Bookkeeping Audits and Reviews in Cedar Rapids, Iowa

A contractor in Marion bought a small excavating business and inherited the bookkeeper who came with it. She had been doing the books for nine years and by every appearance was doing them well. He had no reason to think otherwise and no way to know.

He asked us to look. Not because he suspected anything, but because he was about to be responsible for numbers he had not produced. What we found was not theft. It was a file where one person opened the mail, recorded the payments, made the deposits and reconciled the account, with nobody ever checking any of it. Two customer cheques totalling $2,180 had been recorded but never deposited, and had been sitting undiscovered for seven months. It was almost certainly an oversight. It also could not have been anything else, because nothing in the process would have caught it either way. His reconciliations had been signed off every month.

A bookkeeping review is somebody independent looking at the records and the process behind them. It is not the same thing as an audit, and that distinction matters more than most websites admit.

Bookkeeping Services in Cedar Rapids: What a Review Actually Is

Three different things get called an audit, and only one of them is what we do.

A CPA audit

A formal examination under professional standards that ends in a signed opinion on your financial statements. Only a licensed CPA firm can perform one. If a bank, a bonding company or an investor has asked for audited financials, that is what they mean and we cannot provide it.

An IRS audit

A tax authority examining a filed return. Your CPA or an enrolled agent represents you. We can produce records and documentation to support the return, and we cannot represent you.

A bookkeeping review

An independent look at whether your records are accurate, complete and produced by a process that would catch a mistake. That is our work, and for most small businesses it is the one that actually answers the question they had.

As a Cedar Rapids bookkeeping service working mostly with trades, we say this plainly up front because getting it wrong wastes your money. If you need an audit, we will tell you and point you to somebody who can do it.

Why People Ask for One

Six situations account for nearly all of it, and only one involves suspicion.

• You bought the business. You are now responsible for records somebody else produced.
• A bookkeeper left. Nobody remaining can explain how the file was maintained.
• A partner is joining or leaving. Both sides want the numbers verified by somebody neutral.
• A lender asked questions. The application stalled and nobody knows why the figures look odd.
• Something feels wrong. Profit that does not match the bank, or a number that has never made sense.
• You want to know. No trigger at all, which is the best reason and the rarest.

The last one costs the least and finds the most, because nothing has had time to compound.

What a Review Covers

Records first, then the process that produced them.

Are the accounts genuinely reconciled

Every account with a statement, checked against the statement rather than the feed, with outstanding items named and the balance agreeing exactly.

Does the balance sheet hold up

Loan balances tied to lenders, fixed assets matching a depreciation schedule, clearing accounts empty, payroll liabilities reflecting what was actually remitted.

Is income complete

Deposits compared to recorded revenue across every channel, including card processors and transfer apps that often never make it into the file.

Are costs where they belong

Job costs separated from overhead, owner draws out of expenses, and nothing significant parked in a catch-all account.

Would a mistake be caught

The process question. Who does what, who checks it, and whether an error or an omission has any way of surfacing.

Internal Controls When You Only Have Three People

The textbook answer does not apply to a small trade business, and pretending otherwise is useless.

Proper control theory says separate the duties. One person records, another approves, a third handles the money. That works with twenty staff. With three people and an owner who is on site all day, it is not available.

What is available is compensating controls, which are small habits that make problems visible without needing extra headcount.

• The owner opens the bank statements. Not the bookkeeper. Five minutes a month and it is the single strongest control a small business has.
• Somebody other than the person recording payments makes the deposits. Even occasionally.
• Payments over a set amount need a second pair of eyes. Pick a number that fits your business and hold to it.
• New vendors get looked at. A name nobody recognises is worth thirty seconds of attention.
• Somebody outside the process reconciles. Which is one of the reasons outsourcing the books is itself a control.

The Awkward Part Nobody Wants to Discuss

Small business fraud is usually not dramatic, and it is usually somebody trusted.

Most losses in businesses this size are not elaborate. They are a payment to a personal account, a cheque that never got deposited, a vendor nobody set up, or expenses that were not business expenses. They tend to be small, repeated and long-running, because nothing was ever going to notice.

The uncomfortable reality is that it is almost always somebody who has been there a while, because that is who has the access. That is not a reason to distrust people. It is a reason to have a process that does not depend on trust, which protects honest employees too.

A review that finds nothing is still worth having. It converts assumed integrity into checked integrity, and everybody sleeps better including the bookkeeper.

Bookkeeping Reviews for Cedar Rapids Trades

What we look at hardest depends on the work.

For construction and framing crews around Cedar Rapids and Marion, the risk areas are supplier accounts and materials, where a purchase for a personal project can disappear into job costs without anybody noticing.

For lawn care and landscaping in Robins, Hiawatha and out toward Lisbon, it is cash and cheque collections from residential customers, especially where crews collect on site. Volume and season make individual items easy to lose.

For cleaning companies, it is payroll and hours, where the largest cost in the business is also the one most dependent on somebody reporting accurately.

We work across the whole service area, out to Mt Vernon, Ely, Swisher, Springville, Bertram and Covington.

What You Get, and What You Do Not

Being specific here saves everybody a conversation.

If what we find suggests something deliberate, we will tell you plainly and recommend you speak to an attorney and a forensic specialist. That is where our part ends and it is important that it does.

If the IRS Has Contacted You

A specific situation with a specific answer.

If you have received a letter about a filed return, your first call is your CPA or an enrolled agent. They can represent you. We cannot, and anybody in our position telling you otherwise is overselling.

What we can do is produce the records behind the return. Reconciled accounts, categorized transactions, receipts and documentation, organised so your representative is not paying by the hour to reconstruct your year. If the records are not in that shape, a bookkeeping cleanup comes first.

How a Review Runs

A call to scope it

What prompted it, what period matters, and what you need at the end. Most reviews have somebody waiting on the answer.

A flat quote before we open anything

Based on the period, the number of accounts and the state of the file. Agreed before work starts.

Records, then process

The numbers first, then how they were produced, because a clean file with no controls is a different problem from a messy one.

A written summary and a conversation

What we found, what it means, and what to change. In plain words, not accounting language.

Who This Fits, and Who It Does Not

It fits you if

You inherited a file, someone left, a partner is changing, or something has never quite added up and you want an independent look.

It does not fit if

You need audited financial statements for a bank or a bonding company, or representation in a tax matter. Both are real needs and both require a CPA.

Why Cedar Rapids Owners Choose Us

We are honest about what this is

Plenty of firms will sell you an audit they are not licensed to perform. We tell you which of the three things you actually need, even when the answer is not us.

We look at process, not just numbers

Finding an error is useful. Finding out that nothing would have caught it is more useful, because that is what prevents the next one.

A finding of nothing is a real result

We are not incentivised to discover problems. If the books are sound and the process is reasonable, that is what the report says.

What a Bookkeeping Review Costs

Quoted flat, before anything starts.

What sets the number is the period under review, how many accounts are involved and what condition the file is in. A clean file goes quickly. A neglected one takes longer and we will say so before you agree. If ongoing bookkeeping follows, that starts at $350 a month. Details are on the pricing page.

Getting Started

It starts with a free fifteen-minute call. Tell us what prompted the question and what you need at the end. We will tell you honestly whether a review is the right thing, or whether you need a CPA instead.

Call (319) 382-9017 or use the contact page. You get a real reply within one business day.

What Else We Handle

If a review is not quite what you need, these might be closer.

Questions Cedar Rapids Owners Ask