As an international trainer for Intuit®, I get to meet accounting professionals from across the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom … and I’ve discovered we have a lot in common. It seems a lot of us face challenges in finding and retaining clients in this difficult economy. In addition, we are usually so busy that we overlook the importance of good client service – which is important to cultivating and maintaining client loyalty and our trusted advisor relationship.
Do you take time to talk with clients about their needs, challenges or pain points? Do they ask you questions or do they seek answers from others or online communities?
Keep in mind that good clients are concerned with quality work, customer service and the benefits we provide, but their primary concern is not our billing rate or fees! Clients and prospects whose primary concern is finding someone with the lowest billing rate are not good clients and we should not accept them as clients.
Thanks to many of you, we had the most replies for the Billing Rate Survey ever! I’m thrilled to share the initial results with you. Average rates and fees for standard accounting services (bookkeeping) tasks down slightly this year compared to our last survey conducted in 2011 (see disclaimer below).
Remember, the results below represent just the tip of the iceberg. We will have more analysis and exciting results for you soon, but here is your first look at the final results.
Results Compared to 2011 Survey
Let’s look at a few specific services compared to 2011 and 2009.
Accounting Services (Bookkeeping) Rate
Some practitioners look to accounting services or bookkeeping rates as the single best barometer, so we’ll start here. Rates were essentially flat compared to prior years.
| Response | 2013 | 2011 | 2009 |
| Average | $64 | $68 | $64 |
| Mode | $50 | $50 | $50 |
General Business Consulting Rate
Rates were similar to those in 2009, and down from 2011.
| Response | 2013 | 2011 | 2009 |
| Average | $98 | $118 | $95 |
| Mode | $75 | $150 | $75 |
Installation and Setup Fee (New User)
The average rate was down from prior years.
| Response | 2013 | 2011 | 2009 |
| Average | $263 | $391 | $327 |
| Mode | $500 | $250 | $500 |
Hourly Rates in 2013
We’re showing the average rate (mean), mode (the most frequently used amount) and median (the middle value).
The majority of practitioners charge hourly rates (Some also have services offered for set fees; see below).
| Response | Tax Preparation Services | Accounting Services | Payroll Services | Auditing | Personal Financial Planning | QuickBooks Consulting | Business Consulting | |
| Average | $110 | $64 | $62 | $108 | $116 | $80 | $98 | |
| Mode | $75 | $50 | $50 | $150 | $50 | $75 | $75 | |
| Median | $100 | $55 | $50 | $100 | $100 | $75 | $80 |
Fixed Fees in 2013 Survey
A sizable group of practitioners charge for services by fixed fees. Most of these respondents (but not all) also offer services on an hourly basis.
| Response | Tax Preparation Services | Accounting Services | Payroll Services | Auditing | Personal Financial Planning | |||
| Average | $513 | $499 | $140 | $3,234 | $329 | |||
| Mode | $250 | $300 | $100 | $10,000 | $500 | |||
| Median | $200 | $250 | $75 | $350 | $130 |
| Response | QuickBooks Consulting (training) | QuickBooks Consulting (troubleshooting) | QuickBooks Consulting (setup) | Business Consulting | ||||
| Average | $364 | $193 | $263 | $863 | ||||
| Mode | $75 | $75 | $500 | $75 | ||||
| Median | $100 | $85 | $125 | $125 |
Stay Tuned – More Data to Come
These rates are overall national averages (with about 10% from Canada, United Kingdom and other countries) and include a wide range of practitioners. Soon, we will publish breakdowns as to rates charged by population density (practitioners in rural and high density areas tend to charge less) and title (CPAs and QuickBooks ProAdvisors®tend to charge more).
Disclaimer
By conducting this survey as an informal, web-based straw poll, we are able to develop a large sample. We believe the results to be meaningful, if unscientific.
To the best of our knowledge, this is the largest ongoing survey conducted among QuickBooks® practitioners on the rates they charge. We encourage you to use the survey results as one of many data points when you look at how you structure your rates and fees. We also encourage you to apply future results which will provide more detail in terms of more of the factors affecting rates and fees. Please stay tuned for those results, which we will publish soon.
Originally published on Intuit Accountant News Central: https://blog.accountants.intuit.com/
There were thousands of responses for most of the survey (except for the rates for audits).
For any survey results, it is always interesting to know the number of responses. Obviously, if the response rate is high, that lends statistical validity to the reported numbers. If survey response is small, then take it with a grain of salt.
Given that I operate in the SF Bay Area, which has a much higher cost of living than most other areas of the US, I look forward to seeing a breakdown by region.
Thank you for conducting this survey and sharing your knowledge.
I don’t see audit for $10 – $100? I do see $100 under hourly rates for audit. The audit rates are funny because there were not as many data points and several of them were 10,000 which made it the mode (most frequent). Several people put in less than 100 and several put in high thousands, which throws off the average. This is why median is often the best. That is why the average is 3234 and the median is only 350. That question had the fewest responses and the highest variance in responses.(10 to 32000). We probably should have excluded the results for auditing.
@Michelle Long, I want to know who is doing audits for only $10 – $100? These are ridiculously low numbers that don’t even begin to cover the cost of E&O insurance, let alone peer review, or any professional labor! Those numbers do NOT pass a “smell test” for reasonableness!
@Demos — Those are the correct numbers for auditing. We put in median statistics because mode and average can be misleading. For auditing there were not nearly as many data points and several of them were 10,000 which made it the mode (most frequent). Several people put in less than 100 and several put in high thousands, which throws off the average. This is why median is often the best. That is why the average is 3234 and the median is only 350. That question had the fewest responses and the highest variance in responses.(10 to 32000).
Thanks for posting the results. As usual you always have good information that you share to help all of us grow. Thanks Michelle!
Are you sure you got the auditing fixed rates right? Those have the biggest range of numbers.