How Far Back Can You Catch Up Your Books?
There's no real limit on how far back catch-up bookkeeping can go — the difference between three months and three years is mostly scope and time, not feasibility.
What determines the timeline
The main factors are how many accounts are involved, whether bank and card statements are still accessible, and how much manual categorization is required versus what can be automated through a bank feed.
Why older isn't necessarily harder
A backlog of clearly documented transactions from three years ago can sometimes be faster to process than three disorganized months, since older records often have less ambiguity around what a given charge was for.
The right first step is always a books review, which gives an honest estimate of scope before any work begins.
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