What is bookkeeping with CapEasy?
Bookkeeping is the layer everything else rests on. Get it right and reporting, compliance and funding conversations become straightforward. Get it wrong and every one of them costs more than it should, usually at the worst time of year.
Bookkeeping in the US runs on two calendars at once. One is monthly: every bank and credit-card transaction gets matched, coded to a chart of accounts, and reconciled to a statement balance, so the general ledger closes each month with no unexplained variance. The other is annual: whatever the ledger says on 31 December becomes the starting point for the return your CPA files, whether that is Form 1120 for a C-corp, 1120-S for an S-corp, or 1065 for a partnership. A ledger that is clean in July and sloppy in November does not average out — it means the CPA is reconstructing three months of transactions before they can even start the return.
A large share of the businesses that come to us are not starting clean. They are six, twelve, sometimes eighteen months behind, with a business bank account that has never been reconciled and a QuickBooks or Xero file that was set up once and abandoned. Catch-up work is a distinct job from monthly bookkeeping: it means pulling every statement for the backlog period, rebuilding the ledger transaction by transaction, and producing a trial balance that a CPA can actually file from before a deadline arrives, not after.
The services inside bookkeeping & accounting
8 services, each with its own page — scope, process and the licence line stated before you buy anything.
| Monthly bookkeeping | Transactions recorded, coded and reconciled every month, in the same shape. |
| Month-end close | Accruals, prepayments and closing entries so the month is finished, not just recorded. |
| Catch-up bookkeeping | Working back from the last clean period to current, with an honest read on how far the records support. |
| Bank reconciliation | Every account tied to the statement, with discrepancies explained rather than plugged. |
| Multi-entity bookkeeping | Separate ledgers, intercompany entries and a consolidated view that agrees. |
| Multi-currency bookkeeping | Foreign-currency transactions, revaluation and realised gain or loss handled consistently. |
| Chart of accounts cleanup | A chart that produces a readable P&L instead of ninety accounts nobody uses. |
| Startup bookkeeping | Books built to survive diligence, from the first transaction. |
Why it matters
| Without a system | With CapEasy |
|---|---|
| Month-end arrives whenever someone gets to it | Books closed on a fixed date, in the same shape every month |
| Unexplained transactions pile up in a suspense account until year-end | Every account reconciled to the statement, with discrepancies explained not plugged |
| Your accountant bills you to fix bookkeeping before they can do their own work | A short questions list instead of a year-end archaeology project |
| You cannot answer "how did we do last month" without a week of digging | Whoever files opens a finished file |
What we need from you
Financial
- Bank and card statements
- Sales invoices
- Supplier bills
- Expense receipts
- Payroll summaries
- Loan statements
System
- Chart of accounts
- Opening balances
- Accounting software access (read/write, least privilege)
- Multi-currency details if applicable
Context
- Prior period financial statements
- Your accountant’s coding preferences
- Anything unusual we should expect
How it runs, step by step
- Transaction recording & classification
- Daily transaction entry
- Revenue and expense categorisation
- Capital vs operating classification
- Ledger & trial balance
- General ledger review
- Sub-ledger reconciliation
- Chart of accounts restructuring
- Reconciliation
- Monthly bank and card reconciliation
- Discrepancy investigation, with a written explanation
- Multi-account and multi-entity reconciliation
- Catch-up & clean-up
- Working back from the last clean period
- An honest read on how far back the records support
- Rebuilding to current
What lands with you, every cycle
- Reconciled ledgers
- Trial balance
- Month-end close pack
- A questions list, not a suspense account
- A file your accountant can work from without chasing you
Who does what
Coded to the chart of accounts you and your CPA have agreed. Sales-tax data is tagged by jurisdiction so whoever files has clean inputs — the nexus determination and the filing itself stay with them. Here is the licence line in the United States, stated before you buy anything — each of these is carried out by your CPA or enrolled agent:
- Issue compilation, review or audit reports — those are restricted to licensed CPA firms.
- Prepare or file federal or state tax returns.
- Represent you before the IRS, or respond to notices on your behalf.
- Determine sales-tax nexus, or worker classification.
- Advise on which entity to form, or draft formation documents — that is legal work.
Bookkeeping in United States
What UAA s.14(a) actually restricts
The Uniform Accountancy Act s.14(a) restricts the REPORT, not the underlying bookkeeping. A licensed CPA firm is required to issue compilation, review, and audit reports; preparing the financial statements those reports attach to is not itself a restricted act. That distinction is why we can build a reconciled, GAAP-consistent set of books and a CPA can still attach whatever level of assurance the engagement calls for — the restriction sits on the opinion, not on the ledger underneath it.
Form 941 and the quarterly payroll calendar
Businesses with employees file Form 941 quarterly to report withheld federal income tax, Social Security, and Medicare. The GL has to tie out to whatever the payroll processor reports each quarter — a mismatch between the payroll register and the books is one of the most common reasons a CPA has to go back and ask questions before a 941 can be filed on time.
W-2 and 1099-NEC — the 31 January deadline
W-2s for employees and 1099-NECs for contractors paid $600 or more are both due to recipients and to the IRS by 31 January. That date does not move for a business still reconciling November and December, which is why year-end catch-up work has to be finished well before January, not during it.
Delaware franchise tax — two calculation methods, two very different bills
Delaware-incorporated entities owe an annual franchise tax calculated under one of two methods — Authorized Shares or Assumed Par Value Capital — and the two can produce dramatically different results for the same company. The books need to carry accurate share and asset figures for whichever method applies, because a bookkeeping error here does not affect a tax return, it inflates or misstates an annual state bill directly.
