What do professional bookkeeping firms charge?

Question

I am a career accounting professional who is thinking about starting my own bookkeeping firm in Southern California. I don't know if bookkeeping firms charge their clients by the hour or if they instead charge a flat monthly rate. We will do all facets of bookkeeping except for preparation of income taxes. If professional bookkeeping firms charge by the hour, then how much? If they charge a flat rate for full service bookkeping, then how much?

Answer 1

This will depend on your location. Being in California I would assume people would charge more than myself, being in Arkansas. I just do a little Bookkeeping for Friends. I charge $25 an hour. Mostly they bring their Receipts for the week on Friday or Saturday and I have until the next weekend to log everything for each business. Normally it takes about 1 hour on average to do this for each individual business. At the end of the year I close the books and fill out a Profit/Loss statement and they can usually do their own 1040 from their books. Everyone I work for is a Sole-Proprietorship. Now, where you live I do know the cost of living is high compared to where I live. I may try $50 an hour in California. The books I do are easy, I may be charging too much or too less, but, everyone is happy so I guess it OK. It cost each Business $100 a month on average, so, most I charge a Flat $100 a month. Some pay weekly @ $25 and sometimes it may be $30, sometimes it may be $20. The monthly is a set rate, the weekly can fluctuate by the Time.