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Fixed-Fee Project Work

Sometimes you don't need a monthly partner — you need a problem solved.

Maybe your books are two years behind. Maybe your bank is asking for financials you don't have. Maybe you just opened the doors on a new business and want it built right from day one. Whatever the project, we tackle it as fixed-fee, defined-scope work — done in weeks, not months — and you decide if you want to keep us on after.

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Jump To Catch-Up & Cleanup Loan-Ready Financials New Business Setup Exit & Sale Prep Audit Support QuickBooks Rescue
Most Popular

Catch-Up &
Cleanup

"My books are behind. Way behind."

At a Glance
Typical Timeline30 – 90 days
Typical Investment$3K – $15K
Best Fit6 mo – 3 yr behind
SoftwareQuickBooks · Xero

If your books are six months, twelve months, or three years behind, you're not unusual. You're not negligent. You're not a bad business owner. You're busy running a business that grew faster than your accounting did — and now you can't get a loan, can't file taxes, can't sell the company, and can't sleep at night because nobody actually knows what's going on.

Catch-Up & Cleanup is how we fix that.

What "catch-up" actually means at Anchor Point

It's not just data entry. It's a four-phase rebuild:

  • Phase 1 — Diagnostic. We pull every bank statement, credit card statement, and existing accounting file. We map out exactly how far behind you are, what's reliable, and what needs to be rebuilt.
  • Phase 2 — Reconstruction. Every transaction coded, every account reconciled, every missing piece of documentation chased down or reasonably estimated using bank evidence.
  • Phase 3 — Repair. Fix the chart of accounts, untangle any commingled personal/business activity, correct misposted entries, and rebuild opening balances so the books actually tie to reality.
  • Phase 4 — Handoff. Clean financial statements for every period, a written summary of what we found, and a recommendation for what comes next.

You can take it from here, or we can keep going

About 70% of catch-up clients ask us to take over the books going forward — usually because the experience of being behind was painful enough that they don't want to do it again. The other 30% take the cleaned-up books and run them with their internal team or another bookkeeper. Both are fine. We don't pressure either way.

"We've never met an owner who wasn't relieved after their catch-up was done. Even when the news isn't great, knowing is better than wondering."

How we price it

Fixed fee, quoted in writing after a 30-minute diagnostic call. Pricing depends on how far behind you are, transaction volume, and how clean (or messy) the existing records are. Most catch-ups land between $3,000 and $15,000. Multi-entity or oilfield catch-ups can run higher.

You pay in stages, not all up front. And we'll tell you the price before we ever ask for a credit card.

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High Demand

Loan-Ready
Financials

"My banker wants real financials."

At a Glance
Typical Timeline2 – 6 weeks
Typical Investment$3K – $10K
Best FitSBA · LOC · Equipment
Sign-OffBy a CPA

Your bank, your SBA lender, your equipment-finance partner, or the investor across the table doesn't want what QuickBooks spits out. They want a real financial package — three years of properly formatted statements, reconciled, internally consistent, and signed off by a CPA.

That's what we build.

What's in a loan-ready package

  • Three years of income statements (P&L), properly formatted with comparative columns and percentages.
  • Three years of balance sheets, reconciled to bank statements and supported by detailed schedules.
  • Three years of cash flow statements — the one document most bookkeepers skip and most lenders specifically ask for.
  • Current debt schedule showing every loan, line, and lease with rate, term, monthly payment, and remaining balance.
  • Accounts receivable aging and accounts payable aging as of the most recent month-end.
  • 12-month rolling cash flow projection — what lenders specifically need to see for SBA underwriting.
  • Personal financial statement support — owner draws, distributions, and the documentation banks want to see when underwriting an owner-guaranteed loan.
  • CPA letter stating the books were prepared in accordance with the work scope and reasonable accounting principles.

Why owners come to us for this

Three reasons, usually:

  • The current bookkeeper produces a QuickBooks P&L and balance sheet but can't format them the way the lender wants.
  • The books exist but they don't tie to the tax returns, which makes lenders nervous.
  • The owner has multiple entities and nobody has consolidated them into the package the bank actually needs.

"Curtis is a CPA who came up through banking and corporate finance — which means he reads loan packages the way the underwriter reads them. He knows what makes lenders say yes, and just as importantly, what makes them say no."

How we price it

Fixed fee, quoted up front. A clean single-entity package usually runs $3,000–$5,000. Multi-entity, oilfield, or businesses with significant catch-up before we can produce the package run higher. We'll quote the cleanup and the package separately so you see exactly what you're paying for.

Get a Loan-Ready Quote
Founder Favorite

New Business
Setup

"Built right from day one."

At a Glance
Typical Timeline2 – 4 weeks setup
Typical Investment$2.5K – $6K setup
Best FitLLCs · S-Corps · 0–6 mo old
Includes90-day monthly support

The cheapest mistake to fix is the one you never make. We've cleaned up a hundred businesses that started without a real accounting foundation, and the same five problems show up every time: wrong chart of accounts, commingled bank accounts, mis-classified payroll, missed sales-tax registration, and no system for tracking expenses.

