How we on-board new bookkeeping clients

Once small business owners figure out that we know a lot about bookkeeping and QuickBooks, the next question is: “How much and what do I do next?”

The other day, I was cc’d on an email that outlined this really clearly. I have changed some of the small business specifics, but the process is clear.  This quote is for a sole proprietor that has less than 40 transactions per month, and is located away from Oregon (so we won’t be visiting in person).

Dear Small Business Owner’s Spouse,

I spent some time reviewing your bank statements.  It will be a good starting point but as I suspected I do have some questions. Attached you will find our basic bookkeeping questionnaire, which covers most of what I need to know. Please take a minute and fill out as much as you can, then we can go over the other questions over the phone.

To set up your books we charge a one time set up fee of $500. This includes setting up of:

• QuickBooks:
  • Company information
  • Chart of accounts
  • Vendors
  • Bank accounts
  • Credit Cards
  • Monthly report groups to review out of QuickBooks
• Monthly dashboard of key items that are important to you and your husband (the owner)
• Collect and review bank and credit card statements for QuickBooks data entry
• Set up VPN access so that you can view your QuickBooks file, which will be hosted on our server

Once the setup is complete the actual data input for last year will go quickly. We would be able to get the entire year entered and reconciled for $500.

With the size your business is currently, and the number of transactions, we have a monthly accounting package for $250 per month and would include:

• QuickBooks bank and credit card data entry
• Bank reconciliations
• Credit card reconciliations
• Monthly prep of dashboard and QuickBooks reports
• Phone meeting to review your monthly dashboard and QuickBooks reports

The monthly bookkeeping that we do is very different than what we do to get it ready for a CPA. When we get it ready for a CPA we get it cleaned up enough that you can get your taxes done. The goal of our monthly bookkeeping service is to get your accounting to a point that you use your financials to make decisions about your business.

Let me know what you think!