Bookkeeping Services Editing and Proofreading Services

The monthly reconciliation reaches the client showing a $340 difference between the bank statement and the ledger. Beneath the figure sits one line that reads "adjusting entry, see notes" with nothing attached. The client has to approve the report before the month is closed. Nothing in front of them distinguishes a bank fee that was never categorized from a duplicate transaction caught and removed, or from an error still open. Two of those three call for no response; the third calls for a phone call that day.

The documents we edit for Bookkeeping Services

Monthly reconciliation reports and exception explanations, chart of accounts categorization notes, and adjusting entry documentation are how a bookkeeper's work reaches the client. So is the correspondence that answers a client's question about a particular discrepancy, and all of it comes to us. Our editors work on the line item that has to explain itself to someone who was not there when the entry was made.

What the editing involves

Every adjustment on a reconciliation report needs a specific cause behind it, stated in words the client can check. The placeholder note fails not because it is brief but because it points to an explanation the client cannot reach. A client approving $340 in adjustments has nothing to check it against.

Written out, the same $340 resolves into three lines. The first is a bank service fee of $35 posted on the 28th and not yet recorded in the ledger. The second is a duplicate supplier payment of $180 entered twice and reversed on the 30th. The third is a check for $125 written on the 12th and still outstanding. A client reading those three lines can accept the first two and ask one question about the third.

A recurring discrepancy also needs to be marked as recurring. If that same $35 fee has arrived unrecorded in each of the last five months, the fact belongs in the report, because the pattern points at the process rather than the month. A report that treats every month as a fresh and unrelated event conceals it. Any transaction that required judgment to categorize deserves a note giving the reasoning, so a $600 payment to a design studio coded to marketing rather than to capital expenditure should say why. Items still under investigation are better separated from those already explained, since the two look identical in a report that runs them together.

A client's question about one line deserves an answer about that line. A reply confirming that the books are accurate does not address a question about why the September card statement shows two charges from one vendor on the same day. The useful reply names the vendor, the date, the amount, and what happened to the second charge. Reports written this way mean a client approving the books understands what is being approved.

Confidentiality and the limits of our role

Everything you send us is treated in confidence, including financial records, client data, and correspondence. We are editors, not bookkeepers, accountants, or financial advisors, and we offer no view on categorization, reconciliation, or financial accuracy. What we can do is make sure every adjustment explains itself on the page the client actually sees.