A bookkeeping pricing calculator is only useful if it shows its arithmetic, because the number it prints is not a price anybody will charge you; it is what your scope implies at a rate you typed. The bookkeeping price calculator on this site does exactly that. It takes your accounts, transactions, invoices and bills, the minutes each takes a bookkeeper, and an hourly rate, and prints the hours, the monthly fee, the annual cost and the cost per transaction. This page explains each input, where the worked-example minutes come from, and how to read the result against a quote. The bookkeeping calculator itself is free and needs no account.
The inputs, and where to get them
Transactions a month: count the lines on every bank and card statement. Accounts: every checking, savings, card and loan account, because each is reconciled separately. Invoices raised and bills paid: from your own records. Minutes per transaction, invoice and bill, and hours per account reconciliation and for reports: a worked example you should replace with what a quote implies. The hourly rate: what the provider charges for extras, which is the rate everything is really priced at.
Where the worked-example minutes come from
They are assumptions, not published figures, and the sheet says so. There is no national standard for how long a bookkeeper takes per transaction, and any calculator that claims one is guessing. The example minutes are set so that a simple business lands on a plausible number of hours; a provider's proposal will imply its own, and the right use of the sheet is to change the minutes until the hours match what the provider says, and then look at what the fee implies per hour.
Reading the result against a quote
The sheet prints hours, fee, annual cost and cost per transaction. Divide a flat quote by the hours and you have the rate the provider is really charging. Multiply an hourly quote by the hours and you have the monthly fee to expect. If two quotes imply very different hours for the same counts, one provider has misjudged the scope, and the sheet has shown you which question to ask.
What the calculator does not do
It does not know your local rates, your provider's efficiency, or the state of your records. It does not price catch-up work, though you can run it once per backlog month and add the results. It does not tell you whether a bookkeeper is good. It turns counts and a rate into hours and a fee, in front of you, and Reconzy Pro keeps each priced scope against the quote it was checked against.
Questions people ask about bookkeeping pricing calculator
Is the bookkeeping pricing calculator free?
Yes, with no account and no trial. The paid plan keeps the priced scopes you save and removes the watermark from what you print; the arithmetic is the same on both.
Why does the calculator ask for minutes per transaction?
Because that is the assumption every fee is built on, and hiding it would make the result unarguable. Change it to what your provider implies and the fee follows.
Can I use the bookkeeping calculator for catch-up work?
Run it for one month of your counts at the provider's rate and multiply by the months behind, adding a margin for missing paperwork. It is an estimate, and the accounting clean-up guide on this site explains the margin.
Does the calculator work for a nonprofit or an online store?
The arithmetic is the same. A nonprofit adds fund tracking and a store adds channel settlements, which the scope sheet on this site handles as separate lines; put the extra hours into the reports input here.