How Much Should You Charge for Bookkeeping? Here's My Formula

If you're a bookkeeper, one of the hardest parts of growing your business is figuring out what to charge and how to close new clients. In this video, I break down the exact bookkeeping sales process I used to build a bookkeeping business generating over $30,000 per month in recurring revenue.

You'll learn how I price bookkeeping services, why I don't charge hourly, how I quote cleanup projects, the questions I ask every prospect, and the simple follow-up process I use to win more clients.

Whether you're just starting a bookkeeping business or looking to increase your bookkeeping revenue, these strategies can help you attract better clients, improve profitability, and build a more scalable firm.

In this video:
• How to price bookkeeping services
• My bookkeeping proposal process
• Questions to ask prospective clients
• Monthly bookkeeping pricing
• Cleanup project pricing
• Why I avoid hourly billing
• How to follow up on bookkeeping quotes
• Bookkeeping sales tips for beginners

If you're interested in bookkeeping, accounting, QuickBooks Online, client acquisition, pricing strategies, or growing a bookkeeping business, this video is for you.

#Bookkeeping #BookkeepingBusiness #QuickBooksOnline #Accounting #SmallBusiness #Entrepreneur #Bookkeeper #VirtualBookkeeping #PricingStrategy #BusinessGrowth #ClientAcquisition #QuickBooks #AccountingBusiness #RemoteBookkeeping #BookkeepingTips




*Learn more about my investment fund targeting 8% to 12% fixed returns*
https://www.zipcapitalfund.com/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Bookkeepers, let me tell you how to quote. How do you tell people how much it's gonna cost for your bookkeeping services? This is one of the hardest things whenever you're just getting started. You have no idea how much to charge. My name is Zach Pascarello. I started my bookkeeping business six years ago. I had 80 bookkeeping clients, and now I just make these videos because I like teaching you how to start and grow your own bookkeeping business. And one of the most important things is properly quoting, charging appropriately. So let's just jump right into it. The quoting process all begins during the sales consultation. So the very first sales consultation, you're going to introduce yourself, explain your services, let them do the talking, let them explain their business and what they need help with. And then at the very end of the sales consultation, after you've collected all the information that you need, ask them their budget. This is so important. You've got nothing to lose. You might as well ask them how much they're looking to spend on bookkeeping. Who knows? One of two things are going to happen. Maybe they'll say, I've got no idea. I'm hoping you can tell me that. Or maybe they say a thousand bucks. Like, okay, that's really good to know. Now I know your budget is a thousand dollars. I'll keep that in mind whenever I look through your QuickBooks, look through your bank statements. And then also ask them why they fired their old bookkeeper. This is really important to know because maybe their old bookkeeper wasn't good. But then maybe you're going to find out they were only paying their old bookkeeper $300. So this is really valuable information. Find out why they fired their old bookkeeper because then whenever you quote them, if they argue and if they come back and say, Whoa, that's twice as much as my previous bookkeeper, you can say, Yeah, but remember you fired them because they weren't doing a good job. So, of course, if you want a better bookkeeper, it might cost a little bit more. And then finally, how much does the cost, how much does this cost? How much is it going to cost for your bookkeeping services? Everyone asks that, and this is a great segue into next steps. So here's what I always say: write this down, take notes. I can't tell you how much exactly how much it's going to cost, but I can tell you that on average, right now, my clients pay anywhere between $300 per month and $3,000 per month. I'd imagine you're going to be somewhere in that range. Right now, my average client pays about $500 per month, but it could be more, it could be less. If you want me to give you an exact quote, all I need to do is see your three most recent bank statements and credit card statements. Or if you already have QuickBooks and everything's updated, you can just simply invite me to your QuickBooks. Now during the sales consultation at the end, I like to get this information before they hang up. If you just hang up and say, Yep, send it over to me, email it over to me, I'll talk to you in a month. You're not going to hear back from them. Get their email address. Or even better, ask them, hey, are you sitting in front of a computer right now? Do you just want to invite me to your QuickBooks right now while we're on the phone? I will walk you through how to do it. If you're a new bookkeeper and you don't know how to do this, now's a great time to learn. Go to QuickBooks, click on the gear icon, click on manage users, and go to the accountant. You want to be invited as an