Monthly Books
Income and expenses categorized every month, with the chart of accounts set up to match how your business actually earns and spends.
Santa Barbara bookkeeping
Bookkeeping that stays
tax-ready.
Monthly books, reconciliations, and financial statements — kept by the firm that files the return.
Downtown
A bookkeeper who shares an office with your CPA.
Santafino CPAs keeps books for small businesses from an office on State Street. Monthly categorization and reconciliations, financial statements you can hand to a lender, payroll setup, and the two kinds of rescue work — catch-up and cleanup — that a neglected file needs.
Most bookkeeping is finished twice: once by whoever kept it, then again in March by whoever has to file from it. We do it once, because the same firm does both.
Bring the shoebox in and sit down with us, or send the bank feed from wherever you are. The CPA practice serves clients across the United States; Santa Barbara is simply where it sits.
The officeThe Santa Barbara office
The work
Every month, closed properly.
CPA reviewed · Never outsourced · QuickBooksCategorization, reconciliation, and statements as the year happens — plus the catch-up and cleanup work that gets a file back to a place where that is possible.
Reconciliations
Bank, credit card, and loan accounts reconciled to the statements, so the balance in the ledger is the balance in the account.
Financial Statements
A profit and loss statement and a balance sheet you can read — for your own decisions, for a lender, or for the return at the end of the year.
Payroll Setup
Registrations, accounts, and the payroll system stood up correctly at the start. Setup only — the running of each payroll stays with you or your payroll provider.
Catch-Up Bookkeeping
Months or years of unrecorded activity brought current, one period at a time, until the ledger reaches today.
QuickBooks Cleanup
A file that has been kept but has drifted — duplicates, miscategorized entries, an opening balance nobody can explain — corrected and reconciled back to the statements.
Three engagements
Behind is not the same as wrong.
Keeping books, catching them up, and cleaning them up are three different pieces of work. They are scoped separately and quoted separately, and knowing which one you need is the first conversation.
Monthly
Books kept as the year happens.
A recurring engagement. Every month the accounts are categorized, reconciled, and closed, and you get statements. Priced monthly, and it is the only one of the three that continues.
Catch-up
Books that were never kept.
A one-time project for periods with nothing recorded at all. It is scoped by how many months are missing and quoted separately from any monthly work that follows it.
Cleanup
Books that were kept wrong.
Also one-time, but different work: the entries exist and have to be corrected rather than created. Miscategorizations, duplicates, and balances that never tied out.
Monthly bookkeeping — fees
Where the number starts.
Business Bookkeeping
Starting from$450/mo
CPA reviewedNever outsourcedTax-efficient accountingDepreciation strategyMonthly reconciliationsTax-ready financials
Complimentary consultationCPA reviewed
Kept for the return, not just the file.
One
The same firm that keeps the ledger prepares the return, so an expense is categorized once — with the way it will be reported already decided.
Two
Fixed assets are recorded with depreciation in view rather than dropped into a supplies account and rediscovered in the spring.
Three
Owner draws, reimbursements, and loan accounts are sorted during the year, while you can still remember what a transaction was.
Four
Nothing is sent to an outside firm. The books and the return are worked on in one office, by people you can call.
What moves the monthly feeTax, bookkeeping, and wealth management pricing
$450 a month is where monthly bookkeeping starts, not what every set of books costs. Four things decide your figure, and we look at all four before quoting one.
Transaction volumePer month
Accounts to reconcileBank, card, loan
Payroll & entitiesHow many
How far behindCatch-up or cleanup
Common questions
Bookkeeping questions we hear most.
What does monthly bookkeeping cost?
Monthly bookkeeping starts at $450 per month. It is a starting figure, not a set fee: transaction volume, the number of accounts to reconcile, payroll, and how many entities are involved all move it. We look at your accounts first and quote a monthly amount before any work begins.
My books are months behind. Where do we start?
With catch-up work. We take the periods that were never recorded and bring them current one month at a time, then reconcile them to the statements. Catch-up is quoted as its own project, and a monthly engagement can begin once the ledger has reached today.
Is cleanup the same as catch-up?
No, and they are priced separately. Catch-up creates records that were never made. Cleanup corrects records that were made wrong — duplicated entries, expenses in the wrong account, an opening balance that never tied to anything. A file can need both.
Do you run payroll?
We handle payroll setup: registrations, accounts, and getting the payroll system standing correctly. We do not process the payroll runs themselves. That stays with you or your payroll provider, and we account for it in the books.
Do you work in QuickBooks?
Yes. We keep books in QuickBooks and we clean up QuickBooks files that have drifted, including files we did not set up.
Who does the work?
Our own staff, in our own office, reviewed by a licensed CPA. Nothing is outsourced, and you work with the same people every month.
Do I have to be in Santa Barbara?
No. The office is on State Street and you are welcome to bring a box of receipts to it, but the CPA practice serves clients across the United States and the books can be kept entirely remotely.
