Bookkeeping health · 6 min
Five signs your books might need a review
You do not need a disaster to need a second set of eyes. These five patterns show up in files that look “fine” until they are not.
Most owners who reach out for a Health Check are not failing. They have been doing their own books in QuickBooks, they are busy, and something feels off — a GST balance that does not match the last return, a credit card that never quite reconciles, an owner account that has become a junk drawer.
Here are five signs the file would benefit from a structured review before they become a year-end reconstruction.
1. Bank or credit card accounts do not reconcile
If the QuickBooks balance and the statement balance have not matched in months, every report underneath is an estimate. The difference is often duplicates, missing transfers, or personal spend sitting in the business account. Reconciliation is the floor. Everything else is built on it.
2. The GST/HST payable account looks like a guess
After a return is filed, the GST/HST account should move in a way you can explain. If it only grows, or if it never matches what you remitted, credits are being missed, sales are coded wrong, or filings were made from a spreadsheet that does not agree with the books. That is a compliance issue, not a cosmetic one.
3. The balance sheet has accounts nobody can explain
Opening balances that were never cleaned up. A parking-lot account used for anything that was unclear. Money the owner took out, or put in, that never got recorded on purpose. A balance sheet should be readable. If you cannot say what an account is, it should not be carrying a balance.
4. Expenses are categorized well enough — until you need them
“Supplies” as a catch-all, personal meals in meals & entertainment, job materials in office expenses: the P&L still totals, but it cannot tell you which work is profitable. Bad categorization is invisible until you price a job, apply for financing, or sit with an accountant who has to undo it.
5. You cannot answer the basic questions
How profitable is the business? Who still owes us? What bills are coming? Are we ready for GST and year-end? If those require an evening in the file, the books are not doing their job. A Health Check is built for exactly this: a second set of eyes, a written list of issues, and a clear recommendation — keep doing it yourself with a punch list, or hand monthly bookkeeping over.
