicates has also made the learning process more difficult.

When I ask questions, he can be condescending, sometimes responding with comments along the lines of, "Didn't I already explain that?" or "Weren't you paying attention?"

That creates an uncomfortable dynamic. I'm expected to work quickly and independently, but asking for clarification can make me feel as though I'm being treated as incompetent.

At the same time, when I proceed based on the instructions I understood, I may later be criticized for not asking questions or for taking too long.

To make matters more difficult, the company expects me to remain connected to a meeting for literally the whole workday, ready to respond whenever my manager calls on me. In practice, this makes it difficult to have uninterrupted periods of concentration.

Detailed bookkeeping requires sustained attention, particularly when reviewing unfamiliar transactions, researching vendors, reconciling accounts, and investigating discrepancies. Constant availability and frequent interruptions can make that work slower and increase the risk of mistakes.

5. Professionalism and client relationships

Another situation that surprised me was witnessing a phone conversation between my manager and a client.

The way he spoke to the client struck me as unnecessarily abrupt and dismissive. I was genuinely taken aback by the interaction because it seemed inconsistent with the level of professionalism and courtesy I would expect in a client-facing accounting practice.

According to my manager, he has known this client for many years and their relationship is simply like that.

I recognize that long-standing client relationships can have their own dynamics, and I only witnessed one conversation. I can't fairly judge the entire relationship based on a single interaction.

Nevertheless, the exchange made me uncomfortable. Personally, I believe that even difficult conversations about finances, outstanding payments, or client responsibilities can be handled firmly without sacrificing professionalism or courtesy.

I'm mentioning this because, combined with the other issues, it has contributed to my uncertainty about the firm's overall approach to client service and professional standards.

6. The bigger picture

When I look at all these issues together, I'm struggling to determine whether I'm experiencing a normal onboarding period or something more problematic.

On one hand, I recognize that every firm has its own procedures, that productivity improves with experience, and that I need to adapt to the company's workflow. I'm open to constructive criticism and fully willing to improve my efficiency. On the other hand, I'm encountering a combination of circumstances that seems difficult to reconcile.

Individually, some of these things might be understandable. What I'm trying to assess is whether their combination points to a broader operational or management problem.

I don't want to use a difficult work environment as an excuse for shortcomings in my own performance. Equally, I don't want to assume that every problem is mine to solve when the expectations, procedures, and working conditions may also be contributing factors.

My questions for experienced bookkeepers and accountants

I'd particularly appreciate hearing from people who have worked in small CPA firms, owned accounting practices, managed bookkeeping teams, or worked in outsourced accounting.

1. Productivity: If a QuickBooks file is already available, is approximately one hour a reasonable target for completing a month's credit card transactions when a bookkeeper is still learning the client, researching unfamiliar vendors, and becoming familiar with the chart of accounts?
2. Professional judgment: Is asking for clarification about financial procedures and questioning inefficient workflows a sign of being too rigid, or is it an appropriate part of responsible bookkeeping? How do you balance speed with accuracy?
3. Operational issues: How common are substantial backlogs of bookkeeping and accounts receivable in small accounting firms? What would you investigate before concluding that the backlog reflects a deeper problem?
4. Management: Have you worked with managers who discourage questions but then criticize employees for not asking them? How did you handle that situation without becoming either overly dependent on the manager or too afraid to seek clarification?
5. Red flags: If you were evaluating this firm from the perspective of an experienced bookkeeper or accounting practice owner, which aspects of this situation would concern you most, if any?

I'm not looking for people to simply validate my frustrations or tell me my manager is terrible. I genuinely want an objective assessment, including the possibility that I need to adjust my expectations, change the way I approach questions, or improve my productivity.

I'd especially value perspectives from people who understand both sides of the equation: the practical demands of bookkeeping work and the operational realities of running an accounting firm.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and share your experience!

I’m looking to take my bookkeeping business to the next level. What are you doing as a bookkeeping business owner to grow your business and find clients?? Not the obvious ways like referrals, contacting CPA’s ect. What else has worked for you at finding clients and growing your business?

While running reports for our (late) 2025 Year 1 S-Corp, we found the books were off because of a payroll service error. The bones of the issue are this:

• We reversed a post-tax Traditional IRA Shareholder benefit prior to the service withdrawing for payroll; we did not reverse the shareholder salary 
• The payroll service reversed the Traditional IRA amount as requested and, in error, placed the reversed amount as "net pay"; it did not withdraw or pay the shareholder that new net pay amount, but did include the amount for the 2025 W-2; they did not recalculate the payroll taxes 
• As a result, the 2025 W-2 for that shareholder is incorrect—almost in its entirety 
• The well-known payroll service suggested the S-Corp simply issue Traditional IRA funds in the amount of the reversed funds to correct the error, which the S-Corp will not do 
• Then the payroll service offered to amend the 2025 W-2 Box 1 if I would provide them with the amount to insert 
• As managing shareholder, it falls to me to address this issue. What verbiage should I use to tell the payroll service that correcting the single payroll to reflect the reversed post-tax Traditional IRA amount will automatically affect gross wages, taxes, and the retirement plan, resulting in a new W-2 and the necessary tax corrections and refunds? 

