How much does monthly accounting cost for small businesses?

When you own a small business, you’re hands-on – but your time is limited. Even if you wanted to control every aspect of your business, it’s just not a good idea to do so. Why? It wastes time and ultimately wastes money. That’s why you’ll hire a lawyer, your own marketing person, and for many business owners, that also means hiring an accountant. 

So what does it cost to hire an accountant? Maybe you’ve already hired one and know what you’re paying, but are you getting good value? Are you getting everything you should for that price? We’ll break down our pricing structure so you can get a better idea of what our service might cost you. Here’s how we calculate your fee. 

The average cost of monthly accounting services at Kaizen

Let’s say you’re our average small business client. The way we quote is pretty simple. It relies on two basic factors. We’ll go into these in more detail later, but here they are in their most simple form. 

• Monthly: The complexity of your monthly financial activity and the complexity of your financial statements. 
• Yearly: The complexity of your tax return

Our average accounting fee comes out to approximately $775 per month. However, the fee for most businesses, depending on activity and complexities, ranges from $500 to $2,000 per month.

We have a fixed monthly fee. Built into this fee includes monthly profit and loss statements, monthly balance sheets, monthly bank reconciliation, business tax work, sales tax filings, audit representation, and advisory and guidance sessions with your accountant. It is set upon coming on board and is audited annually, as your accounting activity volume and other variables can change.

What factors influence monthly accounting rates?

Number of monthly business transactions

The first determiner of your pricing is pretty simple: the complexity of your business transactions. How often are they taking place, and where are they going? That’s why the largest factors in determining your monthly fee are the number of business transactions you make per month and the number of accounts you have. 

On our end, you’ll get accurate financial statements and pristine books — two components vital to any business with plans of growth, success, and compliance with tax law. 

Complexities in annual accounting services

Complexities are the other large factor in determining your monthly fee. These are factors we need to consider when getting your taxes ready. Especially as a business grows, it’s important to make sure that these details are locked down and organized so that you’re in the best position possible come tax season.  Some common complexities to consider include business locations, sales tax, number of loans, and the number of bank accounts.

Multiple Business Locations

• If you have multiple business locations and want each location to have its own monthly profit and loss sheet, we'll do that for you. Some business owners find this extremely gratifying – others don’t need it. 

• If an additional location is in another state, there is a potential for a required additional tax return. Our team is equipped to file business, personal, and payroll taxes throughout the United States.

Sales Tax Management

• Sales tax needs to be filed with the State on a monthly or quarterly basis. We do this because it saves our clients A LOT of time and effort. We also do it to ensure accuracy – and to make sure it gets done. It takes the responsibility for that reporting away from our clients so they can focus more on what brings them joy: their business. 

Number of Bank Accounts, loans, and credit cards

• As part of your onboarding, we’ll get access to your QuickBooks data. We’ll review your data for the number of bank accounts you have and during our onboarding process, we’ll talk about how those accounts are used so that we understand the complexity of your financials. Some businesses might only have one or two transactions on an account every month, while others have much more than that. This can factor into your monthly cost. 

Interested in a monthly accounting quote from KAIZEN?

We understand the weight of making a decision like this and take it seriously. That’s why we’re so transparent, so that you can make the best decision for you and your business.

If you’re curious about how much you’d pay and whether Kaizen is a good fit for your business, we’d be happy to talk it through with you. 

Schedule a free consultation call.