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The cleanup is finished. Now the real monthly rhythm begins.
A completed cleanup should give the firm a starting point for ongoing work, with its history and supporting records still connected.
BrokenBooks carries the engagement into recurring bookkeeping with tasks generated from the client’s configured services and cadence. Period-level records, requests and review support monthly close and year-end close.
Set the ongoing scope and schedule. Keep the cleanup context without rebuilding the client engagement in another system.
Monthly bookkeeping doesn’t happen in a vacuum.
Keep the month’s tasks, client requests, documents and workpapers together. Your team can see what is waiting on information, what needs review and what still prevents the period from closing.
Recurring accounting needs more than a repeating task list.
Tasks are generated from the configured services and schedules, rather than rebuilt as a fresh checklist every month. Each period gives the team a place to carry out the work, collect support and review what remains.
Configure the services and cadence for each client. Your firm remains responsible for performing and reviewing the accounting work.
Move from cleanup into a linked engagement.
Cleanup closeout brings together completed work, unresolved findings, outstanding dependencies, and final deliverables.
From that workspace, the firm can begin the transition to monthly service through the engagement launch process.
Bookkeeping onboarding creates a separate ongoing project with references to its source project and proposal. The cleanup remains a distinct engagement rather than being repurposed as an indefinite task list.
The firm still needs to establish the recurring services and commercial terms appropriate to the ongoing work.
Define what the recurring engagement includes.
Recurring bookkeeping starts with service scope.
BrokenBooks supports selecting and configuring services across areas such as bookkeeping, payables, receivables, payroll, compliance, reporting, systems, and year-end.
The selected services establish what the firm is responsible for delivering. Proposal-linked scope also gives the team a reference point when the live service configuration changes.
That helps make changes to the engagement visible instead of allowing additional work to quietly become part of the routine.
Schedule services around the work.
Different services follow different schedules.
BrokenBooks supports service frequencies including weekly, biweekly, semimonthly, monthly, quarterly, and annually, with scheduling options appropriate to the selected service.
The scheduling model also supports manual work, event-based work, and services with more than one scheduling stream.
Those configurations provide the basis for generating work within bookkeeping periods.
Agree the ongoing scope before starting the work.
The recurring engagement has its own proposal and accepted service scope.
The accepted proposal establishes the recurring service scope. Activation connects those services to execution and starts the first bookkeeping period when needed.
The agreed scope guides the work that follows. Services, terms and changes remain decisions for the firm and client.
Give each period a working home.
The recurring project organizes execution into bookkeeping periods.
Within the period command center, the team can see:
- Tasks that are ready, blocked, or completed.
- Workpapers in preparation, awaiting review, or approved.
- Open requests and related dependencies.
- Documents connected to the period’s work.
- Missing support and other close blockers.
Scheduled tasks are generated from the configured services. Additional work can be recorded as exception tasks when a client request, new discovery, or firm correction requires attention.
The period becomes a place to manage both the routine work and the issues that interrupt it.
Keep support and review connected to the task.
Completing the accounting work may require documents, workpapers, client information, and review.
BrokenBooks tracks those connections so the team can identify why a task is blocked and what needs to happen before it is ready.
Preparer and reviewer information helps distinguish performing the work from reviewing it.
The professional remains responsible for the accounting conclusion and the quality of the completed work.
Help clients understand the recurring process.
The recurring client onboarding experience introduces the monthly workflow and shows clients where to upload documents, find requests, and access reports.
Clients can acknowledge the workflow, upload their first document, and open their portal workspace.
Clients have a place to provide information and respond to requests while the firm manages the accounting work and review.
Close the period with outstanding work visible.
A completed task list does not automatically establish that the period is ready to close.
BrokenBooks evaluates close readiness using the applicable requirements, including incomplete tasks, missing documents or workpapers, pending reviews, open requests, and prior-period dependencies.
The workspace surfaces blockers so the team can address them through the close process.
Closed periods also have controls requiring reopening before applicable work can be changed.
Review the year before starting the next one.
Year closeout brings together period status, outstanding tasks, open requests, unresolved dependencies, and final deliverables.
The firm records a management summary and identifies whether the year is complete or closes with unresolved items.
Before launching the next year, the workflow includes a commercial checkpoint and decisions about which outstanding items should remain with the prior year and which should carry forward.
Start the next year with continuity.
The rollover workflow creates a linked next-year bookkeeping project, retains the selected service configurations and schedules, and initializes the first period.
Items explicitly selected for carry-forward become work in the new year with references to their prior-year source.
That preserves the distinction between completed history and work that still needs attention.
One connected process, from diagnostic to year-end.
The built-in diagnostic generates the report and cleanup plan. Approved cleanup generates the tasks and client questions. The engagement can then continue into CPA preparation and ongoing bookkeeping, with tasks based on services and cadence and a close process for each month and year.
Prelaunch. In use at For The Love of Bookkeepers, with client-portal testing underway. Not yet available to other firms.
Explore the Cleanup Workflow →
Questions about your firm’s workflow? Email candice@brokenbooks.app.
Built for the people who fix the books. QuickBooks Online diagnostic and cleanup workflow software.