Questions & Answers
Everything people ask before they send us a year of statements. If yours isn’t here, email hello@ledgersmith.ai — a person answers.
The three things most people want to know first:
We never ask for your bank login — statements only. Prices are published and fixed, so there’s no quote and no sales call. And every finished job comes with a numbered certificate anyone can verify online.
The basics
What does LedgerSmith actually do?
We do bookkeeping. You send us bank statements; we rebuild your books from them, reconcile every account against what the bank says, and hand back financial statements, complete work papers, and a certificate proving the numbers tie.
We are not a tax preparer, an auditor, or a CPA firm. We make the books your tax professional needs.
What does “ties to the penny” mean?
For every account and every period, beginning balance plus everything that happened has to equal the ending balance printed on your bank statement. Exactly. Not close, not “materially correct.”
If it doesn’t tie, nothing ships. That isn’t a policy someone can waive on a busy Friday — it’s a hard gate in our software, and nobody here can override it.
What’s the certificate?
A numbered document stating that for the accounts and periods listed, your books reconcile exactly against the bank’s own record. It carries a serial number and a separate verification code.
Anyone you hand it to — your tax preparer, your banker, someone buying your business — can confirm it on our public verification page. The page shows validity and dates only. It never shows your name or any of your numbers to anyone.
A certificate confirms one specific, mechanical fact: that the books reconcile against the documents provided. It is not an audit, review, compilation, or attestation, and it is not an opinion about the financial condition of any business.
Pricing
What does it cost?
| Service | Price |
|---|---|
| Pilot — one messy year, one business, up to 2 bank accounts, certificate included | $500 flat |
| Cleanup — Light (per year) | $1,250 |
| Cleanup — Standard (per year) | $2,250 |
| Cleanup — Heavy (per year) | $3,750 |
| Monthly bookkeeping — ongoing | from $199/mo |
These prices are published because prices should be published. There is no quote process, no hourly meter, and no discount — nobody at LedgerSmith has the authority to negotiate them, which means nobody is quietly getting a better deal than you.
What if my year is really bad?
The Pilot has no transaction limit. Forty transactions or four thousand, it’s $500. Send us the worst one.
Can I buy the Pilot more than once?
One per business, ever. It’s priced as a way to try us, not as an ongoing rate — additional years are quoted from the published cleanup prices above.
Do you charge sales tax?
Any tax that applies is shown at checkout before you pay.
Getting started
What do you need from me?
Bank statements. That’s the whole ask.
- PDFs from your bank’s website are ideal, but scans and clear phone photos work
- Credit-card statements too, if the business uses them
- All twelve months of the year we’re working on
You upload them through your portal after you purchase. If you’re missing months, send what you have — we’ll tell you what’s needed.
Do you need my bank login?
No. We never ask for it, and we never will. We work from statements, not from a live connection to your bank.
If anyone in this industry asks for your online banking password, that’s worth a hard look.
We also never accept statements by email — everything moves through the secure portal.
How long does it take?
Usually days rather than weeks. We’ll tell you if yours is an exception, and you can see status in your portal at any time.
What happens after I pay?
- You get a receipt and a welcome email with a link to create your portal account
- Register with the same email you paid with — your purchase links automatically
- Upload your statements
- We work. If something is ambiguous we ask you rather than guessing — questions appear in your portal
- You get financial statements, work papers, and your certificate
What if you have questions about my transactions?
We ask. Every question appears in your portal, tied to the transaction it concerns, and your answer is recorded as part of the record.
This matters more than it sounds: a bookkeeper who guesses produces books that look finished and aren’t. We’d rather ask.
What you get back
What’s in the deliverable?
- A clean monthly profit & loss statement
- Complete work papers — the supporting detail behind every number
- Reconciliation showing each account tying to the bank’s record
- Your numbered Tie-Out Certificate
Can my tax preparer use this?
That’s the point. The work papers are built to hand straight to a preparer. Most have never received a bookkeeping package with proof attached.
Do I own the work?
Yes. Your books, work papers, statements, and certificates belong to you, permanently, including after the engagement ends.
Trust and security
How do I know you’re real?
- Published, fixed prices — not a quote designed to find your ceiling
- We never ask for banking credentials
- Every finished job ends in a certificate you can independently verify
- Payments run through Stripe; we never see your full card number
How is my information protected?
Encrypted in transit and at rest, multi-factor authentication on any system that can reach client information, least-privilege access, and audit logging. Our sales representatives have no access to client documents or financial data at any time.
Full detail is in our privacy policy.
Do you use AI?
Yes, for reading documents and proposing categorizations — with two safeguards. Account numbers and identifying digit sequences are stripped before anything is sent for processing, and no deliverable can be issued unless the books reconcile exactly. Anything the software can’t resolve becomes a question for you, never a guess.
Your financial data is not used to train AI models.
For tax and bookkeeping firms
Do you work with firms?
Yes. Firms buy at wholesale and resell under their own brand, with the tier improving as their book of business grows. It’s built for firms that want to offer cleanup and monthly bookkeeping without hiring for it.
Firm accounts are set up with a wholesale agreement rather than self-serve — email hello@ledgersmith.ai and we’ll walk you through it.
Anything else
Will you do my taxes?
No. We do bookkeeping only. Your tax professional stays your tax professional — we just make their job easier.
How do I reach a person?
General questions: hello@ledgersmith.ai
Billing and receipts: billing@ledgersmith.ai
Security matters: security@ledgersmith.ai
Ready to start? Send us one messy year for $500 flat and get it back proven.
Start with the PilotLedgerSmith AI LLC provides bookkeeping services only. We do not provide tax preparation, tax advice, audit, review, compilation, or attest services. No outcomes or approvals are promised.