How much should I charge for bookkeeping?

Price each client on the time their books take you, at the hourly rate you need. Add the minutes to code and reconcile their transactions, the other monthly work (bills, invoices, month-end, reports, questions), payroll and the GST, VAT or BAS returns, add an allowance for queries and late paperwork, and multiply by your rate. A client who takes 11.5 hours a month at £40 an hour is a £465 monthly fee.

Should I charge a monthly fixed fee or by the hour?

A monthly fixed fee is easier for the client to budget and rewards you for getting faster: bank rules, receipt capture and good habits cut your hours while the fee stays the same. Hourly billing suits catch-up and clean-up work, where the time is hard to know in advance. Many bookkeepers do both: a fixed monthly fee for the routine, and an hourly or one-off fee for anything outside it.

How do I price bookkeeping by transactions?

Work out the fee for a typical client in each band (for example up to 50, 51 to 150 and 151 to 300 transactions a month) with this calculator, then check the top of each band still pays your rate. A per-transaction figure is useful for comparing clients, but the band price has to cover the payroll, returns and other work too, not only the transactions.

How do I price payroll for a client?

Per payslip or per employee per pay run, so the fee grows when the client hires. Time a few pay runs including leave, starters and leavers and the filing (RTI in the UK, Single Touch Payroll in Australia, payday filing in New Zealand), then price the minutes at your rate. Weekly payroll is about 4.3 pay runs a month, fortnightly about 2.2.

What hourly rate should a bookkeeper charge?

The rate that covers the pay you want, your costs and the hours you cannot bill, with some profit on top. The charge-out rate calculator works it out from those figures. Look at local rates for your qualification and experience as a check, but your own costs are what the rate has to pay for.

How much should I charge for a bookkeeping clean-up or catch-up?

Price it separately from the monthly fee, as a one-off: estimate the months to catch up and the hours each takes (often more than a normal month, because statements and receipts have to be found), multiply by your rate, and ask for part of it up front. Then start the monthly fee once the books are current.

Are my figures stored or sent anywhere?

No. The calculation runs in your browser. Nothing you type is saved or sent to our server or anyone else. The only exception is if you ask us to email you the result: then your email address and a short summary of the result are stored, and nothing is sent until you confirm.

Bookkeeping pricing calculator: monthly fee per client

How the calculator works

Transactions = transactions a month × minutes each ÷ 60.
Payroll = employees × pay runs a month × minutes per payslip ÷ 60. Weekly is 52 ÷ 12 = 4.33 pay runs a month, fortnightly 2.17, four-weekly 1.08.
Returns = GST, VAT or BAS returns a year × hours each ÷ 12, so a quarterly return is spread over the three months it covers.
Hours a month = transactions + other monthly work + payroll + returns, plus your allowance for queries and catch-up.
Monthly fee = hours × your hourly rate + any software you pass on at cost, rounded up to the next 5.
At today's fee: today's fee (less software) ÷ hours a month is the hourly rate this client really pays you.

All fees are before GST or VAT. There is no built-in "market rate": the calculator prices the client on your own rate and your own timings, which is the only way to know a fee pays you.

A worked example

A sole-practitioner bookkeeper in the UK prices a café client. Made-up figures to show the arithmetic.

Part of the job	Working	Hours a month
Transactions	180 × 1.5 minutes	4.50
Bills, invoices, month-end, client emails	their estimate	3.00
Payroll	8 staff × 4.33 weekly runs × 4 minutes	2.31
VAT return	4 a year × 2 hours ÷ 12	0.67
Allowance for queries	10%	1.05
Total		11.53

The fee: 11.53 hours at £40 comes to £461.02, so they quote £465 a month (£5,580 a year), plus VAT if they are registered.
Per transaction: £465 ÷ 180 = £2.58. Per payslip: 4 minutes plus the allowance at £40 = £2.93, so payroll is about £102 of the fee.
At the £350 they charge today: £350 for 11.53 hours of work is £30.37 an hour, not £40. The gap is £115 a month, £1,380 a year, on one client.
The cheaper fix: bank rules and receipt capture that bring each transaction from 1.5 minutes to 1 save about 1.7 hours a month. On a fixed fee that time is margin, not a discount.