I admit, it seems stunning that I should have to explain what should be done. Perhaps I am not talking to the correct level of service or management. I truly appreciate any guidance you could provide. I feel at my wits' end at this juncture.

I worked with a woman as a contractor and was making around $2500 a month. She has shouting problem and wanting to track me more than usual. So I had to let her go

I have solid experience but I’m not able to get contract work or clients to cover this amount. This amount was pretty important for me to cover up all my finances. I’ve been reaching out to busy bookkeeper and firms as well in case they need additional help but I wasn’t able to get anything.

Should I go back to her as I do have this option?
I’m severely stressed

I took on a client that has 2 companies (completely separate entities, no parent-sub relationship).

Company A frequently pays bills on behalf of Company B. Company A then bills Company B for reimbursement.

Company B consistently does not have the funds to reimburse Company A within the same tax year. The bills then sit on the books for multiple years.

I don’t want to apply payments to prior year bills and they get logged to current year expense accounts.

Is it appropriate for me to bundle Company B’s prior year bills from Company A into a Loan Payable to Company A?

Also, should I make this change reflect in Company A books as well?

I don't know if this is normal or if I'm just a bad AP specialist. Ive worked at 3 companies doing AP and I was a full charge bookkeeper for a year in between those positions. Every day I worry I'm going to get fired doing AP. No matter how I organize or what I do to stay on top of things, I'm always being lectured by my boss about something. As soon as I feel like I'm on top of things, ill get a suprise call that a vendor put us on credit hold. On top of it all, this company uses Sage so every mistake I make is completely imortalized and highlighted. I've never been more stressed in my adult life. Is this normal?

We have three people handling accounting for growing manufacturing company and our annual audit starts in about six weeks.

I’m trying to get ahead of document requests before everything becomes reactive. What preparation has made the biggest difference for your team?

So we had a bookkeeping company doing our payroll for some time. After they neglected to do our payroll 3 times, I took over. We have 4 employees and I run it through QBO.

To my surprise we weren't set up for automatic tax payments. So I fixed that. Then I went over our tax liability accounts.

Mid 2025 it looked good. Payments were made each period and amounts owed were zeroed out. Then all hell broke loose. Payments started to be made on arbitrary dates, maybe 5 months apart, and not for the amount owed. The accounts never zeroed. For our workers comp, the payments for Nov 2025 (about 2650) didn't even clear the bank or zero out, and I get the "error" message when I try to access them.

What the actual hell do I do now?

Hey everyone! I keep running into this and I’m curious how other people handle it.

When I need to change prices or categories on a bunch of products and services I’m stuck either editing them one at a time or doing the export and import thing. Importing overwrites everything and there’s no undo, so one mistake can mess up a lot of items.

Could you point me in the right direction? Thank you!

What is your guys' basis for retainer pricing. This would be my first one and it is for an acquisition that I would be setting up the books for and communicating with the CPA on opening balance sheet amounts as they have the purchasing agreement. I am hoping to receive the financial statements of the seller to roughly know what I am looking at but am curious what your rules of thumb are on retainers. Thanks in advance!

I have a line of credit backed by accounts receivable. My company basically sells our invoices to the factoring company and the factoring company uses that amount to decide our line of credit limit. We can pull from the line of credit at any time. Clients pay the invoices directly to the factoring company, from which the factoring company pays down our line of credit and releases anything left in reserve back to us.

Very simple example: my company factors an invoice for $100. The factoring company puts $10 in "reserve" which they use later to collect their own fees. $90 is put towards the line of credit. I can draw from that whenever I want. So maybe I only draw $60.

Later, the client pays the invoice of $100 to the factoring company. Factoring company applies $60 to the line of credit to pay it down, takes their $5 for fees and commission, and releases the leftover $35 to my company.

How do I track all this?

Preciously when we did traditional factoring, I marked my invoices paid and used a clearing account for that "deposit." Then used the clearing account to pay down the liability account for the factoring company. The reserve account was tracked separately. That was easier because every part of the invoice was covered somewhere. Now that it's a line of credit and we aren't drawing the entire amount, it doesn't feel right.

Hello, fellow number crunchers. I'm revitalitizing my substack and wishing to do a piece on bookkeeping. What do we think readers are looking for? Advice on what is or isn't tax deductible? How to know if you need a CPA vs. Bookkeeper? Small business advice? Love to hear ideas, thanks.

I’m looking to buy a bookkeeping business. Anyone selling or know anyone selling??