New Business Setup makes all of that go away in your first month.

What we set up

  • Entity housekeeping. We'll review your LLC or S-Corp setup with you, recommend any corrections, and coordinate with your attorney or CPA if needed.
  • Banking & merchant setup. Business checking, business credit card, merchant processor — picked, opened, and connected to your accounting system.
  • Chart of accounts. Industry-specific, designed for the reports you'll actually need, not the generic one QuickBooks ships with.
  • Accounting software. QuickBooks Online, Xero, or whatever fits — set up, customized, and tested.
  • Payroll registration. Federal EIN, Texas Workforce Commission, payroll tax accounts, and payroll software ready to run.
  • Sales tax setup if your business needs to collect it — including Texas Comptroller registration and ongoing filing schedule.
  • Bill-pay & AR systems so you stop running everything through your personal checkbook.
  • First 90 days of bookkeeping done by us so you start with clean, accurate books from week one.

"The first three months of a business shape the next three years. Get the foundation right and the rest is easier — get it wrong and you're paying us to fix it in 2028."

How we price it

Fixed fee, $2,500–$6,000 depending on complexity (number of entities, industry quirks, sales tax setup). Includes 90 days of monthly bookkeeping so you don't have to figure it out on your own while you're trying to land your first customers. After 90 days you can transition to a monthly engagement, hand it off to your internal team, or pause until you need us again.

Start Your Business Right
High Stakes

Exit &
Sale Prep

"Selling in 2 to 5 years."

At a Glance
Typical Timeline6 – 36 months
Typical InvestmentProject + monthly
Best Fit$2M – $20M businesses
ROIOften 10–20% of sale price

When you sell your business, the buyer's accountants will run something called Quality of Earnings on your books. They'll look for personal expenses you ran through the company, one-time items inflating profits, revenue that hasn't been earned yet, and any sloppy bookkeeping that lets them argue your real EBITDA is lower than what you're claiming.

Every dollar they can knock off your real earnings comes off your sale price — usually multiplied by 4 to 8 times. A $50,000 earnings adjustment turns into a $200,000 – $400,000 price cut. Sloppy books are the most expensive thing in a sale.

What exit prep looks like

  • Historical cleanup. We restate three to five years of financials using the accounting policies a sophisticated buyer expects to see. No commingled personal expenses. No revenue recognized too early. No expenses delayed to make a quarter look better.
  • Add-backs documentation. Every legitimate one-time or personal expense — owner's car, owner's health insurance, one-time legal fee, family member on payroll — properly identified, documented, and defensible during diligence.
  • Monthly close discipline. Going forward, we tighten the monthly close so financials are produced consistently, on time, and in the format buyers expect to see.
  • KPI tracking. Revenue concentration, gross margin by segment, customer churn — the metrics buyers underwrite to and that, if shown to be strong and growing, justify a higher multiple.
  • Working capital normalization. Sale price is usually adjusted for a working capital "peg" at close — we build the analysis that makes sure you're not leaving money on the table at the closing table.
  • Banker / broker coordination. Curtis coordinates directly with your investment banker, business broker, or M&A attorney to make sure the financial story holds up.

"Owners who start exit prep two years before the sale routinely net 15–25% more than owners who start six months out. The math is straightforward: more clean history, fewer surprises in diligence, less leverage for the buyer to chip the price."

How we price it

Exit prep is typically a project engagement plus a monthly engagement. Cleanup project is usually $5,000–$25,000 depending on size, complexity, and how many years we're restating. Ongoing monthly engagement is in our standard range ($3K–$7K+). For most sellers, our total fee over 2 years is recovered many times over in sale-price preservation.

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Urgent

Audit
Support

"I got the letter. Now what?"

At a Glance
Typical Timeline4 – 12 weeks
Typical Investment$2.5K – $12K
Best FitIRS · State · Lender · HOA
RepresentationBy a CPA

You got a letter. It's from the IRS, the Texas Comptroller, your bank, your HOA's auditor, or — depending on your industry — a regulator. It says "audit," "examination," "review," or "request for documentation." You read it, your stomach drops, and you start Googling.

Stop Googling. Call us. Most audits go better than owners expect once a CPA is in the room.

What we do during an audit

  • Read the letter properly. Half the panic comes from misreading what's being asked. We tell you exactly what the auditor wants, what they don't, and what your deadline really is.
  • Assemble the documentation. Bank statements, supporting invoices, payroll records, contracts — packaged the way auditors expect to receive them, with a clear cover summary.
  • Reconstruct what's missing. Lost receipts, missing logs, gaps in records — we'll rebuild what can be rebuilt using reasonable, defensible methods.
  • Sit with the auditor. If the audit involves an in-person or video meeting, we attend with you (or instead of you). Most owners do better staying off the call.
  • Negotiate the findings. Audits usually end with a proposed adjustment. We push back on what's unreasonable, agree to what's fair, and explain the difference in plain English.
  • Set up controls so it doesn't happen again. If the audit revealed real gaps — and most do — we recommend the bookkeeping, payroll, or sales-tax controls that close them.

