For the people who have to make the books right.
Ledger Clinic is a working reference for bookkeepers and CPAs. Most close delays are not hard accounting, they are messy data: an Opening Balance Equity nobody cleared, a clearing account no one owns, duplicated bank-feed entries, a migration whose opening position never tied out. This is where those jobs are written down.
What this covers
Cleanup
Taking on books that are behind or wrong: what to look at first, and why the balance sheet tells you more than the P&L.
Month-end close
A close that finishes on time because the work was staged, not because someone stayed late.
Reconciliation
Accounts that tie out, and what to do with the balance that will not.
Chart of accounts
Designing a chart that answers the questions the owner actually asks.
Fixed assets
Registers that agree to the ledger, and depreciation that lands where it should.
Migrations
Moving a set of books without losing the audit trail, the opening position, or a fortnight to spreadsheet cleanup.
Data damage
Telling data damage apart from a posting mistake, and knowing when it stops being bookkeeping.
QuickBooks Online
What the common QuickBooks Online faults do to your books, and how to spot them in the numbers.
Practice workflow
Why a process that works at five clients stops working at fifty, and what to change before it does.
Latest
- Business expenses in a cash flow projection: what belongs outside accounts payab
How to treat loan payments, payroll and other non-bill cash outflows when building a cash flow projection, and where the double-counting traps sit.
- Card Deposits Recorded Twice: A Bookkeeper's Guide to the Duplicate Feed Problem
When bank feeds and merchant service deposits both record card sales, deposits post twice. Here is how to spot it, untangle it, and prevent it.
- Choosing the Right Asset Account in Your Chart of Accounts
How to pick the correct asset account when recording a fixed asset, with a worked example, mapping tips, and the judgement calls that keep depreciation clean.
- Changing Banks: How to Move Your Books to a New Bank Account
A bookkeeper's guide to handling a change of bank institution: closing out the old account, opening the new one, and keeping reconciliations clean.
- Closing the Books Faster: A Bookkeeper's Guide to a Reliable Month-End Close
A practical walkthrough of the month-end close: the sequence to follow, the evidence to keep, and the judgement calls that make a ledger trustworthy and reportable.
- Customer payment defaults in QuickBooks Desktop: how to test them safely
How to check whether customer payment defaults are populating correctly in QuickBooks Desktop, using a sample file to tell a settings problem from file damage.
- Entries Vanish After a QuickBooks Upgrade? Read This First
When posted entries disappear after a QuickBooks upgrade, it may be data damage rather than user error. Learn how to spot it, protect your file, and when to call a specialist.
- Estimated Tax Payments Showing as Overdue in QuickBooks Online
Why QuickBooks flags an estimated tax payment as overdue, how uncategorized payments hide from the tax tracker, and how to categorize and match them to the right quarter.