Pricing for bookkeeping services can vary widely, from $100 a month to several thousand, with some firms even charging up to $5,000 per month. As the business owner, you’d be willing to pay more for those insights too. To add insult to injury, I got paid $5.00/hour to clean the office over the weekend.
Fixed-rate pricing
If you need to raise your rates, you’re suddenly asking a dozen bosses for a raise. So, don’t be afraid to boast about your experience while marketing your accounting firm. And, use it as a competitive advantage when it comes to pricing your offerings. Chances are, clients are going to be more willing to pay an accounting firm more money over another if they have more experience. I work a maximum of 20 hours per month on this particular client’s books and charge $1,000 a month. To illustrate what a large client looks like, I’ll be using a physical therapist office I do bookkeeping for that generates about $1.2 million in revenue a year.
Whether you use Practice Ignition or not, you’ll need some way of cementing the fixed price per month agreement. It was so bad that it caused me to scour the internet for a solution and luckily I stumbled across Practice Ignition when the company first started in 2013. In fact, I was actually proudly one of Practice Ignition’s first customers on the platform back in 2013. Once you have arrived at your price for a particular mandate, the next step is to have a mutual agreement in place that documents your understanding of the scope of work and price per month.
Common pricing strategies for accounting firms
Instead of setting an hourly rate, or an equivalent recurring charge, you set your prices based on the value they will provide. Not only does that mean your prices could vary depending on the services you’re providing, they could also vary from client to client. Even if you switch to fixed fees or a value pricing structure for your main bookkeeping services, you may have additional services that command a premium.
Step 4 (Bonus): Present your tiers to the client
With tech taking up so much airspace in modern accounting, those who are fluent users how to write an accounting ledger with pictures are quickly outpacing those who aren’t. In a survey by PracticeWeb, 66% of clients surveyed said they would pay more for a ‘tech-savvy’ accountant. The overall cost depends on various factors, the most important being experience, education, and certifications. Although not a crucial factor, it’s important to ensure the bookkeeper has experience working with software that you find convenient. Having the proper education and experience is crucial, but it’s not the most important factor in determining the price of the service.
- Download The Pricing Playbook for practical steps for doubling your pricing without increasing your workload.
- There is a fine line between overcharging and undercharging, but the sweet spot does exist and you’ll know when you find it, because your clients will be happy, and so will you.
- This approach works well with a productized service, bundling various services and features into one tier or a fixed-price monthly subscription.
- Even better, try to learn from how other accountants are charging for their services.
- Balancing bank accounts and managing cash flow are essential, but providing peace of mind to business owners is what really sets your services apart.
- I believe one of the main challenges that accountants are having moving to an upfront pricing method is poorly defining their scope of work per month.
Balancing bank accounts and managing cash flow are essential, but providing peace of mind to business owners is what really sets your services apart. He and the team are all about automating many of those administrative processes surrounding pricing, proposals, engagement letters and payments. Professional proposals also help to keep your accounts receivable to a minimum by stating when accounts receivable are due.
Generally, small to medium-sized businesses expect to pay between $500-$2,500 USD monthly for their outsourced bookkeeping—an dauntingly large range to deal with. If you hire self-employed bookkeepers from another country, you can also experience major cost differences. For example, a freelance bookkeeper located in India or full time equivalent other low-cost countries can charge less for their services compared to an independent bookkeeper in Europe or Canada. Full time bookkeepers earn from $35,000 to $55,000 per year. This doesn’t include the benefits that can cost up to 20% of their salary. Figuring out how to price your tax resolution services can be difficult.
The typical way this works is you charge the client a minimum monthly fee that guarantees them a certain number of hours of your services. Lawyers more often use this, but bookkeepers and accountants can use this method too. Where you live, what type of bookkeeping services you offer, and what type of clients you work with affect that answer. A full-time bookkeeper in a major a contra asset is city providing advanced bookkeeping services means a different pricing structure than a part-time bookkeeper working in a small town for a local diner. To make things more complicated, a freelancer, small business, bookkeeping firm, or an accounting firm will offer different average rates for bookkeeping services.
