Catch-Up Bookkeeping Services in Pittsburgh
CATCH-UP BOOKKEEPING SERVICES IN PITTSBURGH, PA
Behind on your books with PA quarterly tax deadlines approaching? Local Pittsburgh bookkeeper in Cranberry Township, PA. We catch up 3 months to 3+ years of missing transactions, reconcile every account, and hand your CPA clean financials ahead of the next filing deadline. Flat-fee pricing from $500. One recent Butler County client came to us 16 months behind with a PA estimated tax payment due in 9 days. We finished the cleanup in time.
Deliverables
WHAT YOU GET
The Process
HOW IT WORKS
Free Local Assessment
Send us read-only access to your QuickBooks file, bank login, and any receipts or statements you have. Within 48 hours, we tell you exactly how far behind you are, what's missing, and a flat-fee quote to catch you up. We also flag any PA tax deadlines that are coming fast so you know what has to get done first. No cost for the assessment.
Prioritized Catch-Up Plan
Not all missing months carry equal weight. A PA quarterly estimated tax deadline in 3 weeks matters more than a bank reconciliation from 18 months ago. We sequence the work so deadline-critical items get done first. You'll see the full plan and the flat fee before we start. No hourly billing.
Enter, Reconcile, Review
We pull transaction data from your bank feeds, Shopify/Square/Stripe reports, credit card statements, and any paper receipts. Every transaction gets entered, categorized, and reconciled. Weekly progress notes so you know how close we are. Most Pittsburgh catch-up projects finish in 2 to 8 weeks.
Handoff and Tax-Ready Financials
Once the catch-up is complete, you get clean financial statements for every period. We schedule a screenshare walkthrough (or in-person at our Cranberry office if you prefer) and prepare a handoff document for your CPA that lists every adjustment. Your CPA can then file any delinquent returns without having to ask you a dozen questions first.
Ready to hand off your books?
One call. We'll figure out exactly what you need and what it costs.
The Impact
WHY IT MATTERS
Falling behind on bookkeeping is not a character flaw. It happens to good Pittsburgh-area business owners constantly. Usually because the business is actually doing well and you're too busy serving customers to keep up on the admin side. The longer you wait, the more expensive it gets to fix. Here's why it matters in Pennsylvania specifically. If you're behind on bookkeeping, you're almost always behind on PA sales tax reconciliation too. The PA Department of Revenue doesn't care that you've been busy. Late sales tax filings carry a 5% penalty per month (up to 25%) plus interest. If you're a Pittsburgh business, you're also likely behind on Pittsburgh local tax remittances and Allegheny County local services tax. Those penalties stack separately from PA state penalties. Catch-up isn't just about getting your QuickBooks pretty. It's about stopping the penalty meter before it gets worse. Here's what catch-up bookkeeping looked like for three recent Pittsburgh-area clients. A plumbing company based in Shaler came to us 14 months behind with a PA quarterly estimated tax payment due in 12 days. The owner had been DIY-ing QuickBooks for a year, fell behind, and was now looking at a potential penalty if the quarterly wasn't paid on time. We worked backward from the deadline. Got the last 3 months reconciled first so we could project a reliable quarterly payment. Then caught up the remaining 11 months over the next 5 weeks. The owner made the quarterly payment on time with accurate numbers instead of guessing. No penalty. A marketing agency in Butler, PA came to us 8 months behind specifically because they needed loan-ready financials. They'd applied for an SBA 7(a) loan to hire a third employee and the bank wanted 24 months of clean financial statements. The owner had been using a cheap online bookkeeping service that produced P&Ls that didn't match their actual cash flow. We rebuilt 8 months of their QuickBooks from scratch using bank statements, Stripe payout reports, and invoice records. Two weeks of work. They submitted the corrected financials to the bank and got approved at a better rate because the numbers now reconciled with their tax returns. A fitness studio in Bethel Park came to us 2 full years behind after their previous bookkeeper left and nobody picked up the work. Tips from trainers had been running through owner's draws. Merchant processing fees from multiple payment platforms (Mindbody, Square, Stripe) weren't tracking correctly. PA sales tax on retail merchandise hadn't been filed in over a year. We rebuilt 24 months from scratch. Seven weeks of work. Found $14,000 in legitimate business expenses that had been coded as personal. Got PA sales tax caught up with voluntary disclosure (which reduced penalties significantly vs waiting for PA to notice). The owner amended two years of tax returns and recovered $4,200 in overpayments. Pittsburgh catch-up also means understanding the local tax calendar. PA estimated quarterly taxes are due April 15, June 15, September 15, and January 15. PA annual income tax returns are due April 15. Sales tax filings are monthly if you average over $4,000 per month in taxable sales, quarterly otherwise. Pittsburgh payroll tax filings have their own schedule with the Pittsburgh Department of Finance. 1099-NEC forms need to be in the hands of contractors by January 31 and filed with the IRS by the same date. If you're behind on bookkeeping heading into any of these deadlines, the first priority isn't pretty books. It's getting enough of the picture together to hit the deadline without a penalty. That's how we sequence catch-up work for Pittsburgh clients. Every catch-up project is done by or under the review of a Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor. You can verify the credential on Intuit's public directory. Service area covers the full greater Pittsburgh metro: Allegheny County (Pittsburgh, North Hills, South Hills, Squirrel Hill, Strip District, Lawrenceville, Oakland, Mount Lebanon, Bethel Park, Moon Township, Robinson Township, Fox Chapel, McCandless, Ross Township, Shaler), Butler County (Cranberry Township, Wexford, Mars, Warrendale, Seven Fields, Zelienople, Butler city, Gibsonia, Harmony, Evans City), and parts of Beaver County, Washington County, and Westmoreland County. In-person handoff meetings happen at our Cranberry Township office or at your business if you're within roughly 30 minutes. Remote work covers everywhere else. Most Pittsburgh clients move to our monthly bookkeeping service at $399 per month once catch-up is finished. Falling behind once usually means DIY isn't working and something needs to change. But one-time catch-up as a standalone is absolutely fine too. Either way, we document every entry we made so you have a clear audit trail if the IRS or PA Department of Revenue ever asks questions.
