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• # 116637
• Sat 28 Apr 2018 09:13 AM

I am starting my new bookkeeping practice in the next couple of weeks, having organised some local publicity here where I am based in the East Midlands. I will be working alone to start with so keen to work out the right fees to charge new clients... I am assuming different rates for different categories of clients be it sole trader , limited company etc . I am looking for help to pitch my charges in the right place without being too cheap so that I am saturated with work that does not pay.I would be grateful if any of you with existing practices would be willing to send me some price lists to give me an idea of what to charge for my own work. Thanks in advance.

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• # 116741
• Thu 17 May 2018 01:25 PM

Hi Kelham123

It's difficult to put your finger on what to charge when, but the general advice these days is don't charge by the hour. From your post, I realise this is now several weeks on so you may have already set pricing but if you have time then you should take a look at Mark Wickersham's book 'How to build a successful bookkeeping business'. It certainly opened my eyes to the world of value pricing, for which I now use his software Pricing in the Cloud to price jobs to clients, but it also puts other things into focus too. I'm not usually an advocate for these sorts of things but this really did help me and I was charging £35 per hour as it was.

Many best wishes

Kim

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• # 116803
• Sun 03 Jun 2018 03:07 PM

gallygaskins said:

“

Hi Kelham123

It's difficult to put your finger on what to charge when, but the general advice these days is don't charge by the hour. From your post, I realise this is now several weeks on so you may have already set pricing but if you have time then you should take a look at Mark Wickersham's book 'How to build a successful bookkeeping business'. It certainly opened my eyes to the world of value pricing, for which I now use his software Pricing in the Cloud to price jobs to clients, but it also puts other things into focus too. I'm not usually an advocate for these sorts of things but this really did help me and I was charging £35 per hour as it was.

Many best wishes

Kim

”

 so Kim from this am I right in saying you were charging £35 per hour and with this pricing software you ended up making more than that with clients on average?

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• # 116804
• Mon 04 Jun 2018 12:13 PM

Hi 

It is a different view so I am not saying other views are wrong.    But I don,t like anything that Mark stands for.  Loads of bookkeepers charge hourly and there is nothing wrong with doing so.   They are my bread and butter clients and if they want hourly that is what they get.  If they want fixed that is what they get.  Value pricing is the same as fixed pricing you decide what you want them to pay and they either like it or they don,t. 

Be careful not to damage your reputation as clients and people talk networking.   Maybe not in London but people talk in Glasgow to see if they are been rip off.  So they may find you are charging completely different prices and you are ripping them off. 

At the end of the day set what you what paid and be fair.   Value pricing in my eyes is another word for fixed it is all the same.  The client agrees to pay it or they don,t. 

But don,t lose clients because they like hourly 22 years in the business and I still love my hourly clients.  They tend to be very fair as we have a good relationship.    

You don,t need cloud pricing software to do Value pricing.  You can work it out yourself there are loads of informative articles on it that are not trying to flog you software.

• Sarah Douglas C.FICB

  HouseTree Business Ltd 

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