Multi-period engagements and engagement uploads

Many cleanup engagements span more than one period. A year-long cleanup is usually 12 monthly periods; a quarterly rollup is 4. LedgerClean treats each period as its own scan so you can read the score, findings, and checklist one month at a time, and then combine them into one proposal, assessment, or JE memo when you're ready to send results to the client.

What counts as one engagement

Every period in a multi-period cleanup shares a single group_id, which means:

• It counts as one engagement slot (not N), regardless of how many periods you add. A 12-month cleanup is one Solo or Firm slot, not twelve.
• One Single Cleanup credit covers the whole engagement. The first period of a Single-Cleanup group consumes the credit; every additional period rides along with no extra credit cost. Applying a credit later (Download Reports, then Apply Single Cleanup credit) from any one period unlocks every period in the group.
• Combined export formats (report, assessment, proposal, checklist, JE memos) operate on the whole group at once.
• Pricing is set per project (period) because different periods may carry different scopes, but you can copy-down from a firm-wide template if every period quotes the same.

Per-period uploads versus engagement uploads

Each period needs its own set of per-period reports, plus a shared set of engagement-level reports that apply to every period:

Engagement-level uploads (once per engagement)

These live in the Engagement uploads card at the top of the group page. Upload each one once, and LedgerClean applies it to every period in the engagement. The card and every period card include a collapsed How to find each report in QBO list with the click path for each slot.

• Account List
• Transaction List by Date
• General Ledger
• Bank Feed - For Review
• Reconciliation Summary

For Transaction List, General Ledger, Bank Feed, and Reconciliation Summary, LedgerClean filters the rows to each period's date range at scan time. A single full-year Transaction List covers all 12 months of a year-long cleanup; scanning January only sees January's rows.

For Account List, LedgerClean keeps the chart of accounts (name, type, detail type, description) and ignores the balance column, because the balance is a single-period snapshot taken whenever you ran the export. Period-specific balances come from the Trial Balance (always per-period, always required).

Per-period uploads (once per period)

These must be exported separately for each period because they are aggregate snapshots with no per-row date. QuickBooks rebuilds them at each period-end; there is no shortcut.

• Trial Balance
• Balance Sheet
• Profit & Loss
• A/R Aging Summary (if the client has A/R)
• A/P Aging Summary (if the client has A/P)

Per-period uploads live inside each period card (click the card to expand it).

How much re-exporting does this save?

For a 12-period engagement, you previously exported ~10 reports per period = ~120 QBO exports. With engagement uploads, you export 5 once + 5 per period × 12 = 65 exports. Almost half.

The "Applied from engagement upload" badge

When you upload an Account List / Transaction List / General Ledger / Bank Feed / Reconciliation Summary at the engagement level, every period card below shows a teal "From engagement upload" badge next to the matching slot. Those slots don't need a per-period file and don't show the Remove / Replace affordance — you manage them in the engagement card at the top of the page.

If you need a specific period to use a different file than the engagement-level one (e.g. a corrected Transaction List for November only), drop the corrected file into that period's card. The per-period file shadows the engagement-level file for that period only. No warning, no extra step.

When to skip the engagement upload

If every period in the engagement is going to have its own separate export anyway (usually because the client's data changes materially between periods and you already have the files per month), you can just upload everything per-period as before. The engagement card is optional; nothing about the per-period flow changed.

Adding a period later

If you add a period after you've already uploaded engagement-level files, the new period automatically inherits them. No extra action. You still need to upload the per-period files (Trial Balance, Balance Sheet, Profit & Loss, agings) for the new period.

Re-uploading an engagement file after scans have run

Re-uploading at the engagement level replaces the stored file but does not auto-re-run previously completed scans. Instead, the group page now flags this for you: any period whose latest scan happened before the most recent engagement-wide upload shows up in a yellow banner at the top, with a one-click Re-scan N periods button that fans out scan triggers across every stale period. Scans run serially and the banner shows progress as it works through the list. The previous scan is retained, so each refreshed report shows a before-vs-after delta.

You can still re-scan an individual period from its row-level Re-scan button if you only want to refresh one.

Combined exports

Once 2+ periods are scanned, the group page offers combined exports (report PDF, assessment PDF, proposal PDF, checklist XLSX, JE memos CSV in SaasAnt or QBO format, and an Everything ZIP). These read from the per-period scan records, not from the parsed reports, so the engagement upload doesn't change how combined exports work.