Hourly Rate for Bookkeeper?

[SimplyBRG]

My wife was asked to be a bookkeeper for a start-up contractor. He has a small operation right now so the hours will be minimal. She is going to work from home and manage his finances on Quickbooks. What would be a reasonable hourly rate for her services? We live Tacoma, WA, if that matters.

[Evan]

I would use a calculator such as Salary.com. Her rate should really depend on years of experience, familiarity with industry and accounting software, etc.

Generally I'd say somewhere between $8-$14 would be the average (without regard to standards of living).

[Patrysha]

When I did that for a Oil Hauling company about 7-8 years ago, I was paid $15/hr. But that was walking across the field to go to their home office. And they covered my sitter and food while I was there.

[Steve B]

I would probably pay about $12 per hour.

[VirtualLorri]

Is your wife to be an employee or independent contractor? Will she receive any vacation, sick time, benefits? If she is an employee and has some benefits, the previous suggestions may be in line. However, if she is only getting an hourly wage, she should bump that number up. If she is an independent contractor, I suggest she start no lower than $30/hour in order to be profitable.

[Evan]

Is your wife to be an employee or independent contractor? Will she receive any vacation, sick time, benefits? If she is an employee and has some benefits, the previous suggestions may be in line. However, if she is only getting an hourly wage, she should bump that number up. If she is an independent contractor, I suggest she start no lower than $30/hour in order to be profitable.

Absolutely. As an I/C, she's going to be paying the other 7.65% of social security and medicare that this company isn't paying -- and the lack of benefits would allow for some additional compensation as well.

[SimplyBRG]

She will be an independant contractor. Thank you for the suggestions.

[ArcSine]

Gettin' to the party late...sorry. My 2 cents: Never hurts to do a little homegrown market research. Call around to some bookkeeping services and find out their rates for providing services similar to what your wife will be doing (payroll or no, sales tax work?).

One advantage is that by gathering local info, you've automatically got your geographical cost-of-living adjustments built in to the responses.

If possible, concentrate on small (maybe even one-person) shops, so that the responses aren't skewed by a larger operation's overhead costs.

This doesn't replace the excellent advice previously posted, but rather just gives you one more item to throw into the blender as you're doing your homework. Best of luck to your wife!

[vangogh]

Welcome to the forum ArcSine. Good idea about the homegrown market research. I did that when I was first trying to figure out what to charge for my webdesign services. I searched for other designers in my area that seemed to have similar experience to me. First I checked to see if they had rates listed on their sites and then I called a few that didn't. I asked them for an estimate on a relatively simple site.

After compiling the data I had a pretty good idea of the going rate in my area and was able to set my own rates.

[ArcSine]

I'm with you on that one, VanGogh...you always gotta figure any potential customer's already made a few of those same phone calls before they knock on your door, and so they already have an idea of the market range.

If I know less that that potential customer about what the local market will bear, I'll either underbid--and cost myself some revenue--or overbid myself right out of a contract.

Thanks for the welcome...and have an excellent weekend!