Best Fit
IS THIS RIGHT FOR YOU?
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Learn moreCommon Questions
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Flat-fee pricing. 3 months behind runs $500 to $900. A full year typically runs $900 to $1,800. Two-year or multi-year catch-up runs $1,800 to $5,000+ depending on transaction volume and how messy the existing records are. You'll get a fixed quote after the free assessment. No hourly billing, no surprise invoices.
Depends on how far behind you are. 3 months behind with clean source data (bank feeds, decent receipts) can be done in under 2 weeks. 12 months behind typically takes 3 to 5 weeks. 24 months takes 6 to 10 weeks. If a PA estimated tax deadline or sales tax filing is coming in less than 4 weeks, we sequence the work to give you accurate numbers for that specific deadline first, then finish the rest afterward.
Yes. Catch-up includes rebuilding your QuickBooks sales tax liability account so it matches what you should have been collecting and remitting. If you're behind on actual PA Department of Revenue filings, we work with your CPA to file through the PA voluntary disclosure program when appropriate. Voluntary disclosure typically reduces penalties significantly compared to waiting for PA to assess you.
No limit. We've handled catch-up projects that were 3+ years behind. The further behind you are, the longer it takes, and the higher the flat fee. But there's no scenario we haven't seen. 5 years behind? Workable. 8 years behind across multiple LLCs? Also workable. We'll give you an honest timeline during the free assessment.
All of greater Pittsburgh. Peacock is based in Cranberry Township and our service area is Allegheny County, Butler County, Beaver County, Washington County, and parts of Westmoreland County. Pittsburgh proper plus every suburb. If you're in the metro, we can work with you. Remote or in-person.
Yes. In-person meetings happen at our Cranberry Township office. We can also drive to your business if you're within about 30 minutes of Cranberry. Most Pittsburgh clients prefer remote handoffs because they're faster, but in-person is always an option at no extra cost.
Catch-up enters transactions that never got recorded. Cleanup fixes transactions that were recorded incorrectly (duplicates, misclassifications, broken reconciliation). Many Pittsburgh projects need both. When they do, we bundle the work into one flat fee so you're not paying twice for the same transaction review. See our Pittsburgh QuickBooks cleanup page for more on the cleanup side.
That's fine. We build you a clean QuickBooks setup from scratch, enter the historical transactions from bank statements and receipts, and end up with the same result (caught-up books, clean financials). If you've never used QuickBooks, part of our handoff includes a training session so you can decide whether to DIY going forward or hand it to our monthly bookkeeping service.
Usually we can pull transaction data directly from your bank through QuickBooks Online. If you have closed accounts, transactions older than 18 months, or accounts that don't connect to QuickBooks, we'll need statements from you. We'll give you a specific list of what we need during the assessment.
Yes. Multi-entity catch-up is common for Pittsburgh restaurants with multiple storefronts, contractors operating as both an LLC and an S-Corp, real estate operators with LLC-per-property structures, and franchise operators. We handle consolidated reporting, intercompany transactions, and separate P&Ls per entity. See our multi-entity management service for the ongoing version.
You grant us read-only access to your QuickBooks file and bank connections. Within 48 hours, we send back a written scope that lists how far behind you are, what source data we need from you, any PA or local tax deadlines we should sequence work around, and a flat-fee quote. If you move forward, we start. If you don't, we remove our access. No cost either way.
Still workable. Multi-year Pittsburgh catch-up projects typically take 6 to 10 weeks and run $2,500 to $5,000+. We prioritize the most recent 12 months first (which impacts your current and upcoming tax returns), then work backward. Your CPA then has the option to amend prior returns if we uncover deductions that were missed, which often recovers thousands in overpayments.
Three reasons. First, PA and local tax rules matter for catch-up sequencing. A national service doesn't know or care about the Pittsburgh 3% local income tax, Allegheny County local services tax, Butler County earned income tax, or PA quarterly estimated tax deadlines. We prioritize the work around those deadlines. Second, you can walk into our Cranberry Township office and verify we're real people doing real work. Third, when something goes sideways mid-project, you get a phone call with a local person, not a support ticket queue.
SCHEDULE A FREE PITTSBURGH CATCH-UP ASSESSMENT
Book a free call and see exactly where your business stands. No pressure, no jargon. Just a clear picture of your finances. 100% satisfaction guarantee your first month.
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