About the desk · Redding, CT

the one-desk practice for books that have to tie out

Reconcile MC is a small bookkeeping desk on Redding Rd. We do one kind of work, the monthly tie-out, and we do it slowly enough to get it right: pencil, statement, ledger, line by line.

How the desk came to be

a trade learned from ledgers, kept up with a pencil

A wooden desk with an open ledger, pencil and stacked bank statements in morning light
The desk at 163 Redding Rd, Monday morning, 8:30.

Bookkeeping used to be a slow trade. Someone sat with the bank’s statement on one side and the ledger on the other and ran a pencil down both, marking each line that matched. A line without a mark was a question, and the question got answered before anything else happened.

Reconcile MC keeps that habit. Software helps us sort and sweep, but a person still checks every bank, card and merchant line against the statement it came from. The ticks are the work.

a line without a tick is still a question

We opened the desk in Redding because small businesses here, the cafés, crews and studios on the back roads, tend to hand their books over in a folder, a shoebox or a download link. All three are fine. What comes back is the same: reconciled accounts, a QuickBooks file you can read, and statements your CPA can close on.

We work from statements, not guesses. When something does not match, we name the gap on the page instead of burying it in a plug figure.

the folder is on your desk. the pencil is on ours.

Pinned over the desk

four rules the work is held to

statement first

The statement is the source. We tie the ledger to it, never to a bank feed alone, because a feed can drop, double or reorder a line without telling anyone.

name the gap

Timing differences, processor fees, a check that never cleared: each one gets a label and a line in the report. We do not post a plug to make a number agree.

oldest month first

In a catch-up, we start at the earliest open month and move forward, so each month stands on one that has already been closed.

quote it, then keep it

Monthly work is the same price every month. Clean-ups are quoted in writing after we have opened the file, and the quote does not move.

What’s on the desk

the tools we use, and what each one is for

The paper

statements & a ruled ledger

Every account is logged on a hand-ruled sheet the day its statement arrives, so a missing one is spotted by the 3rd, not the 20th.

The pencil

one tick per matched line

A tick means the line agrees with its statement. Anything unticked goes on the exceptions page that travels with your close pack.

The software

quickbooks online

Where the books live. We work inside your own file, as an accountant user, and leave you the keys.

  • Your chart of accounts, kept readable
  • Rules reviewed, never left to guess
  • Reports exported to PDF each month

A slow trade, done on a schedule

statements in by the 3rd, your close pack out by the 10th

Before the first month

what to bring to the first conversation

  • a list of every accountBanks, cards, processors, loans. Nicknames are fine; we match them to statements.
  • the most recent statementsPDFs, paper or a portal login. Three months is plenty to scope the work.
  • an accountant-user inviteTo your QuickBooks Online file, so we can look at the books before we quote.
  • your CPA’s name, if you have oneWe format the close pack the way they like to receive it.

An answer within one business day

hand over last month’s statements and see how the desk works