What does small-business bookkeeping cover?
Recording every sale and expense, matching the ledger to the bank and card statements, and keeping the documents behind each entry.
Online bookkeeping services for Utah small businesses
Excite Tax keeps the books online for Utah small businesses, statewide; IRS Publication 583 says your books must show gross income, deductions and credits.
Short answers
Is online, virtual or outsourced bookkeeping different?
No. Online, virtual, remote and outsourced are four names for one arrangement: someone outside the business keeps the ledger from the records the owner shares. Excite Tax works this way with businesses anywhere in Utah.
If someone else keeps my books, who is responsible for them?
You are. IRC §6001 puts the duty to keep records on every person liable for the tax, whoever does the data entry.
What does bookkeeping cost?
Excite Tax's own ranges will be on pricing, dated. For a public benchmark, the Utah median bookkeeping wage and what an employee costs on top of it, see how much a bookkeeper costs in Utah.
What the books have to show
Your books must show your gross income, as well as your deductions and credits.
That one sentence is the whole job description. Every deposit is either income or something else (a loan, an owner contribution, a transfer between accounts), and every payment is either a deduction or something else (an owner draw, a loan repayment, an asset). Bookkeeping is the work of sorting those correctly, month after month, so the return is built on numbers that agree with the bank.
The law does not prescribe a program. IRS Publication 583 accepts any recordkeeping system that clearly shows income and expenses, which is why a clean spreadsheet can pass and a messy accounting app can fail.
Where the books meet the return
Books exist to be filed from. An S corporation's return is due the 15th day of the 3rd month after its tax year ends, and the books need to be closed well before that date, not on it.
Excite Tax's bookkeeping splits by situation:
- Monthly close: each month finished and reconciled before the next begins.
- Catch-up and cleanup: months or years that were never entered, or were entered wrong.
- A new business: the first-year setup, before habits form.
What Utah adds to the books
A Utah business that collects sales tax files TC-62S or TC-62M by the last day of the month after each filing period, so its books have a state deadline every month or quarter, not just at year-end. The Tax Commission sets the calendar by liability: quarterly at $50,000 or less a year, monthly above that.
Tax-season bookkeeping
Bookkeeping done in March for the whole of last year is still bookkeeping, just under pressure. If the deadline is close and the books are not, read my taxes are due and my books aren't done first: the extension comes before the catch-up.
Specialised books
Nonprofits, contractors, restaurants, online sellers and landlords each have records the general ledger does not capture on its own: grants, job costs, tips, marketplace payouts, one ledger per rental.
The industries Excite Tax takes on, the software it works in and what arrives each month are pending confirmation and will appear here, with a reviewed date, once confirmed.
When to hand this to a preparer
Hand the books over when keeping them costs more hours than the business can spare, or when they stop agreeing with the bank.
Excite Tax keeps these books; the return they feed is reviewed and signed by a licensed CPA at TBD CPA LLC.
Sources
- IRS Publication 583 (12/2024), Starting a Business and Keeping Records · retrieved September 2026
- 26 U.S.C. § 6001, Notice or regulations requiring records, statements, and special returns · retrieved September 2026
- IRS, Instructions for Form 1120-S (2025) · retrieved September 2026
- Utah State Tax Commission, Sales and Use Tax · retrieved September 2026
Ranked and explained on the sources page.