The short answer
For most small businesses in Florida, monthly bookkeeping costs fall into one of three tiers:
- Micro / solo businesses (under $250K revenue, low transaction volume): $250–$500/month
- Established small businesses ($250K–$2M revenue, with payroll): $500–$1,500/month
- Growing businesses ($2M–$10M revenue, multiple revenue streams, payroll, contractors): $1,500–$3,500/month
One-time projects like QuickBooks cleanup are priced separately, usually as a flat fee based on how messy the books are and how many months need rework. Cleanup projects typically run $1,500–$7,500 depending on scope.
What you're actually paying for
Bookkeeping pricing isn't about hours — it's about scope. A standard monthly bookkeeping engagement includes:
- Bank and credit card reconciliations for every account
- Categorization of every transaction
- Recording of invoices, bills, and customer payments
- Monthly Profit & Loss and Balance Sheet
- A documented month-end close process
- Year-end handoff to your CPA
Add-on services that affect the price:
- Payroll runs and payroll tax tracking
- Accounts payable management (paying vendors on your behalf)
- Accounts receivable management (sending invoices, chasing payments)
- Sales tax tracking and filings
- 1099 preparation at year-end
- Inventory tracking
- Job costing or class tracking for project-based businesses
What drives the price up
1. Transaction volume
The single biggest cost driver is how many transactions hit your books each month. A consulting business with 30 transactions and one bank account is dramatically less work than a restaurant with 800 daily POS transactions, three bank accounts, and a credit card processor that deposits gross sales separately from fees.
2. Number of accounts
Each bank account, credit card, loan, line of credit, and merchant account needs to be reconciled monthly. A business with one checking account and one credit card might take 2 hours a month. The same business with three banks, four cards, two loans, and a Stripe account might take 8.
3. Payroll complexity
One W-2 employee on direct deposit is simple. Ten employees across multiple states, some with tip income, plus a handful of 1099 contractors, is a different animal. Payroll support is usually priced per employee per month on top of base bookkeeping.
4. Industry
Some industries simply have more bookkeeping complexity built in:
- Restaurants — daily sales reconciliation, tip allocation, COGS tracking, multiple deposit sources
- Construction — job costing, WIP schedules, retainage, subcontractor tracking
- Real estate — property-by-property tracking, escrow accounts, depreciation schedules
- E-commerce — multi-channel sales reconciliation across Shopify, Amazon, etc.
5. How current the books are when you start
If you're starting with three years of unreconciled QuickBooks, cleanup comes first and that's a separate flat-fee project. Ongoing monthly bookkeeping is much cheaper once everything is current.
What drives the price down
- Clean current books — if your reconciliations are caught up and your chart of accounts is sensible, monthly maintenance is straightforward
- Connected bank feeds — automated imports vs. manual entry from PDF statements
- Cloud accounting — QuickBooks Online, Xero, and similar tools cost less to maintain than desktop QuickBooks or spreadsheets
- Clear separation of business and personal expenses — using a dedicated business account makes bookkeeping cheaper, full stop
- Documented vendor and customer lists — saves hours of "what is this?" cleanup
Hourly, flat-fee, or value-based?
Bookkeepers in Florida typically price one of three ways:
Hourly ($35–$100/hour)
Common for one-off projects or very small clients. The advantage is you only pay for time used. The disadvantage is you have no idea what the monthly bill will be, and incentives are misaligned — slower bookkeeper = bigger bill.
Flat monthly fee
The most common arrangement for ongoing bookkeeping. You know what you're paying every month, the bookkeeper knows what they're delivering, and scope creep gets addressed up front. This is how we price most of our ongoing engagements.
Value-based pricing
Used by some firms for advisory-heavy engagements where the deliverable is more strategic than transactional. Less common for pure bookkeeping.
What about freelance bookkeepers on Upwork or Fiverr?
You can find offshore bookkeepers for $5–$15 an hour, and for very simple businesses some clients have made that work. The risks to be aware of:
- Limited familiarity with U.S. tax categorization rules
- Time zone friction when you have a quick question
- Data security and confidentiality concerns
- No continuity if the freelancer moves on
- Inconsistent documentation that creates problems at tax time
For a business of any complexity, a U.S.-based bookkeeper who knows your state's rules — Florida sales tax, Florida payroll specifics, Florida industries — is usually worth the cost difference.
How to budget for it
A useful rule of thumb: bookkeeping should cost roughly 0.5% to 2% of your annual revenue. A $500K business spending $500/month ($6,000/year) is at 1.2% — right in the middle of normal. A $500K business spending $2,500/month is probably overpaying. A $5M business spending $500/month is probably under-served.
If your bookkeeping costs are above 2% of revenue, look at what's driving it — usually it's complexity that could be simplified (too many accounts, mixed personal/business spending, no documented processes).
The hidden cost of cheap bookkeeping
The cheapest bookkeeper isn't usually the lowest total cost. Here's what gets expensive about under-priced bookkeeping:
- Tax overpayment — miscategorized expenses lead to missed deductions
- CPA cleanup fees — your tax preparer charges more to fix messy books
- Bad decisions — running a business off inaccurate numbers costs real money
- Audit risk — sloppy books are harder to defend
- Financing friction — bad books can sink a loan application
Frequently asked questions
For an established small business with payroll and standard complexity, $500–$1,500 per month is typical in Florida. Below that range is usually a very small business or limited scope; above it usually means higher complexity or more services bundled in.
Almost always, until you're large enough to need 30+ hours of bookkeeping work per week. An in-house full-charge bookkeeper in Florida runs roughly $50,000–$70,000 a year in salary plus benefits and software. Outsourcing the same scope is typically a fraction of that.
Cleanup is priced as a one-time project based on how many months need rework and how messy things are. Typical range is $1,500–$7,500. We always quote it as a flat fee after reviewing your file, not as an hourly engagement. More on our QuickBooks cleanup service.
No. Bookkeeping and accounting services are not subject to Florida sales tax. You'll only see sales tax on accounting software subscriptions if it's billed through us.
Get a real quote
Because pricing depends on your specific situation, the only honest way to give you a number is a 15-minute call to look at your books. We'll quote you a flat monthly fee with no surprises.