Practice economics
The pricing worksheet
Your client's shape on the left, the month it produces on the right. Built from our measured task baselines; the rate is yours, not ours.
i. The client
Count them from a real statement. Our test client runs ~160.
ii. Your numbers
What your time needs to earn. We publish no market rates; this number is the whole point.
Tested ledger seats run $25–55 (tracker).
iii. The month it produces
| Categorize the feeds | |
| Invoices & receivables | |
| Reconcile 2 accounts | |
| The safety pass (duplicates, refunds, leaks) | |
| Client questions, documented | |
| Payroll reconciliation | |
| Balance c/f |
A defensible monthly fee
The structure: measured hours × your rate, plus the software line, plus margin, because fixed fees eat variance. Quote the range or a point inside it; the client meeting where you explain these lines is the meeting where the fee stops being negotiable.
The fine print
Every range above scales from the steady-state month we measured for our test client (~160 lines, 2 accounts, 6 invoices) in the pricing article. Baselines are ceilings for an operator who knows their tool, not practice benchmarks. The rules, in full:
| Categorization | 0.55–1.1 min per line (30–60 min at 54 lines), × the documents factor |
| Invoices & receivables | 2.5–5 min per invoice (15–30 min at 6), incl. payment matching and an aging look |
| Reconciliation | 10–20 min per account, against real statements |
| Safety pass | 10–15 min base, × the documents factor. The part every ledger we tested skips for you: none flagged our duplicate |
| Client questions | 10–20 min base, × the documents factor |
| Documents factor | Clean ×0.85 · Typical ×1 · Shoebox ×1.4 (×1.5 on the safety pass) |
| Payroll reconciliation | 15–30 min flat: verifying the provider's entries landed and split correctly, not running payroll |
| Rounding | Hours to the quarter, fees to the nearest $5 |
This worksheet publishes no market rates and never will; what other bookkeepers charge is their business, and what your hour needs to earn is yours. Nothing here is entered, stored, or sent anywhere: the arithmetic runs entirely on this page.