How much does bookkeeping cost for a small business?

The short answer

At Account Direct, bookkeeping starts at $49.99 CAD a month, plus taxes. That price covers recording and classifying your transactions, reconciling your bank and credit card accounts, your GST/HST and QST returns, and the invoicing tool in your portal. Your exact price is set in your engagement letter, based on the work your books need.

What makes the price vary

Bookkeeping is priced mostly on the time it takes. Five things change that time.

• How many transactions you have. A few dozen a month is not the same work as several hundred.
• How many accounts. Every bank account and credit card has to be reconciled.
• Sales taxes. A business registered for the GST/HST and the QST has returns to prepare and file, monthly, quarterly or yearly.
• The state of your books. Books that are up to date take less work than months of catch-up. Catch-up work for earlier years is quoted separately.
• Your documents. Complete statements and readable receipts save the back and forth.

What our plan includes

For businesses across Canada, including Quebec, Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia, the plan includes:

• recording and classifying your transactions;
• reconciling your bank and credit card accounts;
• keeping your general ledger;
• financial reports in your portal: income statement, balance sheet and other reports agreed with you;
• tracking your sales taxes, and your GST/HST and QST returns, prepared and filed electronically once you approve them;
• sales tax registration, if you aren't registered yet;
• the invoicing tool in your portal, to invoice your own customers.

What's an add-on or quoted separately

• Your income tax returns and year-end slips. An add-on, priced on the returns your business needs; its legal structure (corporation, sole proprietorship or partnership) decides which ones.
• Catch-up work for earlier years.
• Personal returns of shareholders or partners.
• Tax planning beyond preparing your returns.

Keep your own books? We can prepare and file just your income tax or sales tax returns, on a quote.

How to compare two offers

Two monthly prices only compare if you know what each one covers. Ask these five questions.

1. Are the GST/HST and QST returns included, or billed on top?
2. Is the price fixed each month, or billed by the hour?
3. Are taxes extra?
4. What's billed on top, and is it agreed in advance?
5. How do you cancel, and with how much notice?

With us, work outside your plan is agreed with you in advance and billed separately, and a cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period.

In short

You pay for bookkeeping for the time it takes and for what it saves you: late returns, lost receipts and surprises at year end. Our full pricing is on our pricing page.