Quick answer
What a bookkeeper costs depends mostly on how much activity your business has, how many accounts there are to reconcile, and whether the books are current or behind. Bookkeeping is usually priced either by the hour or as a flat monthly fee, with catch-up work quoted separately. Our own monthly plans start at $199 a month plus GST/HST, priced by the size of your business rather than by the hour.
What decides the price of bookkeeping?
Two businesses with the same revenue can need very different amounts of bookkeeping. The price follows the work, and the work follows a handful of things:
- Transaction volume. Every deposit, card charge and bill has to be categorized and checked. A café with hundreds of small card sales a month is more work than a consultant who sends a few invoices.
- Number of accounts. Each bank account, credit card and line of credit has to be reconciled against its statement every month.
- Payroll. Employees add pay runs, source deductions and remittances, and year-end slips.
- GST/HST. A registered business tracks the tax it collects and the input tax credits it can claim, and files a return for every reporting period.1
- The state of your records. Receipts that arrive on time and in one place take less time than a shoebox at year end.
- Whether the books are current. Months or years of catch-up is a separate job from keeping books up to date.
- Complexity. Inventory, job costing, loans, foreign currency and several revenue streams all add review time.
Hourly or a flat monthly fee?
Both are common, and neither is automatically cheaper. What matters is whether you can predict the bill and whether the price tells you what you are getting.
| Hourly | Flat monthly fee | |
|---|---|---|
| How the bill is set | Time spent, billed after the work | An agreed price for an agreed scope, usually set by size |
| Predictability | Varies month to month, and rises in busy or messy months | The same each month until the scope changes |
| Suits | Occasional or one-off work | Ongoing monthly bookkeeping |
| Ask about | What a typical month takes, and who does the work | The limits the price assumes, and what happens if you go over |
What do bookkeepers earn, and why is a firm’s rate higher?
Job Bank, the Government of Canada’s labour-market site, publishes low, median and high hourly wages for accounting technicians and bookkeepers, nationally and by province and region.2 It is the most reliable public reference for what the work pays.
Those figures are wages — what an employer pays an employee. A bookkeeping firm or freelancer charging you for the same hour also has to cover software, insurance, training, time spent on work that cannot be billed, and the cost of finding clients. So a bookkeeper’s rate to a business will sit above the wage for the job, and a quote close to the wage is worth asking questions about.
Bookkeeping is also not a regulated profession in Canada. Job Bank’s own listing for the occupation says it is not regulated, and describes the usual path as a college program or accounting courses combined with experience.3 Experience with businesses like yours tells you more than a title does.
What should a monthly bookkeeping fee include?
A monthly fee is only comparable once you know what it covers. At a minimum, ask whether it includes:
- Categorizing every transaction, not just the ones the software guesses
- Reconciling each bank and credit card account to its statement
- A monthly profit and loss statement and balance sheet you can read
- GST/HST tracking, and who prepares and files the return
- Year-end records ready for your tax return
Payroll, the annual corporate tax return (T2), catch-up work and setup are often priced separately. None of that is a problem if you are told up front.
What do our plans cost?
Our monthly bookkeeping is a flat price set by the size of your business, not by the hour, and every plan includes all of the monthly work — the tiers are about size, not features.
| Plan | Per month | Sized for |
|---|---|---|
| Essential | $199 | Up to 75 transactions per month; One bank account; One credit card |
| Growth | $299 | Up to 200 transactions per month; Up to two bank accounts; Up to two credit cards |
| Pro | $399 | Up to 400 transactions per month |
- Payroll with monthly bookkeeping: $69 a month plus $10 a month per employee.
- Corporate tax (T2) for monthly bookkeeping clients: from $799.
- Onboarding: Basic onboarding is included. If your setup is more complex, extended onboarding is $199 plus GST/HST, and we’ll quote it before we start.
- Catch-up work is quoted per year of books before it starts, once we have seen what is there.
Prices are the same in every city. Meet the bookkeeper who would do the work on the Halifax or St. John’s page.
What does it cost to go without a bookkeeper?
Doing the books yourself costs no fee, but it is not free. The costs are less visible:
- Your time, usually in the evenings, and usually at the moment the business needs you elsewhere.
- Missed input tax credits. A GST/HST registrant recovers the tax paid on expenses for its commercial activities by claiming ITCs, and CRA sets a time limit on the claim: generally four years, and two for some larger businesses and financial institutions.4
- Penalties and interest. CRA charges a penalty on a corporation return filed late and daily-compounded interest on unpaid balances,5,6 and a GST/HST return filed late while you owe money may be charged a late-filing penalty.7
- A bigger year-end bill. Books that were never reconciled have to be sorted out before anyone can prepare a return from them.
How do you compare bookkeeping quotes?
- Ask for the price per month, and what would change it.
- Ask what is included, using the list above.
- Ask whether accounts are reconciled to the actual bank and card statements.
- Ask who files your GST/HST return, and whether they can be authorized to deal with CRA for you — CRA lets a business authorize a bookkeeper as its representative.9
- Ask who prepares your tax returns — the bookkeeping practice itself, or someone it hands the books to at year end.
- Ask what happens if your bookkeeper is away — who can pick up your file.
Frequently asked questions
Is a bookkeeper worth it for a small business?
It depends on how much your time is worth and how current your books are now. If the bookkeeping regularly slides, or year end is a scramble, a predictable monthly fee usually costs less than the time and the late fixes.
Can bookkeeping fees be deducted?
For sole proprietors and partnerships, CRA includes accounting fees for help keeping your records among deductible business expenses.8 Whether and how a particular fee is deducted on your return depends on your situation.
Do you charge by the hour?
No. Monthly bookkeeping is a flat monthly price set by the size of your business, and catch-up work is quoted before it starts, so you know the number first.
Is catch-up bookkeeping included in the monthly price?
No. Bringing old months or years up to date is a separate job, quoted per year of books once we have seen the records. See what happens if you fall behind.
Sources
- Reporting requirements and deadlines – File your GST/HST return, Canada Revenue Agency. Accessed .
- Bookkeeper in Canada: Wages, Job Bank (Government of Canada). Accessed .
- Bookkeeper in Canada: Job requirements, Job Bank (Government of Canada). Accessed .
- Input tax credits, Canada Revenue Agency. Accessed .
- Avoiding penalties, Canada Revenue Agency. Accessed .
- Understanding interest, Canada Revenue Agency. Accessed .
- GST/HST filing penalties, Canada Revenue Agency. Accessed .
- Business expenses, Canada Revenue Agency. Accessed .
- Authorize a representative: Overview, Canada Revenue Agency. Accessed .
This article is general information about how things usually work in Canada, current as of the date it was last updated. It isn’t advice about your own tax or accounting position, which depends on facts we haven’t seen.