What does each bookkeeping client contribute?
Illustrative case · Small remote bookkeeping team; ordinary reconciliation and management reports; no audit, legal, tax-filing or licensed CPA claims · United States; California remote pass-through LLC planning case, with national wage comparisons
Explore this business · Unit economics and KPIs
The unit is one active client’s scoped monthly close. At year 1 assumptions, a core client pays $650 for 8.0 delivery hours and 1.0 owner review hour. Its workload margin is $219.30 after allocated labor, client tools and assumed billing/collection costs. This is a pricing diagnostic; company profit uses the complete paid roster and owner month, including idle time.
Count the task, not just the transaction
The tier scope includes a transaction ceiling and connected-account ceiling, plus a defined exception process and ordinary reports. A transfer between two connected accounts can appear twice; counting bank-feed rows blindly may overstate sales activity. Inventory, payroll, foreign currencies and multi-entity books require a revised scope or referral, not automatic inclusion in a larger count band. Compare completed reconciliations, document completeness, exceptions and review time together.
| Tier | Monthly fee | Transactions / accounts | Delivery hours | Paid owner review |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | $350 | 100 / 2 | 4.0 | 0.5 |
| Core | $650 | 250 / 4 | 8.0 | 1.0 |
| Complex | $1,000 | 500 / 6 | 14.0 | 1.5 |
Allocate the hours without inventing free labor
A paid delivery hour costs $32.48 including assumed burden. Dividing paid hours by usable delivery hours gives $46.40 per deliverable hour. Owner review uses $25.00 per hour from compensation divided by 160 paid hours. The table also deducts $15 per client, 2.0% processing and 1.0% expected write-off from the fee. Its fee calculation assumes steady collection; the monthly ledger applies processing cost when cash actually arrives.
| Tier | Fee | Delivery labor allocation | Owner review allocation | Workload margin after tools / assumed fees |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | $350 | $185.60 | $12.50 | $126.40 |
| Core | $650 | $371.20 | $25.00 | $219.30 |
| Complex | $1,000 | $649.60 | $37.50 | $267.90 |
The allocation is not an incremental payroll bill. Staffing is paid in half-FTE steps; adding one client inside unused capacity leaves payroll unchanged, while crossing a step adds coverage before it is filled. Do not deduct the allocated owner review again from EBITDA, which already includes the entire $4,000 monthly owner cost. The profitability statement keeps those company expenses explicit.
Reserve capacity for onboarding and cleanup
Maximum delivery capacity is 336 monthly hours, from 3 FTE at 112 usable hours each. It must cover recurring clients, new-client onboarding and paid cleanup simultaneously. Base onboarding per new tier takes 7.0, 12.0 or 20.0 delivery hours; review takes 1.0, 2.0 or 3.0 owner hours. Those are explicit assumptions to replace with measured cases.
At base month 12 the team has 29.4 expected clients and 2.5 paid delivery FTE; delivery work is 239.2 hours and owner review 29.9 hours. At month 24 expected clients reach 46.7; new requests that do not fit are declined/deferred rather than billed. Capacity is not evidence of customers.
Measure a close that can be sold again
Keep separate monthly registers for paid/usable hours, closed clients, late documents, unresolved exceptions, onboarding and cleanup time, reviewer time, rework, accepted/deferred prospects, churn reasons and aged receivables. Distinguish a report generated from software from a reconciled close reviewed against source records. The useful ratio is delivered work against paid capacity with review completed, not total bank transactions imported.
A scope review is triggered when actual work exceeds its envelope, documents repeatedly arrive late or exceptions change the engagement’s complexity. Reprice prospectively with an agreed new scope, narrow included work, or stop accepting work until capacity is restored. Compare a timed retainer estimate and a separate onboarding/cleanup queue with the monthly cash path before accepting a new client.
Sources and scope
- Illustrative bookkeeping case methodology · Checked 2026-10-05 · Educational assumptions selected for this scoped case; no actual client contracts, demand survey, founder or vendor quote.
- Intuit: bookkeeping scope, cleanup and monthly work · Checked 2026-10-05 · Inspected 2026-08-03 help revision: distinct cleanup/monthly phases, supporting-document dependency, scope exclusions. It does not verify our fees or delivery hours.
- BLS: bookkeeping, accounting and auditing clerks · Checked 2026-10-05 · National occupation comparison, May 2025 median 50,670 USD/year and 24.36 USD/hour. Not California recruitment, contractor billing or payroll burden. Search-index May 2024 snippets superseded by inspected page.
- IRS: employer Social Security and Medicare rates · Checked 2026-10-05 · Current employer FICA components 6.2% Social Security and 1.45% Medicare; other insurance, leave, benefits and unemployment remain case allowances.
- California Board of Accountancy: services and attest authority · Checked 2026-10-05 · Board chart marks bookkeeping as a service that can be performed by non-CPAs. Public-accountancy titles/assurance services are not offered. Page last updated 2024-06-13; inspected current site on 2026-10-05.
- Microsoft 365 Business Premium US pricing · Checked 2026-10-05 · Business Premium, no Teams distinction inferred: inspected listed option 22 USD/user/month paid yearly and 26.40 monthly subscription. Model selects monthly option. Licences alone do not implement permissions, backup, incident procedures or contractor setup. Tax extra; recheck purchase contract.
- California FTB: LLC annual tax and income fee · Checked 2026-10-05 · Pass-through LLC annual 800 tax; additional fee at 250,000/500,000/1,000,000/5,000,000 California annual income bands. Model assumes January year and all case revenue attributable to California, cash at month 4/6, annual income known for estimated fee. Income-tax elections and owner tax require adviser review.
- Microsoft: Surface Laptop for Business starting-price comparison · Checked 2026-10-05 · Inspected current page now describes 13-inch Snapdragon X2 Plus starting at 1,499.99, not old indexed 899.99 snippet. Starting configuration is not a matched 16-GB/512-GB four-device quote. Comparison excludes monitors, peripherals, tax, freight, configuration and support; our 1,000 laptop input remains unverified.
- Intuit: ProAdvisor program and training · Checked 2026-10-05 · Free program signup and current training/certification curriculum inspected. It does not promise our team certification or a 100-hour duration. Preopening allowance pays employees and owner for training, test files, review and handoff procedures.
- Google Ads: average daily and monthly budgets · Checked 2026-10-05 · For most campaigns, stated monthly limit is 30.4 times average daily budget; case uses a fixed marketing allowance without CPC, keyword-volume or conversion claims.
- SBA official 7(a)/504 FOIA records · Checked 2026-10-05 · Inherited hash-verified June 30 2026 aggregate snapshot, NAICS 541219 whole category. Counts use approval FY2023-2025, positive amounts and PIF/CHGOFF/EXEMPT. No borrower rows used.
- US Census Bureau: 2022 NAICS 541219 · Checked 2026-10-05 · Other Accounting Services includes bookkeeping without restriction to remote teams. Retain broad classification; lender activity is not exact-format evidence.
- SBA: microloan purpose and lender decisions · Checked 2026-10-05 · Current official page: up to 50,000, maximum seven-year repayment, working capital/equipment and intermediary decisions; not existing-debt repayment/real-estate purchase. Model 25,000 debt at 10.5%/60 months is assumed, not this page's loan offer.