accountant under manage users in their QuickBooks account. They can add you to view their QuickBooks. And if they don't have QuickBooks or if it's not updated, then they can simply send you their three most recent bank statements and their three most recent credit card statements. And then also, if you get invited to their QuickBooks, you can do some research. I would recommend look at their balance sheet, look at their chart of accounts, look at their profit and loss, look at their revenue, look at their expenses, look at their bank feed, look at all their transactions, look at their general ledger, look at their trial balance, do some research, spend five, 10 minutes, do a very good, thorough due diligence, do your research, and then also you can do a little bit of research and find out potentially how much they were paying their previous bookkeeper. This is very valuable information. If you know they were paying their previous bookkeeper $800 a month and they fired them or they left because I don't know why, it doesn't matter. But $800, they were okay paying their previous bookkeeper $800. So that's just good information. It's a good data point to keep in mind whenever you quote them. Now, once you get their bank statements and you get their credit card statements, I recommend send them a quote very quickly and by email. You don't have to call them. I like to send it by email. That way they can digest the information on their own. They can read through the email, they can look through it, they can think about it, they can consider it for the next 24 hours. I don't like to call with a quote, but you certainly can. If you're the kind of person who'd rather talk through things instead of email them, you could, but I prefer to send an email. And I do it very, very quickly. So as soon as I get the documents, as soon as I get the QuickBooks invitation, I'll stop what I'm doing and I'll send them a quote because they might be talking to three other bookkeepers. And so if they're talking to three other bookkeepers and they get my quote first, and the two other guys take a week to get back from them, who do you think they're gonna pick? They're probably gonna pick me because I'm already doing a good job. I'm already communicating effectively, I'm already efficient, I'm quick. That's what people want in their bookkeeper. Effective, quick, efficient, and good at communicating. So send the quote as quickly as possible. Always the same day. I'm that sending a quote is priority number one. Getting a new client is always priority number one. The bookkeeping, I can do that, I can finish the bookkeeping tonight, or I can wake up early and finish the bookkeeping tomorrow, or I can work on the weekend, I can finish the bookkeeping on the weekend. But sending a quote, it only takes 10 minutes. Priority number one. I'll stop what I'm doing, send the quote very quickly. And then if I don't hear back from them, I'm gonna call them 48 hours later. Send the email today, 48 hours later, no response, give them a call. Hey John, just checking in, seeing if you had any questions about that quote that I sent over a couple days ago. If he doesn't answer the phone, I'll send him an email. And then if I don't hear back from them seven more days after that, another phone call, another email, and then I'm just gonna keep following up every 30 days forever until they respond. Now, how do you actually quote? Great question. Three dollars per transaction. That's it. That's my magic secret. So simple. Keep the quoting process simple, doesn't have to be complicated. $3 per transaction per month. Now, that does not mean they have 100 transactions last month, $300. They have $120 transactions this month. Okay, since Zach said $3, I guess I'm charging $360 for next month. That's not what that means. I'm looking at the average. So three most recent months. So it's June 2026 right now. So I'm gonna look at May, April, and March. And I'm gonna add up all the transactions from the previous three months. If you're in QuickBooks, go to the bank feed or look at the general ledger. Super simple. If you have the bank statements or the credit card statements, it might take a little bit of time, but just count through all the transactions for the three most recent months, add it up, and then divide it by three to find the average number of transactions per month, and then multiply that by three dollars. And so you're charging three dollars per transaction per on average. And I don't tell my client that I'm doing that because I don't want to give them any reason to look back through their bank statements and credit card statements and think, well, these transactions aren't always gonna happen, or this month had more transactions than normal. I'm not telling them how I'm quoting them, I'm just telling them, hey, it's gonna be 500 bucks per month. Based on the here's my key based on the size and complexity of your business, the quote is going to be $500 per month. And I calculated that based on $3 per transaction. Now, if they need class tracking or project tracking, if they're a real estate investor or a general contractor or a home