Catch-up bookkeeping for UK accountants
Twelve months behind, cleared in one pass. Not twelve.
A backlog isn’t twelve small jobs — it’s one big one, and doing it month by month is what makes it feel endless. Load the whole history into one workflow, let your firm’s rules code all of it at once, and review what’s actually left.
| Code | Account | Opening | Movement | Closing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1000 | Current Account | 10,000.00 | 11,536.31 | 21,536.31 |
| 1010 | Savings Account | 5,000.00 | 4.11 | 5,004.11 |
| 4000 | Sales Revenue | 0.00 | (12,750.00) | (12,750.00) |
| 4200 | Interest Received | 0.00 | (4.11) | (4.11) |
| 7200 | Rent & Rates | 0.00 | 950.00 | 950.00 |
| 6300 | Computer & IT | 0.00 | 263.69 | 263.69 |
| 9999 | Opening Balance Equity | (15,000.00) | 0.00 | (15,000.00) |
| Totals | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
Behind books rarely catch up one month at a time.
The instinct is to work chronologically — January, then February, then March. But each month you re-learn the same payees, re-make the same judgements, and re-type the same coding. Twelve months costs twelve times one month, when it should cost barely more than one.
Meanwhile the client keeps trading, so the backlog grows at the same time you’re shrinking it.
Entrio works engagement by engagement, not transaction by transaction. The whole history loads at once, your rules code all of it, and a rule you write in month eleven reaches back to month one automatically.
| Period | Account | Rows | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Feb 25 – Jul 25 | Current | 618 | Read |
| Aug 25 – Jan 26 | Current | 704 | Read |
| Feb 25 – Jan 26 | Savings | 96 | Read |
| Jun 25 – Sep 25 | Current | 402 | Overlaps |
Where Entrio fits
Entrio is not accounting software.
It prepares the bookkeeping before it reaches Xero, FreeAgent, Sage or QuickBooks. On a backlog that distinction matters: a bank feed is built for a business keeping up, not for a firm reconstructing fourteen months that have already happened.
- Chase every statement, every account
- Work month by month in Excel
- Re-learn the same payees each month
- Spot the overlapping statement — or don’t
- Untangle inter-account transfers
- Reconcile each month separately
- Assemble a trial balance at the end
Twelve months costs twelve times one month
- Import the statements as the bank produced them
- Categorise on your firm’s rules
- Review the exceptions, not the routine
- Reconcile — gaps surface before export
- Trial balance that foots both ways
One pass over the whole history
- Statutory accounts
- VAT returns and payroll
- Corporation tax
- Companies House filing
- Invoicing and client access
Carries on exactly as it does today. Nothing needs migrating.
Entrio doesn’t replace your accounting software. It replaces the hours before you open it.
Built for volume
The rule you write in month eleven fixes month one.
This is the difference between a tool that helps with a backlog and a tool that makes backlogs a different kind of job. Rules apply retrospectively, across every statement already loaded — and across every other client too.
Overlapping statements caught
Clients send the same period twice constantly. Entrio detects the repeat and flags it instead of quietly adding a second copy to the ledger — which is how a backlog silently ends up overstating turnover.
Transfers, not turnover
Money moving between the client’s own accounts is matched as a transfer. On a long backlog across several accounts, that is usually thousands of pounds of turnover that was never turnover.
Momentum you can stop and resume
A backlog is rarely cleared in one sitting. The workflow checklist remembers where the job got to, so picking it up on Thursday doesn’t mean working out what Tuesday’s version of you had done.
Volume without retyping every line
You don’t categorise 4,000 transactions. You categorise the patterns.
On a 4,000-line test statement with heavy payee repeat, setting 19 new client rules took the file from raw import to largely categorised in about ten minutes. Most of that time went into deciding the rules — not clicking the same supplier over and over.
Real client work varies: unique lines still need a human, and review still belongs to you. The point is the shape of the job — write the rule once, apply it to every matching line, then review the exceptions. How firm and client rules work →
Backlog cleared by review, not rekeying
Handle the volume without turning every line into manual work.
A fair question
“The volume is the problem. No tool fixes that.”
Volume is only a problem when the cost per transaction stays flat. Accounting software is built to handle transactions as they happen, one at a time — which is exactly right for a business keeping up, and exactly wrong for a firm reconstructing a year that already ended.
