The sequence
How an engagement runs, from first conversation to the monthly rhythm
Every engagement runs the same sequence rather than ad hoc, so the work is reliable rather than personality-dependent.
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The first conversation
The first conversation with Rationale Services is a working session, not a sales pitch. The firm asks what your business does, how it is structured, how many entities and states are involved, who is on payroll, what software you use, what state the records are in, and which parts of the back office you want to hand over.
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Scope, written down
Scope is worked out from what the discovery conversation reveals, then written down before any work begins. Rationale Services sets out which services it will deliver, how often, what it will produce, what it needs from you, who holds each responsibility, and what is explicitly outside the arrangement. Nothing is left as an understanding.
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The engagement letter
The engagement letter is the document the relationship actually runs on. It settles the services in scope, the services out of scope, the fee and how it is billed, what each side is responsible for, how information moves between you, how changes to scope are agreed, how long the arrangement runs, and how either side ends it.
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Onboarding
Onboarding transfers the work without breaking the record. Rationale Services needs read access to your accounting system, visibility of your bank and card activity, your payroll records, your entity and registration details, and the last closed period's figures. It then establishes an opening position everyone agrees on before taking over the ongoing cycle.
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The monthly rhythm
Each month runs on a fixed sequence: Rationale Services collects and records the period's activity, reconciles the accounts, raises queries on anything it cannot resolve itself, closes the period once your answers are in, and sends a reporting pack. Payroll runs on its own cycle alongside. You always know which stage the month is in.
Scope, the engagement letter and onboarding
What happens in the first conversation?
Expect to be asked the uncomfortable questions too: how far behind the books are, whether anything has been filed late, whether last year's figures were ever reconciled, and whether anyone has looked at the balance sheet recently. Nothing needs tidying before the call. The firm would rather see the records as they are, because the actual condition is what determines the scope.
By the end of it you should know what the firm proposes to take on, what stays with you, what it would refer out, and what happens next. If it is not a fit, the firm says so there.
How is the scope worked out?
The out-of-scope list matters as much as the in-scope list. It is where the firm names the work that belongs with someone else, the work the client will keep doing themselves, and the things that would be priced separately if they came up. An owner who reads only the inclusions cannot tell what they are still on the hook for.
Where the condition of the records is unclear until someone looks, the firm will scope a short diagnostic first and set the ongoing scope after it, rather than guessing at a number and revising it later.
What does the engagement letter settle?
It also settles the things nobody thinks about until they matter: who owns the working files, what happens to your records if the engagement ends, what the firm does if it cannot get information it needs, and where responsibility sits when the data you supply turns out to be incomplete.
Read it before signing, and ask about anything that is vague. A letter that cannot be read in fifteen minutes is a bad letter.
What does onboarding involve, and what access do you need?
Access is set up with the narrowest permissions that let the work happen, and through the system's own user management rather than shared passwords. Where a provider only offers a single login, that is flagged and handled rather than ignored.
The handover from a previous provider is part of onboarding. The firm will tell you what to request from them and when, so the gap between the last period they closed and the first one Rationale Services closes does not go unaccounted for.
- Access setup. The firm requests least-privilege user access in each system. You approve the user invitations and name who else should have access.
- Opening position. The firm agrees the balances the engagement starts from. You supply the last closed period's figures and any adjustments made to them.
- Prior-provider handover. The firm lists what to request and reviews what arrives. You make the request and forward the files.
- Process agreement. The firm sets the monthly calendar, the question channel and the reporting pack contents. You name who answers questions and how fast.
- First close. The firm runs the first monthly cycle and flags what the records lack. You answer the first round of questions, which is always the largest.
Each month
What is the monthly rhythm, and what do I receive?
The reporting pack contains the same statements every month so you can read it quickly: profit and loss for the period with a comparison, balance sheet, cash position, and a short note on what moved and why. The note is the part most firms leave out and the part an owner actually uses.
The query list is the other half of the rhythm. Unexplained transactions, missing receipts and transfers that could be two different things are listed and sent to you rather than guessed at. Clients who answer the queries get a clean close; clients who do not get a close with caveats on it, and the firm says which.
What happens at quarter end and year end?
Quarter end is a review rather than a repeat of the monthly close. Rationale Services looks across the three months for trends and errors the monthly view hides, checks the position against budget where one exists, reviews the tax position in light of how the year is actually going, and raises anything that should be acted on before the year closes.
Year end is a longer process. The books are closed properly rather than provisionally, balances are substantiated, the annual statements are produced, and the tax work is prepared from a reconciled set of records rather than a rushed one. Where registrations or filings fall due for your entities, the firm tracks them and files them on schedule.
The point of the quarterly review is that nothing at year end should be a surprise. If something in the numbers is going to be a problem, the time to find out is nine months in, not after the year is shut.
