You must keep track of every transaction when you run a business, no matter its scale. There are multiple ways of doing this. One, you can do it yourself, which will take up a lot of your valuable time. Two, you can hire a bookkeeper, which will save you both time and money, both in the long and short runs.
Now, what type of service you will hire will depend mainly on the cost of bookkeeping services because you are running a business, after all. You can hire a part-time bookkeeper if you own a small or medium business. For larger businesses, you can either hire a full-time bookkeeper, which is a bit costlier, or you can outsource bookkeeping services to save both time and money.
Let’s take a detailed look at various bookkeeping services cost.
How much does it cost for bookkeeping services?
Businesses, no matter what their type and scale are, have tons of transactions every day. It is very important to keep track of these transactions for the betterment of the business and avoid legal issues down the line. As a business owner, you have to ensure you take proper measures to keep track of your transactions.
This is where bookkeeping comes in. Bookkeeping is a practice where you keep track of every business transaction and keep their records. This is different from accounting, as bookkeepers either have an associate’s degree or only the necessary skills to track small or medium business transactions.
On the other hand, an accountant has a bachelor’s degree in either accounting or finance at the very least, and they expertly handle large businesses. So, suppose you own a small or medium business. In that case, hiring a bookkeeping service will be better suited to you than an accountant because the cost of bookkeeping services for small businesses will be more affordable.
Now, when you hire a bookkeeping service, you should do so by looking at two things. First, you must see what type of service your bookkeeper needs. Second, you also have to make a cost-benefit analysis by measuring the average cost of bookkeeping services and then decide what type of service will be beneficial for you.
Let’s take a look at the average cost of bookkeeping services for small businesses as well as medium and large ones in Australia.
1. Part-time bookkeepers
If you are starting as a business, or the scale of your business is small, then you will not have that many transactions per day to deal with. That said, they are not so few that you can track or record them yourself. In this case, you should hire a part-time bookkeeper.
Now, you can hire a new part-time employee as your bookkeeper. Or you can train an existing employee with the basics of bookkeeping so that they can look after your transactions. No matter what you do, you have to look at their work so everything is in order.
The advantage of hiring a part-time bookkeeper is that it is cost-effective. The bookkeeping rate per hour in 2023 Australia is around $40, so you will only have to pay them around $3200/month for a 4-hour work shift. You also won’t have to go through hiring another new employee for such a small-scale job.
On the other hand, when you hire a part-time bookkeeper, you are compromising the quality of the job. They are prone to making more mistakes than full-time and more experienced bookkeepers. This could create a lot of issues for you down the line.
2. Full-time bookkeepers
No matter how cost-effective part-time bookkeepers are, you might have to hire an in-house bookkeeper when you grow your business. This will result in increased efficiency and experience. The mistakes the full-time bookkeepers will make will be much fewer than part-timers, although you will have to supervise their work nonetheless.
Hiring a full-time bookkeeper is a costlier option than the previous one. Taking the average bookkeeper hourly rate in Australia at $40, you will have to pay an in-house bookkeeper around $6400 per month. Add to that the other added costs, such as various benefits you have to pay your employees, which will go even higher.
3. Outsourcing bookkeeping services
This is one of the most recent and cost-effective ways to hire a bookkeeping service. Instead of hiring a part-time or full-time bookkeeper, you can outsource your business’s bookkeeping service to a firm such as ours. We at Seed Plus provide expert bookkeeping services at an affordable price range.
While you had to pay about $6400 for an in-house bookkeeper, outsourcing bookkeeping rates in Australia are between $500 to $2500 on average per month in 2023. But the reduced charge doesn’t mean you will be compromising on the quality of the job. Our expert bookkeepers are adept at undertaking any bookkeeping job you have for us.
Apart from the low freelance bookkeeper hourly rate in 2023, you can customize the type of service you need by outsourcing your bookkeeping services. Also, you can hire a bookkeeping firm to handle more advanced forms of management accounting, which will work as a virtual accounting department for your business. This will come in especially handy if your business is in a growth stage.
The bookkeeping services cost is a very important factor in you making your decision about hiring one for your business. No matter what type of bookkeeping service you hire, you always have to see whether it suits your needs as well as your budget. There’s no point in hiring a service that is too costly and has a larger scope than your business requires. Now, is there?
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