You may be helping them play catch-up to get organized not only in the current year, but also in previous years. I often mention that, starting out as a bookkeeper, you can charge $40 per hour to your clients. Then, as you gain experience and niche down, you can charge up to $80 or sometimes more per hour. However, there is quite a bit that goes into the pricing beast, and it’s not always as cut and dry as this. While some months may not require much from a bookkeeper, others are inevitably going to be busier than others.
The Pricing Playbook: Double Your Firm’s Prices in 4 Easy Steps
In a nutshell, a bookkeeper records your financial transactions and collects information to create general financial reports. Business owners can then use those financial reports to make better-informed financial decisions to boost the growth and profitability of a company. It’s also true that experience in higher-paying bookkeeping services (more on this shortly!) affects your pay.
- Hiring a bookkeeper that totally understands your industry and its regulations is an important distinction to make when you’re looking for the right person or team to fill the job.
- The important part is to figure out what services you provide and how much you want to charge for them.
- Not all bookkeepers are equal in the types of services they offer, and this is often a major factor in how much you make per hour.
- At minimum, they need to provide you with an office space, a desk, and a computer.
- Rather than hourly billing, some professionals offer flat monthly fees for defined packages of services.
- There can be multiple variants that play in the pricing factor.
Fixed Rate Pricing
- For W2 workers, the average hourly rates are closer to $20/hour, while self-employed bookkeepers earn closer to $30/hour.
- ”, you may be surprised to find them considerably higher than a bookkeeper.
- Pricing anything on an hourly basis is one of the simplest methods.
- After the Christmas holidays were done the business I had managed was closed down.
Bookkeeper salaries vary state by state (see our chart below), and depending on where you live, you could be paying a large difference in one place versus another. In an ideal world, all your clients would be ongoing at a fixed or value-based billing structure. They would know what services to expect from you, and you could charge an automatic, monthly fee. But the hourly rate is becoming outdated with the dominance of technology.
Hourly Pricing (Freelance)
You can calculate the time spent on bookkeeping tasks and translate that into dollars. If you spend too much time on bookkeeping, it’s easier to hire an accountant for a small business to keep track of your financial records, financial statements, and other elements. Like so many jobs, experience influences hourly rates for bookkeepers. New bookkeepers will enter at a lower rate than those with years of experience under their belt.
Can I do my own bookkeeping for my business?
- You should be familiar with more than one software as some of your clients may have a preference in terms of the accounting software that they’d like you to use.
- Depending on your geographic location, this amount will be more or less than the average national rate of $34.67 per hour.
- The total cost will depend on how long it takes them to do the work.
- Keep in mind that this is often not binding – meaning it might take a lot longer than they think it will, which means your costs would be a lot higher than the quote.
- If you’re growing, the outsourced bookkeeping service should be able to help you scale by adding full service accounting when you are ready for it.
- In major metropolitan areas like these, businesses may expect to pay premium rates for bookkeeping services compared to more rural regions.
It’s worth mentioning that you have to start working as a bookkeeper before you can apply for certification programs, and as we said, you need at least 2,000 to 3,000 hours to qualify. Ever since my first bookkeeping job over the summer in 1990, I’ve been focused on helping small businesses grow by better understanding their numbers. Based on my research with fellow bookkeepers, there isn’t one (or two, or three) answers either. If you post them on your site, a potential client can choose your services like they’d choose a combo at a drive-thru. For another great article about using pricing bundles, check out this post over at FinePoints Bookkeeping.
Step 1: Know the Basics of Pricing Strategy
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. And let’s not even get into how they’re more qualified, dedicated to handling bookkeeping and nothing else and – GASP! Don’t forget, as a bookkeeper, you should have a specific expertise. Anytime you can niche down and be specialized in a specific area of bookkeeping, you’ll be able to charge more money for your services. I want you to think about all the hidden costs that come along with starting your own business. You are paying for your own computer, your own equipment, and your own office supplies.
Basically, a handful of common tasks that you might encounter on a regular basis. It’s the “good, better, best”, or “bronze, silver, gold” approach. There are two additional benefits if this method will work in your situation. Effective client communication is an art that’s mastered over time.
- A bookkeeper might charge you anywhere from $30 to $90 an hour.
- To learn how to set it up for efficient bookkeeping, download our checklist.
- A few employers offer on-the-job training for bookkeepers by providing internships and placement programs.
- Establishing a fixed monthly charge helps bookkeepers organize their billing procedures while giving clients budgetary consistency.
Hourly rates
For example, the appointment may have cost $300, the insurance covered $200 of the charge, which leaves $100 as the patient’s responsibility. The thing that takes the most time with this client is the invoicing. They have a system outside of QuickBooks that is HIPPA compliant, which are the rules in the United States that you need to follow if you keep any medical information about your patients.
The average cost of payroll services in 2024: a comprehensive guide
Regardless of the solution you choose, you’ll be taking a big step towards getting your time back, and building a financial foundation to help your business continue to grow. The level of review and interaction with your bookkeeping team can also vary by provider. Make sure to ask about anything important to you, so that both you and your provider can know what to expect. If your books how much does bookkeeping cost are more complex than initially estimated, or if unexpected issues arise in your books that need extra attention, your monthly bookkeeping cost might spike considerably. Getting answers on the cost of bookkeeping is often less than straightforward. There’s a lot of different information floating around on cost, and it’s not always clear what might apply to your particular situation.
