How Much to Charge as a Bookkeeper
When you’re just starting your bookkeeping practice, you may not know how long it will take you to complete regular tasks. This is also true if you start working with a new client in a new industry. Just because it takes you 10 hours per week with your construction client doesn’t mean it will take that long with your restaurant client. After digging through the pricing tiers of a number of different bookkeeping service providers, we’ve found that the average range for small to medium businesses is $250 – $1,500 per month. For example, there are smaller, independent bookkeepers that specialize in certain services or business types.
- Small business bookkeepers have a few simple responsibilities.
- You know what they say—“You get what you pay for.” And, that saying holds true for bookkeeping services.
- This can result in serious losses that you could have avoided.
- Otherwise, you risk losing out on revenues or frightening away customers with exorbitant prices.
- Looking at average accounting fees is a great starting point, but there’s more that goes into setting your pricing than national averages.
In addition to getting certified through the AIPB or NACPB, we recommend that you get certified in QuickBooks. The QuickBooks ProAdvisor certification program is ideal for freelance bookkeepers because it allows you to get certified for free with no strings attached. It’s also arguably the most valuable bookkeeper certification, as the vast majority of small businesses in the US use QuickBooks. Not especially since it looks at your costs and applies a margin to arrive at your price.
You are specialized and efficient saving time
Many new businesses start out doing basic bookkeeping by themselves. However, as you start spending more time growing your business, you’ll tire of performing the bookkeeping tasks. Small business bookkeepers have a few simple responsibilities. They keep your financial books in order by tracking cash flow from operating activities the revenue and expenditure This is achieved by performing data entry in accounting software. As great as it is to talk about potential bookkeeping costs and get estimates, we know that seeing an actual average for your state can yield excellent value for you as a business owner.
While they seem similar at first glance, bookkeeping and accounting are two very different mediums. Bookkeeping serves as more of a preliminary function through the straightforward recording and organizing of financial information. Accounting takes that information and expands on it through analyzing and interpreting the data. Since the outsourced bookkeeping rates are often determined by the volume or number of transactions, pricing must be tailored to meet the particular requirements of your company. If I’m looking at a cleanup or catch-up project, I start with a paid diagnostic review so that I can get a full scope of work before I ever take on the cleanup. If you want to see how I get paid to diagnose my client’s problems, you should click here to check out the video I made on the subject!
The service you decide to use depends on the needs of your business and may include extra features such as payroll or tax documents. Each bookkeeping solution covers a somewhat different variety of services. Accounting fees for a small business are generally much higher than bookkeeping services fees. Accountants generally have more education than bookkeepers and, with their CPA title, can file taxes on behalf of your business. Furthermore, they should understand how to complete tax forms and how to produce standard financial reports to help your business understand its financial situation. This is crucial to ensuring that bookkeeping services for small business owners are thoroughly beneficial.
How to charge for bookkeeping services
Most bookkeepers emphasize tasks when meeting with potential new clients. I’ll bet your clients place higher value on the outcome – not the tasks. Packages include a set of tasks – which is important to you. Those tasks offer a specific outcome – which matters to your client.
Outsourced Bookkeeping Cost
However, any error or oversight that may appear on the sheet is fully at your business’s expense. But if it’s more complex, like building out your financial outlook, you might be better off with hiring an accountant. I tried using bill.com with this particular client, but I actually didn’t really find it as helpful as I would have hoped. I often just use the bill pay directly through the bank with this client, as it’s relatively easy to do, and many banks will do that service for free. To illustrate what a small client looks like, I’ll be using a preschool I do bookkeeping for that generates about $150k in revenue a year. This preschool employs six teachers and hosts about 100 students.
Part-Time Bookkeeping for Small to Medium Businesses
You will also want to have investigated the average bookkeeping fees in your area so that you have a rough idea of what your bookkeeping services fees should amount to. GrowthForce can serve as your outsourced advanced bookkeeping and accounting department. If either part-time or in-house bookkeeping is not the ideal solution, switching to outsourced bookkeeping or accounting could be your best option. Many businesses are concerned about switching over to outsourcing, not understanding how the pieces fit together with this model. But with today’s advancements in technology, outsourcing has never been easier. Outsourcing can provide advanced and less costly bookkeeping service than a typical in-house bookkeeper.
The longer you’ve been an accountant, the more clients you’ve had, the more work you’ve done, and the more tricky tax situations you’ve seen. As you might have figured out from the sheer volume of this post, it’s a topic I spend a lot of time thinking about. Based on my research with fellow bookkeepers, there isn’t one (or two, or three) answers either. Start with a bookkeeping service price list (which is a great excuse to build another spreadsheet) and write out all of the services you provide.
Different factors affect the cost of bookkeeping services. Full time bookkeepers earn from $35,000 to $55,000 per year. This doesn’t include the benefits that can cost up to 20% of their salary. The best approach to bookkeeping is to translate the work of keeping your financial records and books in order into dollars. If the cost is similar to that of an actual bookkeeper for performing the same tasks, then it may be better just to pay someone to do the job. While these exact figures can change over time, the cost comparisons of covering your bookkeeping and accounting needs can vary greatly depending on the type of individual you hire.
