Bookkeeper Scorecard
Twelve yes-or-no checks of bookkeeping quality, from current records to cleared suspense accounts. Get a score and the exact questions to ask your bookkeeper about every gap.
Built to answer questions 1, 2, and 5 of Dr. Michelle Gordon's guide, How to Tell If Your Financial Statements Are Accurate.
How do I know if my bookkeeper is doing a good job?
Judge the evidence, not the reports. A good bookkeeper keeps transactions current within a week, reconciles every bank and card account monthly and sends you the reports, clears suspense accounts at month end, files payroll and sales tax on time, documents manual journal entries, locks closed periods, and tells you about problems before you find them. If you cannot confirm those things, ask for the evidence. A good bookkeeper will be glad you did.
How to use this tool
- 1
Answer twelve checks
Yes, No, or Not sure for how your books are actually kept today.
- 2
Read the score
Key checks count double, and Not sure counts as a gap.
- 3
Ask the questions
Copy the list of questions for every gap and take it to your bookkeeper.
Having a bookkeeper is not the same as having reliable books
Dr. Gordon puts the trap plainly: "Organizations often confuse having an accounting function with having financial oversight." A bookkeeper does the accounting. Making sure it is reliable is still your job. These are the four signs that usually separate the two.
You get reports but never reconciliations
A P&L and balance sheet every month tell you what the books say. The bank reconciliation report tells you whether the books agree with the bank. Ask for both.
Suspense never reaches zero
An uncategorized or suspense balance that grows month after month is unprocessed work. It also means every account it should have gone to is understated or overstated.
Penalties are the first warning
A late payroll tax or sales tax notice usually means the books were behind well before the filing was. Treat a penalty as a symptom, not a one-off.
Silence is not good news
Every set of books has problems. A bookkeeper who never raises one is either not looking or not telling you. The best ones bring you the issue before you find it.
A scorecard checks the process, not the numbers
This tells you which habits are missing. Checking the numbers themselves still means opening the ledger and tracing figures back to statements and invoices. DataWyse reads your accounting system directly, so you can ask any question of your own books and see the source rows behind the answer, without waiting for the next report.
See how DataWyse answers thisQuestions finance teams ask about this tool
How do I know if my bookkeeper is doing a good job?
Ask for evidence on a few basics: monthly bank and card reconciliation reports, AR and AP agings that tie to the balance sheet, a zero suspense balance at month end, and on-time tax filings. If those are in place and your bookkeeper raises issues before you find them, the books are in good hands.
What reports should a bookkeeper send every month?
At minimum a profit and loss statement, a balance sheet, bank and credit card reconciliation reports, an accounts receivable aging, and an accounts payable aging. Many also send a short note on anything unusual and a list of open questions.
What are signs of bad bookkeeping?
Reconciliations that are late or never shared, a growing uncategorized or suspense balance, tax penalties or notices, prior months that keep changing, and financials that do not match what you know happened in the business.
Why does Not sure count as a gap?
Because if you cannot tell whether something is happening, you are not getting the evidence that it is. That is a gap in oversight even if the work is being done, and the fix is the same: ask for the evidence.
Should I switch bookkeepers if I score low?
Not straight away. Many gaps exist because nobody asked for the evidence. Share the questions from the result, agree on what you will receive each month, and re-score after two or three closes. Persistent key gaps after that are a reason to look elsewhere.
Is this tool really free?
Yes. No signup, no email required, no usage limit. It runs entirely in your browser: nothing you type is uploaded to a server or stored anywhere. We build these because the people who find them useful are the people who eventually need a financial analyst that works the same way.
Related reading
- How to Tell If Your Financial Statements Are Accurate: 7 Questions Every CEO Should Ask Industry Expert · Dr. Michelle Gordon, CPA, CMA, CPHR, EMBA, DBA · 7 min read
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