Your bookkeeper just quit. Do these things first

However this happened — a resignation, a firing, or three weeks of unanswered messages — the first forty-eight hours matter more than the next two months. Not because anything is likely to go wrong, but because access and records are far easier to secure while the relationship is still recent than after it has gone cold.

Work through it in this order.

First: get control of the accounts

Before anything else, before you even work out how far behind things are:

• Confirm you are the primary admin on the accounting file. Not a user. The admin. If your bookkeeper's login owns the file, you are one cancelled subscription away from losing access to your own records.
• Change every shared password, and revoke their access rather than just changing it — most software keeps a user active until you remove them.
• Remove them from bank and card access. Read-only access should be revoked too, not just payment authority.
• Check for scheduled or recurring payments they set up, and for any bill-pay authorisations.
• Check who receives the bank alerts and the mail. More than one owner has discovered statements were going to an address they did not control.
• Take a full backup of the accounting file today, and store it somewhere they cannot reach.

None of this implies wrongdoing. It is the same as collecting keys and a fuel card when a tech leaves, and you would not skip that.

Second: get the records, in writing

Ask for a specific list, by email, so there is a record of what you asked for and when:

• Login credentials or ownership transfer for the accounting file
• Any records held outside it — spreadsheets, receipt folders, unfiled paperwork
• Payroll records and filings for the current year
• Sales tax filings and the workpapers behind them
• Which periods are closed and reconciled, and which are not
• Anything in progress, and where it got to

If they are cooperative, this takes a day. If they have gone quiet, send it anyway and keep the sent copy — you may need to show later that you tried.

Your records are yours. A bookkeeper may hold their own workpapers, but the underlying source documents and the accounting file for a business you own are not leverage. If someone treats them that way, that is the point at which to take advice rather than negotiate.

Third: find out what is actually true

This is where most people go wrong. They assume the books are in whatever state the last report said they were in. Check instead.

Reconcile the bank, yourself, for the last closed month. Take the ending balance on the bank statement and compare it to the ending balance in the accounting file for the same date. If those two numbers do not match, that month was not reconciled, whatever the report said. It is a five-minute check and it is the single most informative thing you can do this week.

Then look for:

• Uncleared items sitting for months. Cheques that never cleared, deposits in transit that are not in transit. These are often where a forced reconciliation was hidden.
• A suspense or "ask my accountant" account with a balance. That is a pile of transactions nobody knew what to do with.
• Large round-number journal entries, especially at period ends. Legitimate adjustments exist; a recurring round number that makes a balance agree is a different thing.
• When payroll liabilities last cleared to zero. A payroll liability that has been growing for two quarters means deposits are not going out, and that is the most urgent thing on this page.
• Unfiled sales tax or payroll returns. Check the filing portals directly rather than relying on a folder.

Fourth: keep the business running

Payroll and tax filings do not pause while you sort this out. Whatever else slips, these do not:

• The next payroll, and its deposits
• Any sales tax or payroll return due in the next thirty days
• Invoicing, and following up on receivables

Everything else — catch-up, cleanup, categorisation — can wait a few weeks without consequence. These cannot.

Fifth: decide what you actually want next

Do not immediately hire the same shape of person out of urgency. This is the one moment when changing the arrangement costs nothing extra, and the honest questions are:

• Did the previous setup ever give you numbers you used to make a decision, or just a tax package?
• Was anyone reviewing the work, or was one person doing it and also checking it?
• If they had been quietly wrong for a year, would anything have told you?

That last question is the important one, and for most contractors who have just lost a bookkeeper, the answer is no. Whoever you bring in next, build in the thing that would have told you — reconciliation you can verify yourself, and a second set of eyes on the close.

The handover you should insist on next time

Whatever you agree next, put these in it from the start:

1. You own the accounting file. Not them. Your subscription, your admin login.
2. Access is read-only unless there is a specific reason otherwise.
3. The bank reconciliation report is delivered monthly, not just the P&L.
4. Source documents live somewhere you control — your drive, not theirs.

A bookkeeper leaving should be an inconvenience of a few days. It is only ever a crisis when one of those four was missing.

Related

• Nine ways to tell whether your bookkeeper is doing a good job
• What to ask before you hire a bookkeeper
• How far behind is too far behind? Catch-up bookkeeping explained

This is general information, not legal advice. If records are being withheld or you suspect funds were misappropriated, take advice from an attorney before contacting the person again.