Bookkeeping Repair and Catch-Up Services for UK Businesses
Most messy books did not start out messy. They started out fine, then a busy quarter happened, then a few months were skipped, then a Xero file got behind, and now the unreconciled bank transactions are in the thousands, the supplier statements do not match what is in the system, and the year-end deadline is six weeks away.
We fix that.
NDCA offers bookkeeping repair as a standalone project for UK sole traders, limited companies, landlords and partnerships. We are ACCA-regulated, work primarily on Xero, and we work to a fixed-quote price for the clean-up so you know what it costs before we start.
Contact us today for a free consultation to walk through your situation.
What our bookkeeping repair service covers
A dedicated accountant takes your records as they are and brings them back to a clean, reconciled, deadline-ready state. That includes:
- Bank reconciliation across every account, often going back twelve months or more
- Credit card and loan account reconciliation
- Supplier statement reconciliation, including missing invoices
- Sales ledger clean-up, including aged debtor write-offs and disputed items
- VAT corrections for prior return periods
- Payroll journals reconciled against actual bank movements
- Director’s loan account rebuild for limited companies
- Property income and expense reconstruction for landlords
- CIS payment and deduction history rebuild for construction firms
- Migration from a broken or non-MTD-compliant system into Xero
- A clean handover, with a summary of what was wrong and what was fixed
Once the clean-up is complete, you have two options. Take the books back in-house and run them yourself, or move onto our ongoing bookkeeping service. Either way, the foundation is repaired.
How NDCA works
Three things make our bookkeeping repair service different.
- Fixed-quote project
Bookkeeping repair is the one service we do not bundle into a monthly fee. Each project is quoted up front based on the state of the records, the period to be repaired, and the deadlines involved. You know the cost before we start. No clock-watching, no surprise invoice. - A real human, fast
A named accountant runs the repair from start to finish. You get a direct line to the person doing the work, not a project manager who relays messages. - Built for deadlines, not perfection theatre
Most bookkeeping repair has a real deadline behind it — a year-end, a VAT return, an MTD start date, a finance application, a switch to a new accountant. We prioritise the work in the right order to meet that deadline first, then tidy up everything else afterwards.
When bookkeeping repair pays for itself
Repair is an investment that almost always saves money downstream.
Wrong figures going into a corporation tax or self assessment return mean overpaid tax that takes months to claim back, or underpaid tax that triggers a penalty. Missed VAT reclaims on prior returns become free money you never collected. Director’s loan accounts that are misstated can trigger section 455 tax charges that proper tracking would have avoided.
Spending money on a clean-up before any of that lands almost always nets out cheaper.
We finish the repair in Xero
Xero is the only bookkeeping platform we run. Most bookkeeping repair projects involve Xero in one way or another — either rebuilding a Xero file that has fallen behind, migrating from another system into a fresh Xero setup, or fixing a broken migration that was done badly the first time.
If your records are in spreadsheets, paper, QuickBooks, FreeAgent, Sage or another system, we migrate the historic data into Xero as part of the repair. By the end of the project, you have one clean file with everything in it.
Apron for invoice capture
Most repair projects involve a stack of missing receipts and supplier invoices that never made it into the original system. Those documents need to be captured digitally and matched against the transactions on the bank statements.
We use Apron to do that fast. Forward or photograph the missing documents to your dedicated Apron email address, and the supplier, date, amount, VAT and line items are pulled out automatically and pushed into Xero. We match each one to the bank transaction it relates to as part of the reconciliation.
For our clients, this is the difference between a clean-up that completes in weeks and one that drags on for months.
Who we work with
NDCA bookkeeping repair clients fall into a few groups:
- Sole traders who have fallen behind on their books and have self assessment looming
- Limited company directors with a year-end approaching and incomplete records
- Landlords with multiple properties and an unreconciled bank account
- Trades and construction firms with broken CIS and VAT history
- Businesses preparing for MTD for Income Tax from April 2026
- Businesses switching accountants and inheriting a messy file
- Anyone who has been DIY-bookkeeping and needs a professional to take over
If your situation is not on the list, send us a message — it almost certainly fits.
Get Expert Advice
Need a fixed quote for bookkeeping repair? Send us your situation and we'll come back with a price and timeline.
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Switching from another accountant
If you already have an accountant and the books they have prepared are not clean, switching is simpler than people think. We send your current accountant a professional clearance letter, collect your records, and start the repair from there. Most clients are fully on-boarded within two weeks.
You do not need to wait for year-end. You do not need an awkward phone call. We handle it.
Bookkeeping repair FAQs
NDCA fees depend on how far behind the records are, how many bank accounts and transactions need reconciling, what software you are on now, and what your deadlines are. We quote a fixed price for the repair before we start, so you know what it costs. Get a quote on 01903 968618.
Most projects take between one and six weeks, depending on volume and complexity. A single-account sole trader twelve months behind is at the fast end. A limited company with multiple bank accounts, CIS, VAT, payroll, and three years of unreconciled records is at the slower end. We agree the timeline at the start.
In most cases, yes. We prioritise the work to meet the year-end first. We need to know the deadline at the start so the project is sequenced correctly.
Yes. We migrate the historic data into Xero as part of the repair, and run the ongoing work in Xero afterwards. The migration is built into the project quote.
Yes. Bookkeeping repair can be done at any point in the year. We rebuild from your last clean position forward, and you can move straight onto our ongoing bookkeeping service from there.
Most clients arrive in this position. We start from the bank statements (downloadable from your bank for several years back) and work outwards — supplier invoices, sales records, expenses, payroll. Bank statements are the spine of every repair project.
If the VAT return periods being corrected fall inside the four-year correction window, yes — we will calculate the adjustment and either include it on your next return (under the current VAT error correction rules) or file a formal correction with HMRC, depending on the size.
Yes. We rebuild contractor and subcontractor records, recalculate deductions, and resubmit corrected CIS returns where required.
You can take the clean books back in-house, or move onto our ongoing bookkeeping service for a fixed monthly fee. Most clients move to ongoing — the whole point of the repair is to stop the books going wrong again, and the easiest way to do that is to have a professional running them every month.
Xero, exclusively. We are a certified Xero Partner. Historic data from other systems is migrated into Xero as part of the project.
Yes. NDCA is regulated by the ACCA (Association of Chartered Certified Accountants).
We are remote first. We work with clients across the UK using Xero, so location does not matter.
Yes. Book one on 01903 968618 or via the contact form. We will review the state of your books and quote on the work.
Yes, and it's more common than you'd think. Where the records exist (bank statements, invoices, payroll data), we rebuild them. Where the records don't exist, we use what we can find and document the gaps. If HMRC is already involved or about to be, we handle the correspondence so you don't have to.
We don't report you to HMRC. But if the clean-up reveals tax that was underpaid or unreported, you have a legal obligation to disclose it. We can guide you through HMRC's voluntary disclosure process — which usually results in lower penalties than HMRC catching it themselves.
No, and we've seen worse. Most people whose books are broken started out doing them properly and got overwhelmed somewhere along the way. We're not here to lecture — we're here to fix it. Whatever state your records are in, send us a description and we'll tell you what it'll take to put right.
Ready to fix the books?
Send us a description of where your records are now — software, last reconciled month, the rough state of things. We'll come back within one working day with a fixed quote and a timeline. No obligation, no awkward phone call to your current accountant.
