How Much Do Bookkeeping Services for Small Businesses Cost?

how to price bookkeeping services

It’s good to be aware of how your competitors are pricing their services if for no other reason than so you can know where you fall on this spectrum. Even better, try to learn from how other accountants are charging for their services. Keep an open mind and be prepared to change strategies if the change will help your business. Here are common pricing strategies for accountants and CPAs and tips to keep in mind when pricing your services. If you hire self-employed bookkeepers from another country, you can also experience major cost differences.

  • Now that we’ve gone over some of the factors you need to consider when pricing your bookkeeping services let’s take a look at a few different pricing structures you can use.
  • Part-time bookkeepers typically perform smaller tasks like inputting receipts and keeping tabs on employee timesheets.
  • The benefits of a thoughtful pricing strategy include organic growth, stability, and profitability.
  • Loren is an expert in pricing strategy and sales for accounting professionals.
  • If needed, make adjustments to your pricing to reflect costs in your locality or state.
  • When calculating your prices, be sure to factor in the cost of software subscriptions for your clients and things like overhead, marketing, and employee salaries.

They may be willing to pay a higher rate for bookkeepers with specialized training or certification in auditing and accounting. If you live in a small town or rural area, you will likely need to charge less for your bookkeeping services than someone in a major city, as living costs are typically lower in smaller towns and rural areas. However, location plays less of a role now than it used to because everything is virtual, and you can serve small business clients worldwide. Just as with hiring an internal bookkeeper and defining their role, you’ll have to decide which pieces of your financial management make sense to outsource including the bookkeeping function. The average price of outsourcing your bookkeeping needs ranges depending on the number of transactions and complexity of services required.

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In this strategy, you take what it costs to offer your services and add a percentage to that amount to determine how much you should charge clients in order to make a profit. While there are advantages of cost-plus pricing, it often leaves a lot of money on the table for businesses that offer a service rather than a product. Full-time bookkeepers keep track of all day-to-day operations, financial reporting, cash flow, tax filing, credit card accounts, customer invoices, monthly transactions, and much more. Its bookkeeping service comes with its Enterprise plan, which costs $399 per month when billed annually.

  • This is one important way to remove emotion from pricing your services.
  • Base your package pricing on the value of services your bookkeeping firm offers instead of billing clients at an hourly rate.
  • Keep an open mind and be prepared to change strategies if the change will help your business.
  • Many of these startups find that their monthly bill with Zeni is only 30-50% of what they were paying for bookkeeping billed by the hour.
  • By taking the time to consider all of these factors, you will be able to determine how much to charge for your bookkeeping services.
  • A full-time bookkeeper handles the day-to-day accounting functions for your office.
  • We’ve rounded up five common pricing strategies and included an overview of some of the advantages and disadvantages of each.

A small business can likely do all its own bookkeeping using accounting software. Many of the operations are automated in the software, making it easy to get accurate debits and credits entered. For pricing, we considered whether a service bookkeeping pricing packages offers a free trial or a free version of its software as well as the affordability of its lowest and highest price tiers. Our account management team is staffed by CPAs and accountants who have, on average, 11 years of experience.

Per Month

Look for a bookkeeping service whose business model relies on the success of others. The Xendoo team can also save you money by ensuring all your expenses are properly tracked so there are no surprises when it comes time to file taxes. We’re familiar with all the small business tax deductions and compliance requirements. It allows you to pay a set price each month for an unlimited amount of work. Hourly pricing is a great option when you only need help with the books occasionally.

  • Value pricing takes a bit of a different approach compared to fixed pricing.
  • When hiring a part-time bookkeeper, management still needs to have someone reviewing the work of the bookkeeper.
  • I knew this would be a self-funded adventure, and I set aside $3,000.
  • When it comes to charging for bookkeeping services, there are a few factors that you will need to consider.
  • Because of the extra training, what accountants charge differs from bookkeepers.
  • We’re familiar with all the small business tax deductions and compliance requirements.
  • Based on a recent Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report, the median hourly rate for a bookkeeper is $21.90 per hour.
  • For outsourced bookkeeping, the price is from $500 to $2,500 per month for basic bookkeeping tasks.

Now, this is also where it gets kind of fun, because if you’re using good systems you can actually save a lot of money. The two fundamental components to how much getting your books done costs are transaction volume and dollar amount spent. Transaction volume is just simply how many transactions does your company have every month? And at this point in the analysis we are not really worrying about whether they’re like easy transactions like Uber, or more complex expenses like international wires or contractor payments that span many months.

Should I hire a bookkeeper or do it myself?

Hourly pricing is typically seen as a better option for bookkeepers who are just starting out or don’t have much experience. At the end of the year, during tax time, you need to send anyone who works for you as a contractor a special form called the 1099. Regular employees receive a W-2 in January showing their wages from the previous year. Contractors perform special services for companies and aren’t hired on as employees.

Offering something that is not completely aligned with your client’s business needs is a surefire way of getting your proposal denied. Get the app list, reasons why they rock and my top tips and tricks.Plus, you’ll get my weekly Top 5 email curating helpful, innovative content for your modern firm. After bundling different levels of support, you can now add them to your gold, silver, and bronze plans. Clients will inevitably have questions for you throughout the year so you should offer different levels of support at multiple price points. The geographical location of your bookkeeper plays a massive role in how expensive the service will be. No matter what payment schedule you choose, you should always send your invoices in a timely manner.

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Companies will often choose to train an existing employee or office manager to take on the extra responsibilities of a part-time bookkeeper. While this may be a lucrative option on paper, any oversight or error in the sheets will come at your company’s expense. Depending on the amount of work involved, you can hire either a full-time bookkeeper or a part-time bookkeeper. Before looking to hire a full-time employee to maintain your books, you should first figure out what kind of responsibilities you need to have handled.

Look at your services and compare them to what other bookkeepers are charging. There are major differences between the three types of bookkeepers and what each can offer your business. Figure out which works for your business and start tackling the problems, or potential problems, with your books. In addition, you’ll need to add around 20% on top of salary for benefits and overhead including office space. Do your due diligence to make sure you’re billing your clients fairly.