remodeling company and they need project tracking or class tracking, four dollars per transaction. And that is not four dollars per transaction that needs to be class tracked, that's four dollars per all transactions because inevitably their bookkeeping will be more complicated, I promise you. So four dollars per transaction if they need the additional service of class tracking and project tracking. I don't do receipt management. So if you want to match receipts to QuickBooks transactions, I don't do that. I don't do that. I've done that in the past. It is so much work, it's not worth it. There's no amount of money you could pay me that would make sense for you and be worth it for me to do that. I recommend hire a VA or an admin assistant or an office manager, they can do that for you. I will teach your VA how to do that, but I will not do that for you. Way too much work, so tedious. Cleanup project. How do you quote a cleanup project? Exact same way. If you want me to do bookkeeping for 2025, guess what? I'm gonna look at all 2025 bank statements and credit card statements. I'm gonna count up all your transactions, multiply it by three. So if you had a hundred transactions per month, that's 1,200 transactions in 2025, $3,600 for me to do all of your bookkeeping in 2025. The numbers can seem a little bit crazy, but I promise you I've had clients for the past six years gladly pay me thousands of dollars for a cleanup project. So don't be afraid to quote, even if it does seem a little excessive, because $500 a month, that's six thousand dollars for one year of bookkeeping. That seems like a lot when you're paying for that up front. But here's the thing: CPAs and tax accountants, they're not going to do the bookkeeping, they don't want to do bookkeeping, so they really don't have another option. Of course, there are plenty of bookkeepers out there, there are large accounting firms who do bookkeeping, but that's the whole point of your social media marketing. You're trying to build relationships with these people, so they shouldn't really care too much about the cost. They're they're they're not hiring you because you're the cheapest. And by all means, never do I advertise myself as the cheapest bookkeeper. It's a race to the bottom. I'm never doing it. If you're looking for a cheap option, that's not me. You can have good, fast, and cheap, but you can only pick two. You can't have all three. I am fast and I'm good. I am not cheap. I will I will straight up tell somebody that I am not the cheapest option. If you're looking for the cheapest option, so sorry, but that is not me. So it is what it is. I hate saying that, but seriously, if you want your bookkeeping done correctly and quickly and efficiently, then I'll be your best option. 100% up front on a cleanup project. If I'm doing your 2025 bookkeeping and I'm charging you $4,000, yes, I'm gonna bill you $4,000 up front. I know it seems steep, but I recommend, even if you're brand new, try to say that and just be confident. Just be like, yep, this is company policy. You gotta pay 100% up front. That's just how I've always operated. Be confident. Now, if you get a little bit of pushback, say, I understand your concerns, here's what we can do. The the the only other option is 50% up front and 50% when the project is complete. Nothing less than at least 50%, but try to get 100% first. You might as well try to get 100% first, and if they push back, fall back to 50% up front. But if you're experienced, if you've got 10, 20, 30 Google reviews and you've been doing this for a couple years, there is no reason for you to not charge 100% up front. After I did this for a couple years and I got some experience, that was a non-negotiable. That was that was my policy. 100% upfront, no exceptions. So if you're brand new, I get it. 50% up front. But as you get more experience, push for that 100% up front. Because the problem is, is you are waiting to get paid 50% until the bookkeeping is done. But the bookkeeping can only be done once the client has answered all of your questions. So now, all of a sudden, if you have a client who is not good at communicating or very slow, then now all of a sudden you're waiting to get paid two or three thousand dollars until this client answers your question. So that could drag on for a month or two months. And so I don't want to hold up getting paid if the client is not answering my questions. And then also, like, who's to really say, like, okay, now the project is a hundred percent complete? Like, yes, I get it. Like the accounts are reconciled, the balance sheet is reconciled, the profit and loss is finalized, and even the taxes are filed. Once the taxes are filed, yes, absolutely, everything's a hundred percent complete, but that could also take three or four months. So I don't want to wait until the taxes are filed for my project to be complete. So I don't like messing around with getting paid 50% up front and 50% when the project is complete. So I recommend try to get 100% up front if you can. So monthly bookkeeps. That's for a cleanup project. Monthly bookkeeping. First of all, real quick, let me just mention very