Wow Mark that must be a big customer for £6800 per year!!!
@ Tim, I used to think that the clients might want to employ someone, but the truth is they don't like change or actually having to employ and paying the employees NI and Tax and holiday pay, so in the long run its cheaper for them to outsorce, even if you put your prices up.
-- Edited by Amanda on Tuesday 6th of November 2012 10:31:59 AM
Thanks Mark and Amanda for the swift reply and information, thats very helpful. Yes I have my charges worked out very clearly, tested over multiple clients and against real time taken - so I know that's what it will 'cost' in my time. It was just that some of my initial small guys are growing rapidly and I found myself working for less than half what I expected, and now it's time to up the charges for them I was a little surprised at how much that came out as. Of course it's totally down to my own penny pinching attitude (that seems to have arrived over this last few years of recession!) that I baulked a bit - but as you say, thats what my charges are so thats what they will be! :0)
-- Edited by timiambeing on Tuesday 6th of November 2012 10:40:48 AM
Hello everyone - I posted this in another group but no reply so perhaps here would be a better place?
I wonder if I could ask a few bookkeepers out there how much their typical client charge is? I don't mean how much do you charge, flat rate or hourly as I think that has been talked about many times - what I mean is what is your average client invoice? I have noticed my practice grow this year and although I thought my market was the one man band, I am finding some of these one man bands are taking on employees, expanding and growing to the point where I am deluged with huge stacks of paperwork to process every month. The result obviously has to be an increase in my flat rate monthly charge for the coming year for that client - but I worry a little as to how much a client will sustain before they make the choice to either employ a part time bookkeeper on site or search elsewhere for a cheaper solution?
I started with loads of little £60pm self employed bods, and now I have a number of Ltd. companies and partnerships with monthly bookkeeping fees up in the £150+pm area - so I just wondered how others fair with pricing and whether I am just worrying about nothing :0)
You need to work out how long on average it takes you do the work for each client and bill them accordingly at your charge our rate. For a bookkeeper your charge out rate per hour could be anything between £15-£30 depending on location, experience, qualfications etc.
For more accountancy/tax work your charge out rate could be anything between £15-£150 again depending on location, experience etc etc.
If you have got a lot of work on then dont be afraid to charge clients based on time taken as if it takes you 2 days per month to do their work then there is no point in charging them say £15 per hour or £210 per month if you can charge 2 other clients who need one day per month £30 per hour or sale £420 per month.
For me my average fee is about £850 but that varies from yearly fees of £120 to £6800.
At the end of the day if the client has grown then you would expect their income and profit to have grown so it wouldnt be reasonable for them to expect you to charge the same when you only had to do 1 day month as opposed to now when you have to do say 2 or 3 days a month. If they are unwilling to pay the going rate then ditch them and fill it with either existing or new clients. It is good management to weed out say your bottom 10-20% of clients each year and replace them with better/higher return clients. Though of course you need to firstly be at full capacity to do this. Plenty of ways to weed out the ones that you dont want (surest way is to markedly increase fees).
Amanda - my biggie is an important client to my overall portfolio making up about substantial % of my current GRF. Of course would like the % to reduce and hopefully will so do in the next few months. Though the contract for it is up in May next year so need to keep them happy which to now has been the case.
