Find a bookkeeper you can check before you hire

You're about to hand someone your bank feeds, your payroll and the numbers your tax return gets built on. Most bookkeeping websites tell you the same four things: they're experienced, they're responsive, they use QuickBooks, and they'd love to chat. None of that helps you pick one.

This index does something narrower. For every firm we list, we read the firm's own website, check what a state board, a state business registry or a software directory will confirm, and write down where each fact came from and on what date. Then we score the firm on how much of that a buyer can actually verify.

What the Evidence Score measures

The score runs from 0 to 100 and splits into four parts:

• Documented services and buyer fit, 40 points. Does the firm say plainly whether it does monthly bookkeeping, catch-up work, payables and receivables, payroll and month-end reporting, and for which industries and software?
• Qualifications a third party confirms, 20 points. An active CPA license on a state board's register, a software advisor-directory listing, or a bookkeeping credential we can look up. A firm's own claim to a credential earns nothing here.
• Pricing and process out in the open, 25 points. How the firm prices, what a package includes, how onboarding works, when reports arrive, and who you'll deal with.
• Identity and continuity, 15 points. A registered business entity, a formation date on the state record, a contact route that works, and a privacy page.

Beside every score sits a coverage figure. Coverage is how much of the 100 points we could check at all. A firm with 60 points at 95% coverage has shown you a lot. A firm at 40% coverage isn't ranked, because we don't know enough yet, and we say so instead of guessing.

Why there are no stars

A review count mostly reflects how often a firm asks for reviews. It won't tell you whether your books get reconciled by the 15th. Map-listing terms also don't let a directory copy their ratings. So every listed firm links to its own Google profile, and you can read the reviews there, at the source.

How to use a list

1. Open your state or market page and start with the comparison table. It puts services, software, pricing approach, local or remote, and any verified credential side by side.
2. Shortlist two or three firms that document the work you need. If you're months behind on your books, catch-up work matters more than anything else in the table.
3. Open each firm's profile. Every line shows its source, whether the firm said it about itself or a third party confirmed it, and the date we checked.
4. Take the gaps into your first call. "Not verified" isn't a mark against a firm. It's the question to ask.

Before you sign anything

Three short guides cover what trips most owners up: the difference between a bookkeeper, a CPA and a tax preparer, how bookkeeping is priced, and what a monthly service should hand you each month.

One thing to know up front. Bookkeeping Index is run by Pleiades Consultancy, a marketing firm with bookkeeping and accounting clients. Those clients get a separate, labelled Featured slot, and it doesn't change their score or their place in any list. The disclosures page has the full terms.