Bookkeeping services for small business, with the prices and the numbers published

Bookkeeping services for small business: what each firm charges, from its own pricing page, plus free close checklists and templates. Dated and sourced.

A small business bookkeeping service costs from US$99 a month to $750 a month to start. We read those prices on each firm's own pricing page. Price is the part you can compare, though. What you get for it is harder to see.

Before you hand someone your books, you need to know four things: what day of the month your books will be closed, how often they get a transaction wrong, what you pay per transaction, and what their guarantee covers when something goes wrong. We checked six online bookkeeping services. One publishes its close day. None publishes the other three.

This site shows you which firms publish what. It lists what each firm charges and the questions to ask before you sign. It has the checklists and templates bookkeepers use to close a month, with US and Canadian payroll and sales tax steps and a worked example for British Columbia. Every fact has a date and a source. Our own firm plans to publish all four numbers when it opens.

Why the numbers matter

On 27 December 2024, Bench, an online bookkeeping firm with more than 11,000 small business customers, shut its platform without warning [1]. Its customers couldn't reach their books just as tax season approached [2]. Employer.com bought Bench within days, and service resumed in January 2025 [3].

On 8 September 2026, Finally, another bookkeeping firm, began winding down. Its bookkeeping customers were moved to a firm called Inkle [4].

Those customers had picked well-funded firms with good reputations. That was the obvious way to choose, and it didn't protect them. A good reputation tells you nothing about the day your books close, how many errors get through, or whether you can take your books with you when you leave.

So the only protection is to ask for those numbers in writing, and to keep your books in a file you own.

For small business owners

1. 
   How much does a bookkeeper cost? Six services priced from their own pages, what each starting price covers, your first-year cost if you're behind, and seven questions to ask any bookkeeper before you sign.
2. 
   Catch-up bookkeeping. If you're months behind, why catching up before the CRA contacts you costs less, and a list to join for our catch-up service. It will be done in your own QuickBooks or Xero file, at a fixed price for each month behind.

For bookkeepers

1. 
   Month-end close checklist. The whole close in order, from bank reconciliations to locking the period, and each step says what done looks like. Payroll and sales tax steps branch for the US and Canada, on their own pages: payroll, sales tax, and a worked British Columbia client.
2. 
   Bookkeeping engagement letter template. One numbered clause per topic, from scope and close date to fees, privacy and the handover at the end.
3. 
   Close kit. The checklist as a tool your own agent runs against your client's QuickBooks Online or Xero file. Join the list.
4. 
   Onboarding kit. The engagement letter, intake questionnaire and access checklist, filled in by your agent from your first call with a client. Join the list.

Our own bookkeeping firm is coming

We're building a bookkeeping firm that runs the same checklists, and it plans to publish what no other firm does:

1. Its close day. The business day of the month your books are closed, and every month's record against it.
2. Its error rate. Bookkeeping errors come in a dozen kinds, and the mechanical checks catch only some of them. So we'll report, for each kind of error, how many we caught before you or your accountant did. It won't be one blended number that hides the kind that matters.
3. Its price per transaction, so you know what next month costs before it happens.
4. The terms of its guarantee, in writing, on the page.

Your books will stay in your own QuickBooks or Xero file from day one. If you leave, or we do, you keep everything.

It opens with catch-up bookkeeping. Join the catch-up list to hear the day it opens.

Browse every guide and comparison. Who runs this site, and why the numbers are public. What a visit leaves behind is on the privacy page.