The catch-up engagement, from a folder of PDFs to one checked import.
Eighteen months, four accounts, a shared drive of statements, and a client who wants it done by the fifteenth. This is the job Ledgerfoot is built for.
What the job looks like, and where the time goes.
The bank feed reaches back 90 days. Everything older is a PDF, one per account per month, in whatever layout that bank uses. Some of them are photos of paper. The retyping is the visible cost. The hidden cost is the checking. Each statement has to be added to its own closing balance. The quarter that overlaps three monthlies has to be found. February, which is simply not there, has to be noticed. And the engagement file needs a note of what was left unresolved.
Four parts of the job, done once.
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One workspace per client
Every statement for every account in one place, uploaded in one batch or as the client sends them. Accounts are recognized from the statements. A statement whose account number ending is already in the workspace is filed under that account.
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Every statement footed
Opening balance plus rows equals closing balance, to the cent. If not, the statement is flagged with the difference and the row most likely to be wrong. Statements that print a running balance are checked row by row.
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Duplicates and gaps named
Overlapping statements and re-uploads produce duplicates. They are shown as pairs for you to keep one or both. Months with no statement are listed per account. The request to the client is exact.
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The exceptions list as the work queue
Everything unresolved in one list, blocks-import first. Flagged statements, duplicate pairs, gaps, rows the model was unsure about, uncategorized rows. Clear it, and the export carries nothing you have not seen.
Your chart, your rules, and suggestions you can see.
Give the workspace the client's chart of accounts, or let it grow as you categorize. A rule is a pattern and a category. It runs before anything else and is yours to edit. When you correct a row, Ledgerfoot offers to make the correction a rule. The rule is applied across the workspace at once. For rows no rule matches, a model suggests a category from your chart. The suggestion is marked until you accept it. Nothing is categorized with certainty that you did not decide.
Built for QuickBooks Online and Xero, and checked before download.
The QuickBooks Online 3-column and 4-column bank files and the Xero bank statement file. Each one uses the columns, date format, and sign convention the destination documents. Each is split at the row limit, one file per account. The validation line tells you what was checked. A flagged statement's rows are included with the flag, never silently.
One page that says what was checked.
The client summary lists every statement and its check. It lists the duplicates found and how they were resolved, the gaps, and the exceptions cleared and left open. It lists the files exported, with the date. It is the page you attach to the engagement letter. It is also the page you reach for when the client asks what happened to March.
Pro is the practice tier.
Unlimited workspaces and batch upload. The rules, the QuickBooks and Xero files, the exceptions list as a page, the summary, and the retention setting. The page count on each batch is shown before it runs. A catch-up engagement of a few hundred pages fits inside a month's included pages. The first 100 bookkeepers can take Pro for as long as Ledgerfoot runs, paid once.
Start with the statement that gave you the most trouble.
Ten pages a month are free. Drop in one statement and see the check.