Transaction by transaction
Each line is a decision. 1,500 lines is 1,500 decisions, and the 1,500th costs exactly what the first one did.
This is how a backlog becomes a fixed-price job you lose money on.
Engagement by engagement
Each rule is a decision. A few dozen rules cover the overwhelming majority of 1,500 lines, and they carry to the next client too.
The cost of the job stops scaling with the size of the backlog.
Proof, not promises
We can’t show you a case study yet. We can show you the arithmetic.
No case studies yet — we’re taking our first firms now. What we can do is let you check the arithmetic, which is the only claim that matters here anyway.
We’d rather show you a reconciliation you can pick apart than a testimonial you can’t check.
Founding firms · 20 of 25 places left
Bring us your worst backlog.
We’re taking our first firms as founding members. Catch-up work is where the awkward cases live — overlapping statements, missing months, three accounts and no schedules. Those are the ones we want to hear about. 33% off, locked for as long as you stay. Best suited to firms who like sharpening the tools they work with.
Tell us what your firm actually needs. What fits real practice gets built.
Talk to the person building Entrio — not a ticket queue.
Founding firms get first response when something needs fixing or explaining.
Keep your founding rate for as long as you stay — it never expires, never rises.
Pricing
Priced per practice, not per statement.
Unlimited uploads on every plan. The work bunches at year-end, and that is exactly when you shouldn’t be watching a meter.
One bookkeeper, a manageable list of clients.
- Up to 50 clients
- 1 team member
- Unlimited statement uploads
- Your own chart of accounts & firm rules
Need a little more? Add 10 clients for £10/mo, or a team member for £29/mo — no need to jump a tier.
Start on SoloA small firm with staff and a full client book.
- Up to 250 clients
- 5 team members
- Unlimited statement uploads
- Your own chart of accounts & firm rules
Need a little more? Add 25 clients for £15/mo, or a team member for £25/mo — no need to jump a tier.
Start on PracticeA full practice, counted generously.
- Up to 1,500 clients
- 25 team members
- Unlimited statement uploads
- Your own chart of accounts & firm rules
Need a little more? Add 250 clients for £60/mo, or a team member for £15/mo — no need to jump a tier.
Start on FirmEvery plan starts with a 14-day free trial No card required Cancel anytime
Frequently asked questions
Before you hand it a real backlog.
Can I import PDF statements?
No, and it matters more here than anywhere else. Entrio takes exported Excel and CSV statements because parsing them is materially more reliable than parsing PDFs — and on a catch-up job you are not checking 40 lines, you are checking 1,500. Most banks will export a long date range as CSV in one go.
How far back can I go?
As far back as the client has statements. The ledger handles multiple years — the date on a transaction decides which accounting year it belongs to, not which file it arrived in. Reporting scopes to one period at a time, so for a multi-year catch-up the workflow we recommend is one statement file per financial year. That keeps each year’s trial balance clean and reviewable on its own.
What if the client sends overlapping statements?
That is the normal case, not the exception, and it is exactly how backlogs get double-counted. Entrio detects the same transaction arriving twice and flags it rather than quietly adding it to the ledger. It also matches transfers between the client’s own accounts, so moving money around does not inflate their turnover.
Do I have to categorise 1,500 transactions by hand?
No — that is the entire point. Your rules code the whole history on import, and when you write a new rule it sweeps backwards over everything already loaded. Coding a payee once on month one applies it to every occurrence in months two to twelve, and to every other client where it appears.
Does Entrio replace Xero, FreeAgent, Sage or QuickBooks?
Not for clients who keep day-to-day books there. Entrio prepares the catch-up and stops at a reviewed trial balance — including cash-basis accounts prep when that is the whole job. Live cloud systems stay the system of record for clients who use them; nothing about that setup has to change.
How does reconciliation work on a backlog?
Entrio compares the ledger position against the statement balances, flags gaps and duplicated ranges, and blocks the export while a reconciliation is still open. On catch-up work that check is usually the thing that finds the missing month.
Can several people work through a backlog together?
Yes. Invite your team, apply firm rules so everyone codes the same payee the same way, and every change is logged with a name and a timestamp.
Catch up without starting from scratch.
Start with the client who is furthest behind. Load everything they have, write the rules once, and see how much of the backlog was actually the same twenty payees over and over.