- Profit and loss for the period, with a comparison
- Balance sheet and cash position
- A short note on what moved and why
- One consolidated query list per close
Changes and endings
What if the scope changes mid-engagement?
Scope changes are agreed in writing before the work is done, not discovered on an invoice. If you open a second location, add an entity, start operating in another state, double your payroll, or ask for work outside the original list, Rationale Services tells you what that changes in both effort and fee and gets your agreement first.
The same rule runs in the other direction. If something comes out of scope — you bring payroll in-house, or close an entity — the fee comes down. An arrangement that only ever ratchets upward is not a scoping process.
Small, one-off requests are usually absorbed, and the firm will tell you when something has crossed the line from a question into a piece of work. That boundary gets named rather than left to accumulate as resentment on either side.
How does either side end the engagement?
The engagement letter sets the notice period and what each side does on the way out. Either side can end it. Rationale Services will complete the period in progress where it can, hand over your records in a usable form, and give the incoming provider what they need to pick up a clean opening position.
Your records are yours. There is no version of the exit in which the firm holds your data to get something, and the letter says so rather than leaving it to goodwill.
It works the same from the firm's side. If a client consistently will not supply information, or wants work handled in a way the firm will not sign off on, the firm says so and ends the arrangement rather than continuing on a basis it cannot stand behind.
- Changes are agreed in writing before the work is done
- Work coming out of scope brings the fee down
- Either side can end it, and your records leave with you
What an engagement costs
How much does this cost?
It depends on your scope, and Rationale Services sets the fee after a discovery conversation rather than from a price list. Five things drive it: transaction volume, how many entities you run, how many states you operate in, payroll headcount, and the condition of the existing records. The agreed figure goes into an engagement letter before any work starts.
There is no published figure on this site, no package list and no starting-at number. That is deliberate rather than evasive. A single-entity business with four employees and a reconciled ledger is a fundamentally different job from three entities, two payroll cycles and eighteen months of unreconciled transactions. A published number would be wrong for both, and the usual way firms make one look right is to quote the easy case and bill the difference later.
Catch-up work is scoped and quoted separately from ongoing work, because it is a finite project with a different shape. You will see both before you commit to either.
Scope factors
What moves your fee, in both directions
Six things shape the work, and each of them can push the fee up or pull it down.
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Transaction volume
Up: high monthly transaction counts, many bank and card accounts, heavy cash handling. Down: few accounts, low volume, most payments through one or two channels.
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Number of entities
Up: several entities, inter-company transactions, consolidations. Down: a single entity.
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States of operation
Up: operations and payroll in several states, each with its own registrations to keep current. Down: operations in one state.
how remote engagements run across the United States: States of operation
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Payroll headcount
Up: more people, several pay cycles, variable pay, contractors mixed with employees. Down: a small, stable salaried headcount on one cycle.
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Condition of the records
Up: months or years behind, missing documentation, a ledger that needs rebuilding before it can be maintained. Down: current, reconciled books handed over cleanly.
see how the monthly close works in practice: Condition of the records
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Scope breadth
Up: bookkeeping plus payroll plus tax plus registrations plus advisory. Down: one or two services.
FAQs
Common questions about scope and fees
Do you charge monthly or by the hour?
The billing basis is set in the engagement letter and follows the shape of the work. Recurring work with a predictable rhythm suits a recurring fee; a finite project such as catching up on back records is scoped as its own piece. You will know which applies to each part of your scope before you sign.
Can you give me a figure over the phone?
Not a reliable one, and a number given before anyone has looked at your records is the main cause of revised invoices later. The firm would rather spend one conversation understanding the five things that drive the fee, then give you a figure it will stand behind in writing.
Why is there no pricing page on this site?
Because the honest number is a function of transaction volume, entity count, states of operation, payroll headcount and the state of your records, and no published price can carry all five. A page of figures would be accurate for almost nobody. The scoping conversation exists to replace it.
What if my books are much worse than I admitted?
It happens often, and it is better found in week one than month three. The firm will tell you what it has actually found, re-scope the catch-up phase against it, and get your agreement to the revised figure before continuing. Nothing gets quietly billed.
How long does onboarding take?
It depends mostly on how quickly access can be arranged and how fast the previous provider hands over, so the engagement letter gives you a start date rather than a general promise. A clean handover moves quickly; records that need rebuilding before they can be maintained take longer.
What do you need me to do each month?
Answer the query list and approve payroll on time. That is almost all of it. The queries are the transactions the firm genuinely cannot resolve from the records alone, and how fast they come back is the single biggest factor in whether your close is clean and on schedule.
Request a consultation and get a scoped fee
Tell us what you run and what is not working. We will scope it, put the fee in writing, and you decide from there.