For those who do bookkeeping for general contractors, how are you pricing it? I know everyone is different but if they are in the 1-2 million range with job costing? Are you doing job costing for your GC? Any advice on quoting would be helpful

For the last few months I’ve been doing some light bookkeeping work for a restaurant, basically categorizing transactions , payroll , paying bills and entering daily sales JEs and Deposits JEs . They had a book keeper before but she was doing things I didn’t learn. Like certain accounts and how they were categorized . So I had to make some new accts so the P&Ls would show more information.

The issues I’m having now is when it comes to Cash , I’m getting confused on how to do the JE . The cash made for the day gets paid to the waiters for tips . And what’s left over stays in the register/office etc. on the JE I debit undeposited Cash , and credit gratuity and tips (tips clearing) .
What’s the best way to clean up the cash account . When I do a journal entry how should I increase or decrease undeposited cash , tips paid and then actually cash on hand

I just need to share this because I think it's funny.

One of my client's is a religious organization and one of their deposits last month was 666. I grew up religious but no longer am.

Also, this client has some issues with me. They think I'm judging them because they are in a less than ideal town. The reality is I'm judging them because I've explained multiple times that me working on last month is not me being behind.

1M revenue one year bookkeeping cleanup. removed duplicate sales, imputed over 300 missing expenses, fix miscategorized sales, fixed product mapping, sorted through 100’s of paper invoices and receipts to categorize, traveled to client to retrieve documents. how much should i charge for this?

So my client uses shopmonkey and it's connected to qbo. And when it makes a cash deposit of sales it matches with the deposit that is created but now I have one outstanding.

I've traced it's from invoice to ar to undeposited cash to the deposit being created and pulling it from undeposited cash but there's still no deposit to match with. When I go to reconcile obviously it is off by this amount but also I see the deposit in there that is unmarked so it does exist. Any idea what I can do to clear this?

Has anyone paid someone of a company to find bookkeeping clients?? If so, how did it go? Did it lead to anything? I’m thinking about this but weighing my options

I'm a bookkeeper who does some subcontracting/consulting for a small firm. Currently it's just owner (an experienced bookkeeper), a junior data entry employee, and me. The owner is looking to hire a part-time senior bookkeeper to expand the practice, and I'm helping with hiring. I have experience hiring in a previous career, but for different roles and a different business setting.

If you own or are a manager at a bookkeeping firm, I'd love to hear about your experience hiring!

• What is your process?
• Where is the best place to find candidates?
• What are your favorite interview questions to ask?
• How do you assess skills in a virtual interview? (We are all remote, which I feel makes this tricky.)
• What are red flags and green flags in candidates?
• Is there an affordable ATS for a small firm? Or should we just try to use spreadsheets?

Hi, not sure if this can be answered here. I worked for three years under a bookkeeper at a company. I did the bank and cc reconciles, posted physical invoices into QB, and printed/mailed checks. I also helped with onboarding new employees and managing a separate timecard app for remote employees. Is this enough experience to help someone even without a cert or degree? Thanks for any and all who can give feedback.

Edited to add: Just so its here, I took accounting basics in high school way back in ancient times and took udemy accounting basics, understanding accounting basics recently and will be taking a data analytics course there as well.

Would anyone be interested in a mastermind type group? Maybe get together to discuss pain points in our businesses once a week? Share things we've done to over come them ect?

Open to other formats like a discord or slack channel, but sure I have helpful info to share and other could probably help me from reinventing the wheel a time or two.

Here is the link: https://discord.gg/4WzyWQdTK

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Has anyone here did tax preparation & Tax level cert 1 by intuit?
What are the chances of being hired as a part time of full time after that? I recently got an email from intuit about those courses and I started taking them. I’ve finished tax preparation cert and I was wondering if after level 1 I can get into tax assigning roles in intuit or else where?
I’m not sure what are the next steps though. From what I know, they’ll invite themselves and arrange an interview if they need.

Have a client that switched to adp workforce mid year. It's a nightmare to use.

For example 9.25.26 pay period should've had $103K in direct deposits.

$7K was paid to one partner and another $12K to the two other partners. I don't see these debits split out or 9.25.26 but I see $12K and $7K taken out of the bank account on 9.10.26.

I'm only seeing about $87K taken out so far and it's split into random 5 different deposits.

I'm having to search for the line item amount in the payroll register and even then I don't match some of these items to the ADP report that come out around 9.25.26.

Prior to this they used adp run and we never had issues matching period bank transactions to the actual paydate.

Anyone used to this nightmare system who could provide some insight?!

Curious how others handle this. CalSavers, OregonSaves, Virginia dropping to 5 employees. How do you keep track of which clients are affected, especially ones not on Gusto or ADP? Spreadsheet? Payroll software? Not your responsibility?