How Much Does Bookkeeping Cost for a Contractor?

Most home service owners ask the price before anything else. Fair. You would not bid a job without knowing the scope. Bookkeeping cost for a contractor works the same way: the number depends on the mess, the volume, and what you actually need back each month.

Here is what contractors in Austin typically pay, what drives the quote up or down, and how to tell if you are getting a real monthly close or just a pile of uncategorized transactions.

Typical bookkeeping prices for contractors

For a home service business already on QuickBooks Online, with a reasonable number of accounts and monthly transactions, monthly bookkeeping commonly starts around $500 per month. That is the starting point at KWK Books for most lawn care, HVAC, plumbing, and similar companies.

The range you will hear in the market is wider:

• Basic monthly bookkeeping: $400–$800/month for a single-entity company with one or two bank accounts, a credit card, and straightforward job income.
• Higher-volume or multi-crew operations: $800–$1,500/month when you have more accounts, more cards, inventory, or several entities.
• Catch-up / clean-up: a separate project fee. Months or years of backlog is not “included” in the monthly rate, and it should not be.
• Payroll: usually priced on top of bookkeeping (per employee or a flat admin fee), especially if tax filings are included.
• CFO advisory: a step above books-in-order. Cash flow, job profitability, and a monthly conversation about the numbers.

Anyone quoting a rock-bottom number without looking at your file is guessing. Anyone quoting a fortune before seeing transaction volume is padding. A serious firm looks at your QBO (or your bank activity) and gives a fixed monthly price.

What actually drives the cost

Transaction volume and accounts

A plumber with one checking account and 80 transactions a month is a different job than a GC with five credit cards, two operating accounts, undeposited funds piled up, and 600 lines to code. More accounts and more activity mean more reconciliation time.

How far behind you are

If the last clean close was 14 months ago, the first job is catch-up. That work is reconstruction: missing receipts, uncleared checks, owner draws mixed with job costs, and a chart of accounts that does not match how you actually run crews. Catch-up is billed as a project so the monthly rate stays honest after you are current.

Whether you need job costing

Contractors who want profit by job, by crew, or by service line need more than “everything hit Materials.” Setting up and maintaining job costing in QuickBooks Online takes discipline every month. It is worth it. It is also more work than a generic books-and-taxes file.

Payroll, 1099s, and sales tax

Paying W-2 crews, issuing 1099-NECs to subs, and tracking sales tax (where it applies) add process, not just data entry. Worker classification mistakes are expensive. A bookkeeper who ignores them is not cheaper. You pay later.

What you should get for a monthly fee

If you are paying for bookkeeping, the month should actually close. That means:

• Bank and credit card accounts reconciled to the statement
• Income and job costs categorized the way a contractor thinks (not dumped into miscellaneous)
• A profit and loss and balance sheet you can read
• Questions sent to you for the handful of transactions that need a human, not a guess
• Books that a CPA can use at tax time without rebuilding the year

A file that is “updated” but never reconciled is not bookkeeping. It is a feed. That is one of the most common mistakes we see when a company has been “doing QuickBooks” for years and still cannot tell if a crew is profitable.

DIY vs hiring a bookkeeper

Doing it yourself is not free. If you spend 10–15 hours a month coding transactions, chasing receipts, and fighting reports, that is time you are not bidding, running jobs, or collecting. At even a modest owner rate, that time costs more than a $500 monthly engagement.

DIY still makes sense when the company is tiny, the owner likes the software, and the file is already clean. It stops making sense when you are guessing at job margins, dreading tax season, or closing the books in October for a year that ended in December.

How to know if you are overpaying

Price alone is a bad test. Ask what happens on the 15th. Do you get a closed month and a short explanation of what changed, or a login and a shrug?

You are overpaying if:

• Nobody reconciles, but the invoice still shows up
• You cannot get a straight answer on cash vs profit
• Your CPA restates half the year every spring
• The “bookkeeper” will not look at job costing, payroll, or 1099s because “that is extra”

You are probably in the right range if the price is fixed, the scope is written down, and you actually use the monthly package to make decisions.

What KWK Books charges

Monthly bookkeeping for home service businesses starts at $500/month. Catch-up is scoped separately after we see the file. Payroll and advisory are add-ons when you want them. Engagements are month-to-month. After a discovery call, you get a written proposal within 48 hours — scope, price, no surprises.

If you run HVAC or plumbing, the same pricing logic applies, but the categories we track are more specific. We wrote that up in bookkeeping for HVAC and plumbing companies.