Question 1

Where do the estimator's ranges come from?

Accepted Answer

From our own published pricing, nowhere else. A one-time books repair — cleanup, catch-up, or both — is published at $1,500–$5,000, and a QuickBooks-file-only cleanup at $750–$2,500; those pages and our pricing page carry the same numbers, dated and standing. The estimator's only job is placing your inputs inside that published band — months affected, accounts involved, transaction volume, liabilities in scope. It never invents a market average and never outputs a figure our own pages don't already publish.

Question 2

Why does it give a range instead of an exact number?

Accepted Answer

Because an exact number produced before anyone opens your file would be theater, and we've written at length about why instant quotes move later. The honest cost drivers — how deep the drift runs inside recorded months, how the errors interact, what the diagnostic actually finds — are visible only in the file itself. So the estimator narrows the published band using what you can genuinely know from the outside, and the free review turns that band into one fixed number in writing. Anyone offering more precision from five inputs is selling the later surprise.

Question 3

Does the estimate commit me — or you — to anything?

Accepted Answer

Neither, in both directions. It's indicative: your real quote can land below the band the tool shows (the review sometimes finds a QuickBooks-file-only job at the $750–$2,500 published range, or a tidy gap that's genuinely DIY-able — and we say so), and a file with drift the inputs couldn't see can scope higher, explained line by line before anything starts. The number that binds is the one in writing after the free review — fixed, never hourly, no rush fees. The tool exists so you walk into that conversation calibrated, not so it replaces the conversation.

Question 4

Why does 'records gone' show no dollar band?

Accepted Answer

Because that answer changes the job's nature, not just its size. When records are missing entirely, cost is driven by what your bank, processor, and payroll provider can still produce — which no formula can see from here — and by whether the recovery check finds a copy that shrinks the whole job. That's financial reconstruction, scoped after the free review reads what survived. Showing you a band for it would be exactly the invented precision this tool exists to avoid.

Question 5

Is anything I enter stored or sent anywhere?

Accepted Answer

No. The estimator runs entirely in your browser — no inputs are submitted, stored, or connected to you. The single thing recorded is an anonymous analytics event noting that a result appeared and which band it was (lower, middle, upper, or the reconstruction route), so we can tell whether the tool earns its place — never your answers, never anything identifying. Your situation gets shared with us only if and when you choose to book the review.

Driver	Points	Why it moves the price
Months affected	Up to 3 = 0 · 4–12 = 1 · 13–24 = 2 · 25+ = 3	Periods interact rather than stack — each unproven month corrupts the next month's starting point.
Accounts involved	1–2 = 0 · 3–5 = 1 · 6+ = 2	Every account is its own reconciliation per month — the work multiplies across them.
Transaction volume	Light = 0 · Moderate = 1 · Heavy = 2	Volume sizes the categorization and matching pass inside every month.
Liabilities in scope	Yes = +1	Payroll and collected-tax accounts get rebuilt to a prove-it standard — other parties rely on them.
Behind and wrong	+1	Two jobs interleaved on one file — the missing months and the drifted ones untangle together.

What might your books repair cost? An honest band, not a fake number.

Five inputs, one honest band.

Exactly how your inputs move the band.

Direct answers about the estimate.

The cost mechanics, in depth.

Bookkeeping cleanup cost

QuickBooks cleanup cost