What your CPA or enrolled agent receives from us
- A trial balance that reconciles to the bank and credit-card statements for every period covered, with no unexplained variance.
- A general ledger coded to a chart of accounts consistent with US GAAP categories, with judgment calls on ambiguous transactions documented rather than guessed.
- Bank and credit-card reconciliations for every account, every month, with any outstanding items flagged and dated.
- An AP/AR aging schedule current as of the handoff date, so the CPA can see what is owed and what is owing without rebuilding it themselves.
- A payroll tie-out showing the GL payroll accounts match the payroll processor's reports period by period, ahead of each 941 filing.
- A depreciation and fixed-asset note for anything added or disposed of during the period, with purchase dates and amounts sourced to invoices.
Questions worth asking before you start
Will you deal with the Internal Revenue Service on my behalf?
No. We are a consulting firm — licensed work runs through partner CPA firms. Anything that means dealing directly with IRS — filing, correspondence, representation — stays with your CPA or enrolled agent. What changes is how much work it is for them: they open a file that is already reconciled and coded, not one they have to rebuild first.
Exactly what lands with your CPA or enrolled agent at the end of a cycle?
Reconciled ledgers, Trial balance, Month-end close pack, A questions list, not a suspense account, A file your accountant can work from without chasing you. All of it goes to your CPA or enrolled agent — or straight to you, if you are the one reviewing before it moves on.
Who actually does the work — a person or an AI tool?
A named person on our team owns your file and reviews everything that leaves it. Software does a real share of the grinding underneath it — coding, matching, flagging the obvious gaps — but nothing regulated happens without a person’s judgement, and nothing here is signed or filed by an algorithm.
Our books are months behind. Can you still take this on?
Usually yes. We read the actual file first and tell you honestly how far back it supports rebuilding, then work back from the last clean period to now. It is a common starting point, not an unusual one.
Do you use our existing software, or move us onto something else?
We work inside what you already run. Migrating platforms is disruptive and rarely necessary — the improvement is in the process, not the tool.
What happens to access when the engagement ends?
Access is granted per person, least-privilege, and revoked the day it ends. Your books stay in your system throughout — we never copy them into one of our own.
Can you file our 1120 or 1120-S for us?
No. We build and reconcile the books that your CPA uses to prepare and file the return. Preparing or filing a federal or state return is restricted to a licensed CPA or, for return preparation specifically, someone holding a PTIN under IRC §6109 — neither of which we are.
Do you issue financial statements with an opinion attached — a compilation or review?
No. Under UAA §14(a), compilation, review, and audit reports are restricted to licensed CPA firms. We prepare the underlying financial statements and reconciled ledger; the report that attaches an opinion to them is your CPA's to issue.
We are eight months behind on reconciliations. Can you catch us up before our deadline?
That is catch-up work, and we treat it as its own project rather than folding it into monthly bookkeeping. We work backward from the actual filing date your CPA needs and tell you honestly what is achievable, rather than promising a date and missing it.
Who actually decides where a transaction gets coded?
We code to a GAAP-consistent chart of accounts and make the judgment call on routine transactions. Anything ambiguous — a payment that could be an owner draw or a business expense, for instance — gets flagged rather than guessed, and the CPA makes the final call on anything with tax consequences.
How does AI fit into this — is a machine coding our transactions?
AI handles the repetitive matching: pulling in bank feed data, suggesting a coding based on prior transactions, flagging anything that does not fit an existing pattern. A named bookkeeper on our team reviews every suggestion before it posts and is accountable for the ledger you receive — AI never finalizes an entry on its own.
Do you determine our sales tax nexus?
No. We report sales collected by state and category as raw data. Nexus determination is a legal and tax judgment that stays with your CPA or a nexus specialist — that call is theirs to make, and we say so rather than leaving it ambiguous.
What happens with Form 941 each quarter?
We reconcile the GL payroll accounts to your payroll processor's reports every month, so by the time 941 is due each quarter, the numbers already tie out. Filing the 941 itself runs through your payroll provider or CPA.
Our Delaware franchise tax bill seems too high — can bookkeeping fix that?
It can prevent the most common cause. Delaware calculates franchise tax under two different methods — Authorized Shares and Assumed Par Value Capital — and the default method often produces a far higher bill than the alternative for the same company. We keep share and asset figures accurate in the books so whoever files the return can choose the method deliberately instead of defaulting into the expensive one.
What exactly do you hand off to our CPA at year-end?
A reconciled trial balance, a coded general ledger, AP/AR aging, payroll tie-outs against the processor's reports, a fixed-asset note for anything added or disposed of, and a documented list of anything we flagged as ambiguous. The goal is a file the CPA can start filing from, not one they have to rebuild first.
We run personal expenses through the business account sometimes — is that a problem for bookkeeping?
It creates work, and for an S-corp it has real tax consequences. We flag commingled transactions as they happen each month rather than discovering a year's worth at once, and we route the reclassification decision to your CPA rather than making a tax call ourselves.
Can you represent us if the IRS sends a notice about something in the books?
No. Representation before the IRS is Circular 230 territory and stays with your CPA or enrolled agent. What we can do is hand them a reconciled ledger and clear documentation for whatever the notice is asking about, so they are not starting from a blank file.
Do you decide which entity structure or state to register in?
No. Entity formation and state registration decisions are legal work handled by your attorney. We keep the books once the structure exists, coded consistently with whatever entity type your attorney and CPA have set up.
