What are Rescue jobs?
Rescue jobs are usually complex and varied and will probably include variations and degrees of:
- Bank recs not completed for months or years
- Old unreconciled transactions in the last bank rec
- Deleted reconciled transactions which will cause the bank rec to be out of balance
- Same for credit cards
- Unreconciled/Undeposited Funds, Electronic Clearing and Payroll Clearing Accounts
- Incorrect allocation of GST
- Unreconciled GST Control Accounts
- Incorrect set up and allocation of Payroll including combining PAYG and Super Control Accounts and wrongly accruing SL & AL
- Out of Balance in the AP or AR Reconciliation Summary (if they are using MYOB)
This just names a few issues. Because of the complex and varied nature of rescue jobs it’s impossible to document a system for cleaning it up. It really comes down to experience and with that comes an understanding of where to look for the issues and how to fix them. I assign a “specialist” to a client who needs a rescue done because they have a broad range of experience.
If you haven’t done a Rescue before these tips might help:
- Start with your bank reconciliation and work from there
- Involve the client’s accountant to see if it’s possible to “short cut” some of the processes without undermining the integrity of the data. I’ve had accountants who have decided that they will clean up the mess up until say the last FY and then they will give us GJ’s to align the data file up to June 30. That may save the client a bit of money and you only need to work from July 1 of the following FY
- Get paid up front. Often rescue jobs are in that situation because they haven’t done what they should have for 3-4 years before you came along. It’s demoralizing if you spend time and money doing rescue jobs only to find they are trading insolvent and can’t pay your bill. I’ve lost thousands by not respecting my time and money so please make sure you get paid first to avoid this from happening to you
