For accounting firms
Overflow cleanup projects
When a client's books have drifted too far behind for your own staff to fix without dropping other work, overflow cleanup gives EU firms a priced, bounded project instead: backlog months worked oldest first, VAT miscoding by member state corrected and logged, and a handoff your firm presents as its own.
Engagement tracker
Illustrative client · August 2026
EUR
- Client file access set up under your firm's nameDone
- Monthly books prepared to your review standardDone
- Review notes cleared and loggedIn progress
- Reports sent to your partner for sign-offNext
- Year-end workpapers staged for your preparerNext
Illustrative. An example of the document, not a client's figures.
Backlog does not wait for a quiet month
An acquired client, a company that went eighteen months without a proper close, or a VAT registration set up in the wrong scheme: each produces a pile of catch-up work that has nowhere obvious to land on a firm's existing staff roster without pushing current clients down the queue.
Pricing the project before touching the file
Before a single transaction moves, we walk the backlog with your firm: how many months, which accounts, and which member state's VAT and GAAP rules govern the period. That conversation sets a fixed price, so a messier-than-expected file does not turn into a cost overrun mid-project.
Working the backlog in sequence
Each month gets rebuilt in order, because a closing balance only means something once the month before it has been verified. As the work proceeds we surface the kind of thing backlogs usually hide: a bank-feed duplicate, a VAT rate applied to the wrong country of sale, a personal card charge sitting in the business ledger. None of it gets silently fixed; each change is written up in an adjustments log naming the period, the correction and the reason.
Handing it back
What your firm receives is a clean set of reconciled months, the resulting profit and loss and balance sheet, and the adjustments log behind them, all formatted so it can go to the client under your own letterhead. If the adjustments log surfaces something that touches an already-filed VAT return, that call belongs to your firm and its licensed local adviser, not to us.
Once the backlog is gone
Clients typically move straight from a cleanup project into steady white-label bookkeeping or a standing dedicated staff pod so the gap does not reopen.
Questions
Frequently asked questions: Overflow cleanup projects
What determines the price of a cleanup project?
The number of backlog months, the accounts involved and which member state's VAT and GAAP rules apply, all agreed with your firm before the project starts.
Can a single cleanup project cover clients in different countries?
Each backlog month is worked against the specific member state's rules that governed it at the time, even within one client's file.
Will this compete with our own team's time during a filing deadline?
That is usually the point. Firms route backlog work to us specifically so it does not eat into staff time needed for an active VAT or year-end deadline.
If the cleanup finds an error in an already-filed VAT return, who decides what to do?
We write up what the adjustments log shows; whether to amend a filed return is a decision your firm makes with its licensed local adviser.
Do you report progress mid-project or only at the end?
Progress updates go out on an agreed cadence, typically weekly, so your firm can see how a cleanup is tracking against deadline rather than waiting for a single handback at the very end of the project.
How is a cleanup project scoped?
We review the backlog with you, agree the number of months and accounts involved, and quote a fixed scope before starting.
Can this run alongside your dedicated pod work?
Yes. Firms often route one-off overflow through project work while a dedicated pod handles ongoing files.
How do we get started with overflow cleanup projects?
Getting started with overflow cleanup projects begins with a short review of your current records and software access. Once that is done we confirm scope and timing in writing, and ongoing work begins on the schedule agreed with you.
What if our records for overflow cleanup projects are not up to date?
If your records are behind, we scope a catch-up first so overflow cleanup projects starts from a clean, reconciled base. That catch-up is priced and timed separately from the ongoing engagement, so you always know what each part costs.
Related services
- For accounting firmsWhite-label bookkeepingMonthly bookkeeping produced under your firm's own name and templates, so your clients see your brand while our team handles sorting transactions into categories, reconciling and reporting behind it.
- For accounting firmsBusy season tax prep supportPreparation-support capacity for firms during filing season: source documents put in order, workpapers built and draft returns assembled for your credentialed preparers to review and sign.
Industries
Next step
Talk to the team that would run your books
A short call covers your setup, your software and what a first month would look like. You get a written scope and price after it.