Fees, what do you charge?

Hey @AmberR, 

Welcome to the community! That is a great question that I am sure hundreds of people here are wondering. There was a similar discussion started by @JenPM a few weeks ago that might be of interest to you, and there are a few other users (@201097 @EmilyMockett, @mcwagner and @lynda11_2, just to name a few) who might be willing to offer guidance from their own experiences. 

I'd like to give my two cents, though I am not a ProAdvisor, based on my experience doing teaching, web design and restaurant consultations. To start broad (getting meta), do you want to be the kind of advisor who leads your clients through the process, or do you want to teach them the process so they can eventually go out and do work on their own? 

In the past, most of my clients fell into two categories - client (a)  who has a very "just do x,y, and z for me and I will call you in a month" and client (b) who asked me to teach them how to do what I do so they can take what they've learned and run with it. I actually prefer working with client, that's just the teacher in me (b). While it might seem like I am putting myself out of work with this approach, I've never found this to be a problem - my ultimate goal is to help my clients succeed and not have to rely on me. This builds trust. These clients are hungry - they always come back wanting to learn more. Moreover, this approach actually gets me more business through word of mouth. Nothing wrong with client (a), it's an absolutely fine approach. 

For client (a), I tend to charge less because I don't really provide "knowledge" as much as perform labor-by-the-hour. We set a schedule and expectations, I deliver, and the process repeats. This is how I did most of my web-design work and how I charge for photo sessions.

For client (b) I charge about 50% more because I am giving away my secrets, and I make that clear. The initial consultation hours be longer than client (a)'s sessions and while it seem more expensive up front, what I teach them should (in theory) pay off more in the long-run. This was the approach I took when I did manager training and teaching consultations. I price based on what I see is the value I am providing. Does that make sense? 

My rule of thumb is, charge more for training because it requires you to do more original work in order to cater to the client's individual needs, and generally, these sessions tend to be a little more difficult. 

Thoughts? 

Hello Amber! 

This is definitely where I struggle to but I have learned it's alot of trail and error. I have learned tk stop overthinking it because I would do what it sounds like you are doing and worrying about what if I would of done this. However that is in the past and now you have a base as to what you could charge. Honestly I think that is a fair price without knowing all the details. But now you know maybe to up your price next time and see how it goes! 

One thing that hasn't been mentioned so far is it really also depends on 1. Where you are located and 2. Your clients. Big cities are going to have different price points then the small towns. I would recommend looking up the salary of an accountant in your area. Then Divide that by the number of hours in a work year to get the hourly rate. This was my base. Then decide if you want to raise it from here. 

I also charge differently based on my clients. I have small businesses and I don't want them to go bankrupt. It also depends on the complexity and time I'm going to dedicate to it. I wait until I actually talk to the person (or meet) so I can get an idea of how important they think accounting is, and overall just a sense of who they are. 

Good luck! I'm still trying to hit that sweet spot! 

I'm a CPA.  I work from home.  Just me and my computer (and my pinball machine).  No staff.  Low overhead.  Most days I wear pants.

Given all that, I charge $150/hour.  I only charge when I'm doing actual work; ie: I don't charge for phone calls and emails, time to the "nearest quarter hour" or anything like that.  Mostly I'm too lazy to track my time that closely.  Clients that are a little more of a pain, with lots of phone calls and "nagging" will pay a little more.  Easy clients get a little break.

I give away a lot of free advice (like here, as well as a couple of other online resources).  I don't mind because my best, highest value is what I can offer to people who become clients, and that happens AFTER the free advice.  I want them to remember "that Wagner was a nice guy that seemed to know what he was talking about," so that they will call me in the future, or even recommend me to a friend.  I have tons of clients that I have never met, who came to me after giving "free" advice.

I've never had to advertise, and I have more work than I can do.  So the results speak for themselves.

But that's just me.

I'm starting out myself and would love to see some more feedback as well please...

So, I'm in a very similar position as what you described for yourself education and research-wise.  I'm not a CPA, but I have had plenty of accounting classes (as well as business management, marketing, negotiations, etc...)  I've scoured forums just like this one looking at the ideas of others in our industry sometimes just out of curiousity, sometimes because I need to find that starting point to dive into an intense study of a particular area.  I just wanted to add to the other advice I've seen on here.  

1.) Price higher than you think you are worth.  I think that most people in our position under value themselves and their contribution to clients overall status.  I can't tell you how many clients have asked me "Is that all?" when looking at my invoice... or how many times I have thrown out a number a little bit larger than I would expect the client to accept, only to have the client not even bat an eyelash at the final total.  They tell me the same thing too - that they aren't willing or aren't capable of doing what I do, and the peace of mind I provide in just taking care of their books is worth more than they just paid.  You will define what you are worth by what you invoice and subsequently collect... and this will change as your knowledge, skill set, and confidence build.  Ask for more than you think you will get.   Worst case scenario, the client is outraged, and you can graciously discount their bill to something you think is more acceptable for both parties.  The next time you do a similar job you have a baseline for what the first one paid, and can adjust your pricing accordingly. 

2.) Don't be afraid of calling around.  Like another member posted - different areas are going to have different pricing structures.  If you are in a large metro area - call around to different people you find online that you think would be similar to you!  You are a business owner looking for bookkeeping services and you would like to know more about their pricing.  You can hear what the firms around you have as a "standard response" and you can learn what you want to say/don't want to say when you get the same type of cold calls.  I personally work in an office where we do a lot of tax prep for individuals.  Every few years we will call around to the bigger "franchise" offices and just ask what they charge for this type of form, or for a return that has this and that on it.  We don't have to identify ourselves and we never take up more than 5-10 minutes of time for the single phone call.  With the bookkeeping services, you should be able to at least find what ballpark you are looking at (in your area).  Charge on the higher end of that.

3.) Talk to the clients that you are onboarding to find  out what they were paying before you... they will likely tell you how they felt about it too... Use that information to adjust your pricing on the fly.

Lastly, from your original post I think that you are looking for some specific information (which is really really hard to find in these things!) so I figured I'd just post what we charge for the items you listed.

  - Simple individual tax prep ($200-$350 depending on complexity, form based pricing structure)

 - Teaching a client QBO (billed hourly at $100/hr)

 - Monthly bookkeeping for a small business (estimated hourly for the first few months and then billed out at a steady average fee after the "norm" has been established, usually around $150-$250 per month for a client with 1-2 financial accounts, doing no financial statements)

 - Quarterly tax prep for a small business (if we are doing books, additional $75 per quarter for just payroll reports - if we aren't doing books/tax then it is either the $75 or time billed at $100 per hour)

 - Past years bookkeeping clean-up (3 years?), set up bank rules for future, & autopay bills (*** Your efficiency is your profit... I would charge flat fee per month -$175/$200 depending on volume of data input - and make sure you bill out at that rate for the entire 36 months... Will each month take you the same amount of time?  Especially if you are setting up bank rules, etc.?  No.  You are increasing your profit... and also setting the expectation for the client of what it will cost in the future.  At the same time, you can bill out the months individually or grouped by quarter/year/whatever - so you can space out your billing/collections which should help both you and your client.)

The second hardest price to come up with is your second client. The good news is that after you get your second client, the third client pricing gets easier if you enjoy working with your second client. The hardest price to offer is getting your first client (which is you!). Once you give yourself permission to do then it frees up a lot of mental energy you have to go out and serve to the best of your abilities.

Good luck. If you haven't joined Hector and Kirk's Art of Value FB group, you should.