In October 2025, OneBooks was engaged to perform a large-scale catch-up bookkeeping and cleanup bookkeeping project for a growing e-commerce company.

The company had fallen behind from May 2025 through October 2025 and needed both catch-up bookkeeping to bring the books current and ongoing monthly bookkeeping support so the CPA could complete the 2025 tax return accurately and on time. 

This was not a simple cleanup. 

The company had 15 bank and credit card accounts, multiple payment platforms, several integrated applications, delayed accounts payable processing, delayed accounts receivable processing, and owner personal expenses mixed with business activity. 

The accounting ecosystem included Shopify, PayPal, Avalara, Affirm, Stax, and ADP Payroll. 

One of the biggest challenges in catch-up bookkeeping for e-commerce companies is that the books are often interconnected. In this case, the company staff had entered vendor invoices into the system, but were significantly behind in applying bill payments. This prevented us from properly matching bank withdrawals to outstanding bills. 

The same issue existed on the accounts receivable side. Customer payments needed to be matched against invoices before deposits could be reconciled correctly. This became even more complex because customers were paying through multiple channels including Shopify, PayPal, Affirm, and checks.

Our first step was to create a complete cleanup roadmap for management. We documented every unresolved area preventing the books from being reconciled properly and reviewed the findings directly with the COO.

We then created detailed transaction listings showing outstanding vendor payments, unmatched customer payments, unresolved deposits, unreconciled withdrawals, and transactions requiring additional support documentation.

To make the cleanup manageable, we organized everything by month so issues could be resolved systematically. This allowed us to progressively complete the bank reconciliations rather than letting unresolved transactions continue to compound.

At the same time, we still had to process the company’s ongoing operational activity including routine expenses, gas purchases, meals and entertainment, recurring subscriptions, and payroll-related activity.

The cleanup was further complicated because the owner had been using a company credit card for both business and personal expenses. As part of the engagement, we worked directly with the COO to establish better bookkeeping controls and best practices. Over time, the company was able to significantly reduce the commingling of personal and business transactions.

By year-end, the books were caught up, reconciled, and organized for tax preparation.

The client retained OneBooks for ongoing monthly bookkeeping services in 2026 and provided strong feedback regarding both our catch-up bookkeeping expertise and our advisory support throughout the cleanup process.

This engagement highlights a common issue in e-commerce bookkeeping: when accounts payable, accounts receivable, and payment platforms fall behind simultaneously, cleanup bookkeeping becomes far more than simple transaction coding. It requires process management, reconciliation expertise, and the ability to untangle operational bottlenecks while keeping the business moving forward.