As a professional accountant, it is your obligation to assist your clients in keeping their books as precise and organized as possible. How much should a bookkeeper bill for their services be the question? Of course, for a reasonable and acceptable price. To help you understand how much your bookkeeping services should cost, let’s look at the aspects that affect pricing and averages.
Basic Bookkeeping Costs – Part Time vs. Full Time vs. Outsourced
It will be up to you to decide whether you should do in-house or outsource your company’s bookkeeping at this point if your company only requires basic bookkeeping. You must choose whether the position calls for full-time or part-time employment in order to decide whether to hire and manage a bookkeeper. If you choose to take this path, you can outsource your bookkeeping in a number of ways, including through local CPA firms, specialist national outsourcing companies, and local bookkeeping services. The following is a list of three different options your company could consider in order to fill this need in the long run.
6 Factors to consider to know how much I should charge as a bookkeeper.
Here are 6 factors to consider when setting your prices:
- Location
- Experience
- Size of client
- Certifications
- Types of services
- Frequency of service
Location
You should be aware that the cost of your bookkeeping services might vary greatly depending on where your office is located.
Depending on the state, bookkeeping services can cost differently. It is crucial to understand how to bill customers appropriately for their location.
It is best to conduct your study in advance in case you need to modify your pricing to account for local and state charges. If necessary, alter your prices so that they correspond with the going rates for the services in your state.
Experience
Clients are more likely to accept a higher cost for an accounting firm if it has more expertise and credentials.
Clients are more likely to be willing to spend more experience than the accounting firm has.
As a result, when marketing your accounting firm, don’t be scared to share your experiences. In fact, when determining how much to charge for your services, use it as a competitive advantage.
Size of client
You should take into account the fact that you will occasionally work with clients of all sizes, including small, medium, and large clients when determining how much to charge for your services.
You should modify your rates if one client’s size is larger than another’s.
Due to the fact that smaller clients make less money than medium or large clients, it is typically more reasonable to charge them less. You might charge a different amount from a major client (like a physical therapist) who generates $1.5 million annually as opposed to a small client (like a small business) who generates $200,000 annually.
When determining the cost of your bookkeeping services, it is a good idea to take the size of the client into account by developing several tiers. You will then be able to bill those clients based on their size.
Certifications
Earning one of the various certificates available for bookkeepers will increase your value as a booking agent as well as your expertise and understanding in the field of bookkeeping.
If you give your consumers trustworthy knowledge and training, they might be willing to spend a little bit extra. You might be able to vary your pricing if you have specialist credentials, and clients could be willing to pay for those changes if they realize that doing so indicates a higher level of ability and trust.
Types of services
Does your business provide a variety of services, such as account reconciliation? Invoicing? Up-to-date reporting? Taxes? Payroll? You might want to reevaluate your bookkeeping service pricing so that you are charging your clients the appropriate amount as you offer more and more services to them.
You might wish to alter the price when a client uses multiple services. Based on the services that are in demand and the times that they are used, you could also wish to raise the price (for instance, in a last-minute request).
Be sure to consider the different services you provide and assess how much you charge in relation to competitors. Are your prices too high or too low? Make an informed decision about how much to charge for your services using the information you’ve obtained.
Frequency of service
You must consider the frequency of your services when determining how much to charge a client for services. Some customers are one-time deals, while others can need your services frequently (for instance, quarterly).
Some fast facts about average prices for bookkeeping services:
Since there are so many variables that might impact the cost, it is necessary to take a lot of them into account when determining the price to be paid for bookkeeping. Additionally, you might have a million questions in your thoughts if you’re wondering how much the typical bookkeeper charges per hour or how much other bookkeepers charge for the same services.
Let’s examine some typical rates to see if they can provide insight into some of your most pressing queries:
- In the United States, the average hourly pay for a bookkeeper is $22.
- Typically, CPAs bill their clients between $200 and $250 per hour.
- Without a doubt, elite bookkeepers in big cities charge more than $500 an hour (or even more).
It is crucial that you conduct your study in order to be able to set your costs appropriately. To get a fair notion of how much you should charge your clients, this entails looking at industry averages, rates by state, and many other aspects.