briefly, I have an I have an investment fund, zip capital. So that is my focus right now. Yes, I still have my bookkeeping business, I still make these videos to try to teach you how to do what I did, but I'm focused right now on growing zip capital, my investment fund, where I'm targeting 8% up to 12% fixed returns to accredited investors. So if that sounds interesting, there's a link down below in the description where you can learn more. And so basically, what I do is I lend money to Pennsylvania real estate investors. So these operators are fixing and flipping houses, and they need money to buy the house and they need money to rehab the house. And so I lend them money and all of my loans are secured with a first position mortgage. So if anything happened, then I would be able to foreclose on the property, take back the property, and then sell it and get my money back. That's never happened. I've never had to go through a foreclosure process. I've done over a hundred loans, currently have about eight million dollars lent out. So if you want to join Zip Capital, let me know. Link down below, would love to chat. Monthly bookkeeping, onboarding fee. If they're a brand new business, I might not charge an onboarding fee. But if they are an existing business with a lot of complexity, I'm probably gonna charge an onboarding fee. And it's typically just equal to one month of services. So if I'm charging you $500 a month starting June 1st, 2026, then I will also charge you a $500 onboarding fee. So your first invoice is gonna be $1,000. And then July 1st, another $500, and that covers July. I bill in the beginning of the month. So July 1st, $500 invoice. That covers July bookkeeping. So I'm not billing you July 1st for work completed in June. And I do that specifically that way if a client ever does not pay their invoice, worst case scenario, I'm out maybe two or three weeks of work instead of two months of work. So I always bill up front for the upcoming month. And if I start bookkeeping June 1st, then I am not recording any transactions prior to June 1st. So that's so my onboarding fee does not cover cleanup work. My onboarding fee just covers getting to know your business, learning your chart of accounts, helping to make sure all of your bank accounts and credit cards are connected to your bank feed and things like that. My onboarding fee does not cover cleanup. So if you want me to start June 1st, that's great. I'll start June 1st. I'll charge you $500 for June. And whatever happened in May, I'm not doing anything for May. I'm not reconciling accounts from May. I'm not recording transactions from May. I've got nothing to do with May. I don't tell people when I'm going to start. People always ask me, like, oh, can you look at my books and like, can you tell me like when I need you to start? No. I have them tell me when they want me to start. That way it reduces responsibility for prior months. Because if I tell you you're good January through May, I just need to start in June. If I tell you that and then all of a sudden there was a mistake in March, now I'm on the hook. Now I am responsible for that mistake in March because I told you, no, you don't need bookkeeping for March. So I never, strict policy, I never tell people when I'm going to start. Instead, I tell them, you have to tell me when you want me to start. If you want me to do bookkeeping in March and April and May, I absolutely can, but you're gonna have to tell me, and I'm gonna charge you for March, April, and May. And I charge them the full price. I don't charge a discounted rate. People are gonna say, oh, almost all the transactions are recorded. Like you just have to reconcile the accounts. That is a red flag because there is always more work that needs to be done. So I would not recommend doing it for a discount. I would say, hey, that's fine. I can help you with March, April, and May, but it's gonna be full price. And if you don't want to pay full price, then I won't help you. Like I really don't like to negotiate that too much. Don't start working until you get paid. Don't start working until you get paid. I know you're gonna be excited. You just got your sales consultation, they just accepted your quote, they just signed your client agreement. You're excited. You just got your first client. Congratulations. Don't start until you get paid. I have had clients get to this phase in the process and not pay their invoice and ghost me. I'm really happy I didn't start working. So strict policy, and it also gives you leverage. Like, hey, I cannot start doing your bookkeeping until you have paid your first invoice. Don't bill hourly. I I started billing hourly in the beginning. I was making 30 bucks an hour at my full-time job. I was thrilled to make 50 bucks an hour as a bookkeeper. I thought this is amazing, this is life-changing. I'll do anything for 50 bucks an hour. This is almost twice as much as what I was making before. Don't do it, it's not worth it. Do not bill hourly. You're going to feel like an employee. You're going to feel like I need to clock in. I need to make sure that this takes me three or four hours. You're