😅 What to Do if You Haven’t Touched Your Books All Year

It’s okay. You’re not alone. Not by a long shot.

A lot of small business owners go months — even a full year — without looking at their books. You were focused on running jobs, finding clients, and keeping things moving. Bookkeeping just… didn’t happen.

The good news? It’s fixable. Here’s exactly what to do if you haven’t touched your books all year — without panicking or giving up.

🧯 Step 1: Don’t Panic or Feel Guilty

Seriously. It happens more than you think — especially in service-based businesses where it’s all hands on deck, all the time.

Messy books don’t make you a bad business owner. But ignoring them forever? That’s where things get painful (especially at tax time).

Take a deep breath. We’re gonna clean this up.

🗂️ Step 2: Gather What You Have

You don’t need receipts from January 3rd and April 8th to get started. Focus on the big stuff first:

• Business bank statements (all months)

• Business credit card statements

• Any invoices or payment records you can find

• Loan statements or major purchases

If you only used one account for everything, that’s fine — we’ll sort it out from there.

📅 Step 3: Backtrack Month by Month

If you're DIY-ing this:

• Start with January.

• Go through each month’s statements and log income and expenses in a spreadsheet or bookkeeping software (like QuickBooks).

• Categorize every transaction: income, supplies, advertising, fuel, subcontractors, etc.

Yes, it’s tedious. But chunk it down — even doing 1 month per day makes a huge dent.

💻 Step 4: Use Bookkeeping Software (If You Aren’t Already)

Manually tracking everything is doable, but if you're behind, tools like QuickBooks Online can pull in your bank transactions and speed this up big time.

Even better? Once you’re caught up, you can automate things moving forward.

🧮 Step 5: Reconcile Your Accounts

Once you’ve categorized everything, reconcile your records with your bank/credit card statements.

This just means making sure your books match your real account balances — and catching any errors or missed items.

📈 Step 6: Generate Your Reports

Once everything’s categorized and reconciled, generate:

• Profit & Loss statement

• Balance sheet (optional unless you’re an S-Corp)

• Cash flow statement (optional)

These are what your tax pro will need — and what you need to know how your business really performed.

🚨 Bonus Tip: Don’t Wait Until Tax Season

If you’re doing all this just to file taxes, that’s totally fair. But once it’s done, don’t fall off again.

Set a monthly bookkeeping routine or get a bookkeeper involved (even part-time). Future you will be very grateful.

🧹 Final Thoughts

Your books may be messy — but they’re not hopeless. You don’t have to do it all at once, and you don’t have to do it alone.

Need help catching up?
I offer a free Bookkeeping Health Check to take a look at your current situation, no judgment — just support.

Contact us by clicking here

or send us an email at David@RuckandReconcile.com

Take a look at the services we offer here

And as always, thank you so much for reading!