How much is bookkeeping going to cost you? Here are some of the things that will directly affect the price you are given for your bookkeeping service.
What services do you need?
All business owners are different as are the things they specifically want the bookkeeper to do for them.
Some businesses want the bookkeeper to do as much as possible, payroll, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, and more. Other businesses just need help entering what was done for the month into the accounting software.
The more services you need, the more your bookkeeping will cost per month.
How are the services listed in the price? Generally, one of two ways:
- package prices that include all the services you need or the choice of a few packages, each of which includes different services and you choose which suits your needs
- or you get a base price for your basics, then the rest of the services are listed as options to add on with a price per add on
Be clear on all the services included and not included in each package so you know what you will and will not be getting. Pro Tip: Don’t be shy, if you don’t understand exactly what the services list means, ask. It’s much better to be clear at the beginning.
How much of this is manually entered into your books?
Additionally, the more automated it is to get your information into the accounting software, the easier it will be to do your books, so the bookkeeper will be able to charge you accordingly.
This also works in the opposite way, if it’s a trial to get your information into the system, anything that requires manually typing it out/uploading it, will cost more to you since that is tons more work for the bookkeeper.
For example, if your business bank accounts are linked to the accounting software directly (with read-only access), then the numbers from your monthly transactions will come through automatically. This is much easier and less prone to errors than manually entering data sources.
How many transactions do you have per month?
Most bookkeepers will base some if not all of their pricing on number of transactions for the month. This is the total number for all accounts, meaning bank accounts, credit card, line of credit, online payments, and so on. (Anywhere that money comes in or goes out of your business.)
As I’m sure you guessed, more transactions mean a higher bookkeeping fee simply because there is more work to be done.
Another way you may see this listed is bookkeepers put together packages of services, usually with an upper limit of transactions for that package.
Things that make your fee higher
These are things that add more complication to your books, that’s why they tend to cost more:
- loans (more work to record them in books)
- co-mingled funds (for example: personal and business expenses all thrown in one account) #yikes!
- class tracking (where you separate expenses by job/project)
Amount of support you need/want
Some business owner’s love a high level of support and would hate to go without, while to others that level of interaction with the bookkeeper, anything beyond the basics, really doesn’t add much value. Which level of support makes sense for the way you best process information?
Support options from your bookkeeper could involve things like:
- how often you want reports-monthly or quarterly
- do you need your books done daily or is weekly/every other week or even monthly fine
- what type of support do you need? email? phone? live video calls?
Is the accounting software included in the bookkeeping?
Some bookkeepers handle the software subscriptions for their clients, others have the clients pay the software costs directly.
Neither one is better or worse, but most bookkeepers have a way they prefer to handle subscriptions to software (and other apps) that are needed to properly and securely work with your books.