Problem · IRS notice
IRS notice? Make the books exam-ready.
Published range $1,800–$6,000
Two jobs, two professionals, at the same time. Your CPA or enrolled agent owns the response — reading the notice, the strategy, every determination the IRS will hear. We make the books they'll respond from exam-ready: the periods the notice touches, rebuilt, reconciled, and documented until every number can answer a question twice. The deadline that matters is the real one printed on the notice — no countdowns invented here, and the fee scopes to the work, not to your stress.
Fixed fee after a free review · no rush pricing · representation and tax determinations stay with your CPA/EA, always.
Quick answer
Scope the books work to the periods the notice names, plus whatever earlier months are needed to prove their opening balances. If months were entered wrong, that's cleanup; if they were not entered, catch-up; if records are missing, reconstruction. The rest of any backlog waits until your CPA or EA has responded, then runs as an ordinary catch-up.
Priced as a cleanup or catch-up: one fixed fee inside the published $1,800–$6,000 range, set in writing for your file. The fee covers the noticed periods plus any earlier months needed for opening balances. What the range covers.
What's actually happening
A notice creates two jobs — and mixing them up is the expensive mistake.
A notice is a question from the IRS, and it lands on two desks at once. The first is a tax desk: someone licensed to speak to the IRS reads what's being asked, decides how to answer, and manages the clock — including whether more time can be requested for your notice, which is a call your CPA or enrolled agent makes early. The second desk is operational, and it's the one this page is about: whatever the response says, it has to stand on records — and if the bookkeeping for the noticed periods is missing, wrong, or was never reconciled, the response is an opinion without exhibits.
The expensive mistake is collapsing the two jobs into one. Ask a tax professional to rebuild a year of books and you'll pay tax-controversy rates for bookkeeping — the same trap as handing a CPA unfiled-ready books at tax time, at higher stakes. Ask a bookkeeper to "handle the notice" and you've put an unlicensed voice between you and the IRS — a line we will not cross, stated plainly. The setup that works is both lanes running at once: your CPA/EA shapes the response while we make the noticed periods provable, and the two meet before the printed date.
The sequence
Five steps, in the order the deadline needs them.
1 · Your CPA/EA reads the notice
Which tax years, which items, what response the IRS expects, and the real date — plus whether more time can be requested. Their lane, first move.
2 · The books job gets scoped to the notice
The noticed periods and the accounts that feed them — including enough earlier ground to prove opening balances. Nothing more rides the urgent lane.
3 · Rebuild, bank-first
Statements and third-party records set the frame, every account reconciles to a real $0.00, income ties to deposits, and estimates get flagged with their basis — the third-party rule at work.
4 · Your CPA/EA responds from proven numbers
Clean, documented books for exactly the periods in question — we coordinate with your tax professional directly and hand off whatever the response needs.
5 · The rest of the backlog, on a normal clock
Once the response is in, remaining months become an ordinary catch-up on an ordinary timeline (getting current after falling behind covers how that runs), and a monthly rhythm keeps this from happening twice.
The standard
Filing-ready gets a return out. Exam-ready answers questions about it.
| Dimension | Filing-ready books | Exam-ready books |
|---|---|---|
| The job they do | A preparer can work forward from them to a return. | They can also answer questions backward — about a return already filed. |
| Categorization | Complete and consistent. | Complete, consistent, and traceable — each material item to a document somebody else keeps. |
| Reconciliation | Every account with a statement, reconciled. | Same — plus the reconciliation reports retained as the proof trail, month by month. |
| Income | Recorded and categorized. | Tied out to bank deposits and processor records, so the total can be demonstrated, not asserted. |
| Estimates | Reasonable where records thin out. | Flagged as estimates, with the basis written down — nothing presents as more proven than it is. |
| The test it passes | "Can my CPA file from this?" | "Asked the same question twice, does the file give the same answer with the same proof?" |
Both standards are bookkeeping. What the IRS ultimately accepts, argues, or asks next is tax practice — your CPA or EA's ground, and we stay off it. Our job ends at books that don't flinch when questioned.
Worked example · records list
Which records the noticed periods need, and where each one comes from.
This is the bookkeeping side only, and it isn't tax advice: which items the response addresses, and what it says, is decided by your CPA or enrolled agent. What follows is the list of records that makes the noticed months provable.
Illustrative example — not client data. Assumptions stated.
| Record | Which periods | Where it comes from | What it proves in the books |
|---|---|---|---|
| Checking-account statements | Every month of the noticed year, plus the month before it | The bank's online archive, or a reissue request to the bank | The opening balance, and every deposit and payment |
| Credit-card statements | Every cycle that closes in the noticed year | The card issuer | Charges, payments and closing balances |
| Card-processor payout reports | Each month | The processor's reporting dashboard | The gross sales, fees and refunds behind each deposit |
| Information returns the business received, such as Form 1099-K | The noticed year | The payer's or processor's tax-documents page, or the mail | What third parties reported, to tie against recorded income |
| Payroll registers and the payroll returns filed | Each pay run and quarter | The payroll provider's report library | That recorded wages and taxes match what was filed |
| Loan statements and agreements | The noticed year | The lender | Principal versus interest, and that loan proceeds weren't income |
| Transfers between your own accounts, and owner contributions | The noticed year | Statements for both accounts, and any owner-loan paperwork | Which deposits were not sales — the lines an income question can turn on |
| Invoices and sales records | The noticed year | Your invoicing or point-of-sale system | Which deposits were sales, and to whom |
| Bills and receipts for material expenses | The noticed year | Vendor portals, email archives, card statements | Support for the larger expense lines |
| The return as filed | The noticed year | Your CPA or enrolled agent | The figures the rebuilt books are compared against |
- A notice asks about one tax year's reported income; your CPA or EA has read it and named the periods.
- The business has one checking account, one credit card, a card processor and a payroll provider.
- The noticed months were entered but left unreconciled, so this is a rebuild from statements, not a reconstruction from nothing.
- A notice about expenses or payroll would weight the list differently; your CPA or EA sets that.
The fix
The repair lane depends on what the diagnosis finds.
The free review reads the noticed periods and names the job honestly. Months entered but wrong — miscategorized, duplicated, never reconciled — route to a bookkeeping cleanup. Months never entered at all route to catch-up. Records genuinely gone — a lost file, a vanished bookkeeper — route to financial reconstruction, rebuilt from what your bank, processor, and payroll provider still hold. Same fixed-fee discipline on every lane: scoped in writing after the review, inside our published ranges, never hourly — and if a different deadline is driving you (a CPA waiting, a filing date, a closing), the deadline cleanup lane runs the same re-sequencing without the notice.
Notice in hand? The free review reads the noticed periods and tells you what exam-ready takes — the scope, the fixed fee, and what your CPA or EA will have to work with. No rush fees; the fee scopes to the work, not to your stress.
Free books reviewFAQ · Updated October 2026
The questions that decide the next hour.
Related: books not ready for the CPA — the same repair under a filing deadline instead of a notice · the reconstruction method — how books come back when records are gone.
Start with a diagnosis
Give your CPA books that don't flinch.
We read the noticed periods free, scope exam-ready in writing, and work alongside your CPA or EA — fixed fee, no rush pricing, and an honest answer on what the books need. We check the exam-ready file before it goes back to you.