Last updated: May 20, 2026
A mid-year bookkeeping review is a professional assessment of your financial records from January through June to ensure every transaction is accurate, reconciled, and ready for the second half of the year. For a limited time, Books LA is offering a comprehensive book review and one account cleanup for a flat fee of $495.00.
This post is for small business owners and startups who want to catch errors early, simplify their year-end tax filing, and regain peace of mind about their numbers. We will cover why mid-year reviews matter, the common mistakes we find during cleanups, and exactly how our $495 reset works.
What is a mid-year bookkeeping review?
Think of a mid-year review as a halftime adjustment for your business finances. By the time May or June rolls around, most business owners have five or six months of data sitting in QuickBooks Online or Xero. If that data hasn't been touched since January, or if you’ve been "DIY-ing" it between sales calls, there are likely hidden errors.
A professional review involves looking at your Profit & Loss statement, Balance Sheet, and bank reconciliations to ensure the numbers actually match reality. It is the difference between guessing your profit and knowing exactly what you have available for growth in the second half of the year.
Why should you consider a bookkeeping cleanup now?
Most business owners wait until January to think about their books. By then, they are facing twelve months of messy data, missing receipts, and unreconciled accounts. This leads to "tax season panic" and high emergency fees from CPAs.
Performing a bookkeeping cleanup in May or June offers several practical advantages:
- Lower costs: It is significantly cheaper and faster to fix six months of data than it is to reconstruct an entire year in a rush.
- Accurate tax projections: You can't plan for your 2026 tax bill if your year-to-date numbers are wrong. A cleanup gives your CPA clean data to work with while there is still time to make strategic moves.
- Catching recurring errors: If you have been misclassifying a recurring software subscription or a loan payment for five months, catching it now prevents it from happening for the next six.
- Better decision making: You need to know your actual margins to decide if you can afford that next hire or marketing spend.
What common mistakes does a review uncover?
Even the most diligent business owners run into issues as they scale. During a typical mid-year bookkeeping review, we often find the following:
- Unreconciled bank and credit card accounts: The balance in your software doesn't match your actual bank statement. This usually happens because of duplicate transactions or missed entries.
- Personal expenses mixed with business: Whether it’s a stray grocery run on the business card or a business expense paid with a personal account, these need to be properly categorized as owner draws or contributions.
- Misclassified loan payments: Often, the entire monthly payment is booked as an expense, rather than splitting it between the loan principal (liability) and the interest (expense).
- "Ask My Accountant" bloat: A long list of uncategorized transactions that have been sitting in a "suspense" account for months.
- Duplicate income: Recording a deposit from the bank feed as "sales" while also having an open invoice for the same amount, effectively doubling your reported income (and your potential tax bill).
How does the $495 bookkeeping cleanup special work?
We designed this mid-year reset to be a straightforward, high-impact service for busy entrepreneurs. Here is exactly what is included in the $495 package:
- A Professional Diagnostic Review: We look at your current chart of accounts and financial statements to identify red flags, duplicates, and inconsistencies.
- One Account Cleanup: We will fully reconcile one primary business account (bank or credit card) for the first half of the year.
- Financial Report Package: You will receive a clean Profit & Loss and Balance Sheet that you can actually trust.
- Expert Recommendations: We provide a short summary of what we found and how you can keep things clean moving forward.
This is a one-time service meant to get you back on track. For many of our clients, this review serves as the perfect transition into our ongoing bookkeeping packages so they never have to worry about messy books again.
Want to claim your $495 Mid-Year Reset? Book a short call with our team here.
What do you need to provide for the cleanup?
To make this process as efficient as possible, we follow a paperless, streamlined workflow. Once you sign up for the review, we typically need:
- View-only access to your QuickBooks Online or Xero file.
- PDF copies of your bank and credit card statements for the months being reconciled.
- Clarification on any large or unusual transactions that aren't immediately obvious from the bank feed.
We use secure, cloud-based tools and client portals to handle all document management, so you never have to deal with physical paperwork or insecure email attachments.
Rules of thumb for maintaining clean books
While a professional cleanup is a great reset, the goal is to keep the momentum going. Here are three rules of thumb we share with our Los Angeles clients:
- The 24-Hour Receipt Rule: Use an app like Dext or the QBO mobile app to snap a photo of a receipt within 24 hours of the purchase. Don't let them pile up in your wallet.
- Separate or Suffer: Never, under any circumstances, use your business card for a personal "emergency." If you do, move the money back immediately and document it clearly.
- Monthly Reconciliations are Non-Negotiable: If you wait more than 30 days to reconcile, you will forget what specific transactions were for. Small tasks become big problems when left for "later."
About Books LA
Books LA is a specialized bookkeeping firm based in Los Angeles, California. We help small businesses and startups across the US keep their books clean, accurate, and up to date using cloud-based tools like QuickBooks Online (QBO) and Xero. Our team consists of certified pros who understand the unique challenges of growth-stage businesses. Whether you need a one-time cleanup or ongoing monthly support, we adapt to your systems to ensure you can focus on your business while we handle the numbers.
Disclaimer
Books LA does not provide income tax advice, nor do we prepare income tax returns. We specialize in day-to-day bookkeeping and financial reporting. We work closely with our clients' CPAs to ensure they have the clean data they need for income tax matters. We strongly recommend that you confirm all tax-related strategies with your CPA. Our focus is on bookkeeping-adjacent compliance, such as sales tax, payroll tax processing support, and business license management.
Mid-Year Bookkeeping FAQ
What if I have more than one account that needs cleaning?
Our $495 special covers the review and the cleanup of one primary account. If you have multiple bank accounts, credit cards, or lines of credit that are months behind, we can provide a custom quote to include those additional accounts in the project.
How long does the $495 cleanup take?
Once we have all the necessary documents and access, most cleanups are completed within 5 to 7 business days. We pride ourselves on being reliable and fast so you can get back to your business.
Does this include filing my taxes?
No. As noted in our disclaimer, we do not provide income tax advice or filing. We provide the clean "books" (financial statements) that your CPA requires to file your taxes accurately.
I use a different software than QuickBooks or Xero. Can you still help?
We are specialists in QuickBooks Online and Xero because they offer the best cloud-based workflows for our clients. If you use a different system, reach out to us: we can often perform a "cleanup" by migrating your data into a more robust system.
What happens if my books are "really" messy?
Don't be embarrassed: we’ve seen it all. If your books require extensive forensic accounting or several years of catch-up work, the $495 special may not cover the full scope. In those cases, we will use the review to give you an honest, transparent quote for a full cleanup.
Can I just do this myself?
You can, but the value of a professional review is the "second pair of eyes." We often find errors that business owners overlook because they are too close to the day-to-day operations. Our goal is to give you professional-grade accuracy.
Is there a commitment to a monthly plan?
There is no obligation to sign up for monthly services. However, many clients find that once their books are clean, they prefer to keep them that way by outsourcing the monthly work to us.
Ready for your mid-year reset? Click here to request your $495 Bookkeeping Review.
