So: you’ve realized you need to hire a bookkeeper to help manage your company’s financial records. Find your market worth with a report tailored to you, Certifications in the same industry as Certified Bookkeeper (CB), ranked by hourly rate, Associate in Insurance Accounting and Finance (AIAF), ISO/IEC 27001:2013 Internal Auditor (TPECS), Global Logistics Specialist Professional Designation (GLS), Licensed Substance Abuse Associate (LSAA), Department of Public Safety Standards And Training (DPSST) Certification, IBM Certified Specialist SPSS Statistics Level 1 v2, PAHCS Certified Dermatology Coding Specialist (CDCS). “You can save money on issues with compliance,” says Alison Edward, chief balancer from bookkeepers Simply Balanced Solutions. That can be between £35 and £150 an hour, depending on the job. Everything you need to know about the ICAS qualification. Is online bookkeeping service right for you? That said, being outside a major metro doesn’t necessarily mean low salaries. Do you know what people like you are earning? The total cost will depend on how long it takes them to do the work. Stop guessing. It’s a bookkeeper’s job to look after these day-to-day accounts, ensuring sales invoices match payments, monitoring the business’ bank feed, processing expenses, and often VAT and payroll. Getting answers on the cost of bookkeeping is often less than straightforward. Subscribe for business tips, tax updates, financial fundamentals and more. Keep in mind that there are averages, for the entire state – in large, diverse states, local salaries might vary a lot from the statewide average. The But the Books branding is designed to emphasise that human side, so that businesses can be confident their bookkeepers really know their business and want to help them succeed. Your questions answered. Let’s break down costs and considerations for each. But generally, bookkeepers either charge an hourly rate or a monthly fixed fee. Claiming back mileage, telephone bills and use of the home as expenses are some of the ways bookkeepers can save businesses money, as well as preventing double entry where suppliers invoices can be accidentally paid twice. The level of review and interaction with your bookkeeping team can also vary by provider. So, how much does it really cost to hire a bookkeeper? Zoe Whitman, founder of But the Books bookkeepers in Bristol, says her fixed monthly fee starts at around £300 for basic bookkeeping, but with extras added on for services such as payroll and VAT. Learn more about how we work with our clients. Visit PayScale to research bookkeeper hourly pay by city, experience, skill, employer and more. A traditional bookkeeper will usually charge you an hourly rate to do your books each month. Hiring a bookkeeper can vary depending on the size of the business and the experience of the bookkeeper. Regardless of the solution you choose, you’ll be taking a big step towards getting your time back, and building a financial foundation to help your business continue to grow. But there is an advantage to smaller businesses hiring a freelance bookkeeper – the client will only pay for the time they need, and not be liable for employer-related costs such as holiday and pensions. Perform any combination of routine calculating, posting, and verifying duties to obtain primary financial data for use in maintaining accounting records. Knowing how much cash is in the bank, how much a business needs to keep aside for end of year tax payments and what can be taken off as an expense can dramatically change business decisions over the course of a year. Get expert CFO help with budgeting, fundraising, and more. The more invoices going through the business and the more time it takes to complete the work, the higher the fee. Use our tool to get a personalized report on your market worth. There’s a lot of different information floating around on cost, and it’s not always clear what might apply to your particular situation. Hourly wages/salary costs, however are not the full story for an in-house hire. For a larger business with a finance department, a bookkeeper’s salary would start in the region of £22-25,000, rising to £30,000 for bookkeepers doing payroll and reconciling accounts for auditors, according to some bookkeepers we surveyed. “If they automate them [receipts] to me in the cloud, or if they turn up with a scraggly old carrier bag, obviously there’s a different level of work,” says Edward. The average hourly pay for a Bookkeeper at Self-Employed is $24.57.