Press "Load the worked example" above to see it in the calculator.

Timing a client in Xero

Transactions: in Accounting › Bank accounts, look at the number of statement lines for each bank and card account over the last three months, and divide by three. Seasonal clients (a café in summer, a retailer before Christmas) need the busy months, not the average, or a fee that changes with the season.
Minutes per transaction: time yourself for a week. Lines that bank rules match are seconds; lines that need a receipt chased are minutes. The Xero bank reconciliation report shows what is left unreconciled at month-end.
Other work: walk through your month-end checklist for the client and put minutes against each step, including the management pack if you send one.
Payroll: the Xero payroll reports show employees and pay runs; time two or three runs including a starter or a leaver.
Returns: the VAT return, BAS or NZ GST return guide for each country walks through what to check before you lodge.

Re-run the numbers at each client's anniversary: transactions and staff grow, and a fee set two years ago often pays far less an hour than it did. The price increase calculator shows how many clients you could lose after a rise and still be better off.

Fixed fee, hourly or per transaction?

A monthly fixed fee is what most clients prefer, because they can budget for it, and it pays you for getting faster. Hourly billing suits clean-ups and anything unpredictable. Transaction bands are a quick way to quote, as long as each band is priced with the payroll, returns and other work included. Whichever you use, put what is included in the engagement letter, so extra work (a second VAT scheme, year-end accounts, a lender's questions) is a separate quote rather than unpaid time.

For the tools that cut the hours, see software for bookkeepers, and for sending clients their figures without exporting them each month, how to send Xero reports to clients.

Questions

How much should I charge for bookkeeping?: Price each client on the time their books take you, at the hourly rate you need. Add the minutes to code and reconcile their transactions, the other monthly work (bills, invoices, month-end, reports, questions), payroll and the GST, VAT or BAS returns, add an allowance for queries and late paperwork, and multiply by your rate. A client who takes 11.5 hours a month at £40 an hour is a £465 monthly fee.
Should I charge a monthly fixed fee or by the hour?: A monthly fixed fee is easier for the client to budget and rewards you for getting faster: bank rules, receipt capture and good habits cut your hours while the fee stays the same. Hourly billing suits catch-up and clean-up work, where the time is hard to know in advance. Many bookkeepers do both: a fixed monthly fee for the routine, and an hourly or one-off fee for anything outside it.
How do I price bookkeeping by transactions?: Work out the fee for a typical client in each band (for example up to 50, 51 to 150 and 151 to 300 transactions a month) with this calculator, then check the top of each band still pays your rate. A per-transaction figure is useful for comparing clients, but the band price has to cover the payroll, returns and other work too, not only the transactions.
How do I price payroll for a client?: Per payslip or per employee per pay run, so the fee grows when the client hires. Time a few pay runs including leave, starters and leavers and the filing (RTI in the UK, Single Touch Payroll in Australia, payday filing in New Zealand), then price the minutes at your rate. Weekly payroll is about 4.3 pay runs a month, fortnightly about 2.2.
What hourly rate should a bookkeeper charge?: The rate that covers the pay you want, your costs and the hours you cannot bill, with some profit on top. The charge-out rate calculator works it out from those figures. Look at local rates for your qualification and experience as a check, but your own costs are what the rate has to pay for.
How much should I charge for a bookkeeping clean-up or catch-up?: Price it separately from the monthly fee, as a one-off: estimate the months to catch up and the hours each takes (often more than a normal month, because statements and receipts have to be found), multiply by your rate, and ask for part of it up front. Then start the monthly fee once the books are current.
Are my figures stored or sent anywhere?: No. The calculation runs in your browser. Nothing you type is saved or sent to our server or anyone else. The only exception is if you ask us to email you the result: then your email address and a short summary of the result are stored, and nothing is sent until you confirm.

This calculator gives an estimate from the figures you enter. It is not financial advice. Xero is a trademark of Xero Limited. This tool and ReportPilot are independent and are not made or endorsed by Xero.

Bookkeeping pricing calculator: what should I charge this client a month?

The fee for this client