A bookkeeper helps a company maintain its financial documents and records. They uphold a stern responsibility of ensuring that every single aspect of your books and accounts is in order. Every company, small or big, needs bookkeeping.  If you run a business, you have three options to hire a bookkeeper and their subsequent bookkeeping services fees.

The first is to hire a bookkeeper to work for you full-time. The second is to use a traditional bookkeeping firm’s services, and the third to work with an online bookkeeping service provider. Details of all three options, including their bookkeeping services fees, are given below to help you decide which is best for you.

Bookkeeping Services Fees of An Individual Bookkeeper

If you want to handle your bookkeeping work in-house, then you can hire a full-time bookkeeper to take care of that for you. If you are a small business, you may not find it viable to hire a bookkeeper to work full-time. However, if your operations are sizeable, then you may find it smarter to have someone work full-time. When you hire a bookkeeper, you would have to go through the process of actively looking for someone who is actually qualified and bears considerable experience in doing bookkeeping.

For starters, you should go for someone who has a certified bookkeeper qualification from AIPB (American Institute of Professional Bookkeepers) or from the NACPB (National Association of Certified Public Bookkeepers). Look for a candidate who has experience in your line of work, as this will ensure that all your work is being done effectively.

Hiring a bookkeeper full-time entails paying a large salary. Bookkeepers are skilled and you need to be prepared to pay them according to their expertise. To help you understand, the following is data about the average pay of bookkeepers:

The lowest pay is offered in the state of South Dakota, where the average pay is $16 per hour, which makes the monthly salary to be around $33,970. The highest paid bookkeepers work in Alaska, where the hourly pay is $23.39, and the monthly bookkeeping services fees go up to $48,640.

The monthly pay in California is $47,750, in Florida, $40,220 and in New York, $45,590. Having an idea of how much bookkeepers from different states charge would help before employing the services of one full-time. On an average, you would need to pay $3,000 to $4,500 bookkeeping services fees per month with other perks and benefits.

You can also consider hiring a bookkeeper on a part-time basis, and if your workload is not so heavy, you can consider hiring one to work for a few hours each day. You may need to pay around $20 per hour or monthly bookkeeping services fees of $400 to $800 with perks and benefits for the part-time work.

Working with A Traditional Bookkeeping Firm

Contacting the services of a bookkeeping firm is another popular method of getting bookkeeping done for you. Here, the bookkeeping services rates are counted by the hour. The firm would understand your nature of work and give you a price quote indicating how many hours of work is needed and the pay per hour.

To make sure you don’t end up paying extra bookkeeping services fees to a firm, you can first get quotes from both the bookkeeping firm and the individual bookkeeper. Then compare the prices they offer with the costs needed to have someone work for you full-time. After comparing, you can decide whether it’s beneficial to outsource or not.

There are no standard bookkeeping services fees because the prices charged depend entirely on the complexity of your business. You must also note that once they start working, it is possible they might find your work to be more complex than they thought. In such a case, the bill may be higher. On average, their bookkeeper rates vary from $500 to $2,500 per month, but it can be even higher depending on your work and the state you operate in.

Outsourcing to Online Service Providers

Thanks to the rapid growth of the internet, there are many bookkeepers who provide online services. People who manage bookkeeping firms usually consist of professionals bearing both experience and expertise. These firms have worked with many clients and offer a multitude of services. You need not worry about mistakes or delays since you can always expect quality work from them.

The advantage of working with them is that you don’t have to wait for them to come to your office. They would have well-defined processes for you to send your data and documents to them. They then would complete their work online on your company’s behalf and send the results or reports back to you. This is convenient since there is no geographical limitation. So much so that you can get a New York firm to work for you while operating in Tennessee, and the bookkeeping services rates charged would be precisely the same.

Another benefit of employing online services is that it works out to be more cost-effective since their employees don’t need to travel. You can thus get very competitive prices from them. If you are a small business, it is advisable to outsource your work to them to avoid high costs, and you will only need to pay bookkeeping services fees according to your needs. You may not even require their services for the entire month; that’s why for such a situation, it is better to use the services of a bookkeeping firm, as you get proper scalability and choice of preference on how you want your bookkeeping to be done.

So, What Type of Bookkeeping Does Your Business Need?

There are some really exemplary differences between the three above-mentioned bookkeeping solutions and how uniquely they can help your business. Ultimately, it all boils down to your preferences.

If you believe you need to always have a bookkeeper present in your company who’s actively looking after your books and needs to be paid huge bookkeeping services fees, then option 1 is what you should go for. If you’re interested in having an outside firm of professionals taking care of your books while costing pretty much the same, then you should go for option 2. But, if you believe your bookkeeping is not something that you have to pay so much attention to, and want it to be done in the most convenient, affordable and professional method, then outsourcing to an online service such as Monily can be just what you need.

Whatever option you end up going with, it is recommended that you verify the credentials of the service, firm or individual you go for before you sign up with them, as you need to understand how competent and experienced they are. Also, make sure to have a look at their clients’ list to get a better idea of whom they have worked with. You can even ask for references and check out reviews of the firm.

See Also: 5 Ways a Bookkeeper Can Save You Money

Once you are convinced about their credentials and believe their services are just what your business needs to progress and develop more efficiently, you can request quotes from them or visit the pricing section on their website to know more about their bookkeeping services fees.

Nida Bohunr

A highly skilled accounting professional at Monily, having extensive and diverse experience of working in US healthcare and agriculture industry. Nida is a CA finalist with expertise in Bookkeeping, Auditing, Bank Liaison, Tax Preparation, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable.