Bookkeeping service
- Monthly fee that scope implies at the quoted rate
- $495
- Hours of bookkeeping the scope takes each month (rounded)
- 11
- Over a year
- $5,940
The record-keeping periods these pages cite are the IRS's published figures; every fee, hour and rate is arithmetic on the numbers you typed, and no figure on this site is a published national price for bookkeeping, because there is none.
A bookkeeping service, for a small business that is sending its books out, is a monthly engagement with a fixed scope: every bank and card transaction coded to an account, every account reconciled to its statement, customer invoices and supplier bills recorded, and a set of reports at month end. The work is not the software, it is the reconciliation, and a quote that does not say how many accounts and transactions it covers has not priced the job. The pricing calculator on this site turns your counts into the hours the scope takes and the fee those hours imply.
Open the Bookkeeping services pricing calculator Free to use. No account, no card, no trial clock.
Count what the service has to handle
Bank and card transactions a month, accounts to reconcile, invoices raised, bills paid, and whether anyone runs payroll. Your bank statements give the transaction count; the rest is on your own invoices and bills. These counts are the scope, and every quote should be read against them.
Read the quote as hours, not as a package
A flat monthly fee divided by the hours the scope takes is an hourly rate, and an hourly rate multiplied by the same hours is a monthly fee. The pricing calculator does that conversion so a tiered package and an hourly proposal sit on one line, and a fee that implies an implausible rate is visible.
Agree the handover and the month-end output
What you send each month (statements, receipts, sales reports, the payroll summary), by when, and what comes back (reconciled accounts, a profit and loss, an aged list of who owes you and whom you owe). An engagement that names both is one you can hold to; one that names neither drifts.
A quote the Bookkeeping service does not explain?
Tell us which figure on a quote does not add up and we will tell you how the sheet arrives at it.
What an owner comparing bookkeeping quotes asks about the Bookkeeping service
Is a bookkeeping service the same as an accountant?
No. The bookkeeper records and reconciles the transactions every month; the accountant works from those records to prepare returns and give advice. Many firms sell both, and a quote should say which you are buying.
What does a bookkeeping service need from me?
Read access to the bank and card accounts or the statements, the sales invoices and supplier bills, receipts for anything paid outside the bank, and a person who answers questions within a few days. The scope sheet on this site lists the handover items for your counts.
Does the service include catch-up work?
Usually not. Months that were never reconciled are priced separately as a clean-up, and a quote that folds catch-up into the monthly fee is either overpricing the monthly or underpricing the catch-up. Ask for the two figures apart.