not incentivizing efficiency by billing hourly. So don't do it. Just bill a flat rate. That way it's predictable for your client. And that way you are incentivized to get the work done quickly and efficiently. Don't meet in person. You don't have to. Do not meet in person unless you really want to. If you love people, if you want to meet in person, by all means get an office, co-working space, meet at a coffee shop if you want to, you don't have to. I don't like to because that sets the precedent for future in-person meetings. In the beginning, if you have a firm policy, hey, everything I do is virtual and remote. It's the most efficient. I've got a home office, it's the most efficient way for me to get my work done. If you want to meet, if you want to have a phone call, if you want to do a Zoom call, we can do that. Unfortunately, I don't offer in-person meetings. If you want to meet in person, that's fine, but you don't have to. You definitely do not have to. Miscellaneous projects. This is tough. What happens if somebody comes to you and says, hey, I just have one credit card account that I can't seem to get reconciled. Can you help me? It's like, yes, I could help you, but how do I bill for that? Like you say, your bank account's all good. I don't need to touch your bank account. Okay. Just your credit card. That seems like potentially a really messy project. Here's what you do for miscellaneous projects, $400 flat fee. That pays for four hours of work. You just bought four hours of my time. So I will tell me your problem. I will look into it. I'll look at your statements. I'll look at your QuickBooks, look at your bank fee, look at your chart of accounts, try to reconcile, see the mistakes, find the duplicates, find the missing transactions. You got me for four hours. If it takes longer, if I can't solve your problem in four hours, I'll let you know. And then I'll bill you for more time. But if it takes less time, great. Your problem is solved. And I just made $400 for two hours of work. I do not refund that $400 flat fee. That seems to be a good middle ground. It's a win-win. $400, your problem is solved. $400, it's not solved, but I've diagnosed it and now I know it's gonna take an additional eight hours. So I'll charge you an additional $800. The problem was more complicated than I originally thought. $800 to finish the project. Very quick projects, like hey, I just need an accounts receivable report, or can we just I just have I have one question? I can't seem to figure this out. Can we just do a 15-minute phone call or a 15-minute Zoom call? If you're brand new, I recommend take on those very quick projects. If it's pretty easy, do it for free. Ask for a Google review. This is incredibly an incredibly valuable opportunity for you to get a Google review, make a really good first impression, and potentially turn them into a referral partner or a potential bookkeeping client in the future. So very like, I don't want your 50 bucks. If it if it takes 30 minutes, 50 bucks to me is not as valuable as a Google review and a very good first impression and a potential future referral partner. Three more things. I don't do payroll, I don't do sales tax, I don't do budgeting, I don't do forecasting, I just charge $500 per month for bookkeeping. I just record transactions, reconcile accounts, generate financial reports, no tax planning, no tax strategy, no payroll, no receipt management. But I can do class tracking and project tracking. Like I said, that's $4 per transaction. And the last thing that I can do, I'm not gonna talk about it in this video. I think I talked about it recently: accounts receivable and accounts payable management. So I can I can create your invoices in QuickBooks, I can send your invoices to customers, I can create your bills in QuickBooks, I can pay your bills with your cash management, treasury management, business bill pay, or bill.com or whatever bill pay feature you have. I can pay your bills, I can record your invoices in QuickBooks, but that's it. And I charge $10 per invoice and $5 per accounts payable per month on average. So if you have on average 10 invoices, that's $100. If you have on average 30 accounts payable, that's $150. So instead of charging you $500 per month, I'm gonna add an additional $250 per month to manage your AP and AR. That's it for the video. Hope this was helpful. If if you thought this was helpful, like the video, subscribe to my channel. I'm putting out new videos almost every week to help you start and grow your own bookkeeping business. And if you want to invest in zip capital, the minimum to invest is $25,000. I'm targeting 8% up to 12% fixed returns to accredited investors. I would love to chat with you if you want to invest in zip capital. Check out the link down below. Finally, if you're listening to this podcast, I'm on YouTube, same name, bookkeeping expert Zach Pascarello. Find me on YouTube, and vice versa. If you're watching on YouTube and you want to listen to the podcast, I'm on Apple and Spotify. Same name, bookkeeping expert Zach Pascarello. Thank you all so much. God bless you. I'll see you all next week.