"An IRS letter feels like an emergency. It's almost never an emergency. It's a process — usually a slow one — and the owners who panic and respond fast without help end up paying more than the owners who pause, call a CPA, and respond properly."

How we price it

Fixed fee, quoted after we read your specific letter. Sales-tax audits typically $2,500–$6,000. IRS examinations $3,500–$12,000. HOA and lender audits vary. We'll tell you the price before we ask for any commitment.

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Diagnostic

QuickBooks
Rescue

"My QuickBooks is a disaster."

At a Glance
Typical Timeline2 – 8 weeks
Typical Investment$2.5K – $10K
Best FitQBO · QB Desktop
OutcomeClean file you can trust

QuickBooks works great when it's set up properly. When it's not — and it usually isn't — it becomes a black hole that swallows your time, your trust in the numbers, and eventually your patience. We rescue broken QuickBooks files for a living.

What "broken" usually looks like

  • The chart of accounts is wrong. 200 accounts when you need 50, or 20 accounts when you need 75. Either way, your reports are useless.
  • Bank feeds are out of sync. Duplicates, missing transactions, balances that don't tie to the bank statement.
  • Negative inventory. The QuickBooks bug that quietly destroys your cost of goods sold and makes your gross margin a fiction.
  • Undeposited Funds gone wild. $40,000 sitting in Undeposited Funds because nobody understood how the workflow was supposed to go.
  • Payroll posted wrong. Gross pay, employer taxes, employee withholding, and net pay all confused — and your P&L showing payroll expenses that are 30% too high or low.
  • The books don't tie to the tax return. Year-end numbers in QuickBooks don't match what your CPA filed, and nobody can explain why.
  • Multi-entity confusion. Two LLCs, one QuickBooks file, no class tracking, no way to produce real financials for either entity.

What we do

  • Diagnostic. 60-minute review of your file. We tell you exactly what's broken, what's salvageable, and whether it's cheaper to repair or rebuild.
  • Repair or rebuild. Fix the chart of accounts, reconcile every account back to source documents, clean up the inventory/AR/AP messes, and produce a clean file with reliable historical financials.
  • Training (optional). If you want to keep doing the bookkeeping in-house, we train your internal person on the workflows that won't break the file again.
  • Or take it over. If you'd rather not deal with it, we run the file for you monthly as part of our regular engagement.

"QuickBooks isn't the problem. The way most bookkeepers set it up is the problem. We fix the setup and the software does its job."

How we price it

$2,500 to $10,000+ depending on file size, number of entities, and how much rebuilding is needed. We quote you a fixed price after a free 30-minute diagnostic review. If we look at your file and decide the cheapest path is a clean rebuild rather than a repair, we'll tell you — that's often actually less expensive.

Rescue Your QuickBooks
Common Questions

Project engagement FAQs

How long does catch-up bookkeeping take?

Most catch-up engagements take 30 to 90 days depending on how far behind the books are and the complexity of the business. Six months of catch-up is often done in 4 weeks. Three years of catch-up usually takes 8 to 12 weeks.

How much does QuickBooks cleanup cost?

QuickBooks Rescue engagements typically range from $2,500 for a simple file repair to $10,000+ for multi-entity rebuilds. We provide a fixed-fee quote after a 30-minute diagnostic conversation — no hourly billing surprises.

What do I need to get an SBA loan or line of credit?

Most lenders require three years of business financial statements (P&L and balance sheet), three years of tax returns, a current debt schedule, accounts receivable aging, accounts payable aging, and often a 12-month cash flow projection. We assemble all of this in a single loan-ready package.

Do project engagements convert to monthly clients?

Most do, but they don't have to. Roughly 70% of our catch-up and QuickBooks rescue clients transition to monthly engagements because they don't want to fall behind again. The other 30% take the cleaned-up books and run them in-house or with their existing bookkeeper. Either is fine — we don't pressure either way.

How do you price project engagements?

Fixed fee, quoted up front, paid in stages. We assess the scope during a discovery call, give you a written proposal with a defined scope and price, and bill at agreed milestones. No hourly billing, no surprise invoices.

What if my project turns out to be bigger than expected?

We'll tell you immediately and discuss the options before doing additional work. Scope changes happen — usually because we find something during the work that wasn't visible during discovery — and we'd rather pause and have a conversation than surprise you with a bigger bill.

Let's Talk

Got a project in mind?
Let's see if we can solve it.

A 30-minute discovery call. We listen to what you've got going on, ask the questions that matter, and tell you straight up whether it's a project we can take on and what it would cost. No pitch, no pressure.