The software is not the books
I get this call constantly. QuickBooks Online was attached to an old email. Desktop will not open. Xero was cancelled. Someone "converted" the file and now nothing reconciles.
Owners treat that as the end of the story. It is not. The bank still has the statements. The books can be rebuilt from those statements even if the file is gone.
That is reconstructing books from bank statements in practice. The software is a workspace. It is not the source of truth.
What I would salvage from a dead file anyway
If anything still exports, take it. An accountant's copy. A trial balance PDF. A chart of accounts. Payroll reports. 1099s.
Then order statements for every bank, card, loan, and processor account for every month in the gap. IRS recordkeeping guidance is why those statements still matter. The return has to rest on records, not on a file you can no longer open.
Anything we cannot support goes in a gap report. We never invent a number because the old P&L "looked about right."
Reconstruction, not a new subscription first
Buying a fresh QBO file and starting this month leaves the unfiled years sitting. Close the history, then keep the current year clean. I split those products in catch-up vs monthly.
Owners start at book reconstruction for tax deadlines. Tax professionals with a dead file and unfiled returns start at reconstruction for tax professionals. CPA firms that want the rebuild under their brand use For CPA Firms.
Pricing starts with a $499 diagnostic if there is a file we can inspect read-only. If there is no file, we still quote from the statement stack. You approve the number in writing before recategorization starts.
Monthly software choice comes after the rebuild
QBO vs Xero is a later conversation. I wrote QBO vs Xero for outsourced bookkeeping for firms picking a going-forward platform. Do not let that debate delay the statement pull.
BLS still describes bookkeeping as classifying and recording so the organization keeps complete records. Complete records can be rebuilt. They cannot be wished back from a login you lost.
Look at sample deliverables if you want to see the statement set. A rebuild includes those reports for each recovered year.
Send the statements you can get
Ask the bank first. Export whatever the old file will still spit out. Then get a written quote.
Get a reconstruction quote when you are ready, or start on the tax deadline reconstruction page.