How Much Does Outsourced Accounting Cost? An Honest Answer, With Real Numbers
If you’re researching accounting support, you already know the drill: you go to a firm’s website, look for pricing, and find exactly nothing. Maybe a “contact us for a custom quote” button. Maybe a vague reference to “tailored solutions.” You leave the page knowing as much as when you arrived.
We’re going to do this differently. You want to know if you’re looking at $500 a month or $5,000. That’s a completely fair question — and this post will give you real ranges, real examples, and a clear picture of what drives the price.
Why Accounting Services Don’t Have a Price Tag on the Wall
It’s not a dodge. It’s genuinely true that the right scope of services looks different for every organization. A 3-person for profit service based business has needs that are very different than that of 10-person nonprofit with a part-time bookkeeper already in place or a 100 patient hospice with a board finance committee and external state cost report requirements.
That said, the factors that drive the price are consistent. Once you understand them, you can get yourself pretty close to a number before you ever talk to us.
The Three Factors That Drive Your Price
1. Scope of Services
This is the biggest variable. Are you looking for someone to keep your QuickBooks clean and hand you a monthly profit-and-loss statement? Or do you need someone sitting alongside your leadership team, building the annual budget, presenting to your board, and helping you think through a major capital decision?
Those are both legitimate needs — and they carry very different price tags. We work across the full spectrum, from foundational bookkeeping engagements to full outsourced CFO relationships.
2. Complexity of Your Organization
A single-entity business with one bank account and straightforward payroll is a different project than a nonprofit with multiple funding streams, grant reporting requirements, and restricted versus unrestricted fund tracking. Hospice organizations add another layer: Medicare cost reports, level-of-care data, payer mix analysis, and regulatory compliance all require specialized expertise.
The more moving parts — multiple entities, complex payroll, grant compliance, or industry-specific reporting — the more time it takes to do the work right, and the price reflects that.
3. Frequency of Engagement
A client who wants a monthly financial close, a standing monthly call to review the numbers, and real-time access to a CFO when decisions come up is going to pay more than a client who needs quarterly check-ins or none at all. That’s not arbitrary — more frequent engagement means faster answers, earlier problem detection, and better decisions. Most of our clients find that monthly or quarterly meeting cadence pays for itself.
What Real Engagements Look Like (and What They Cost)
Here are three examples based on the kinds of organizations we work with. Names are composites, not real clients, but the numbers are real.
Sandra — Owner, Homecare Service Business
Sandra leads a for profit homecare service business with annual revenue approaching $3M. Her organization has a full-time administrative assistant who was keeping up the accounting in the past, but did not have the expertise to do full accrual accounting to reconcile accounts and prep for annual reporting. Their executive team has a strong financial background, and they will analyze the financials and follow up with our team if there are any questions. There is no set meeting schedule with Sandra.
What we do for Sandra:
- Full monthly accounting close, including accruals and adjusting entries
- Monthly reconciliations of all balance sheet accounts, fixed asset tracking and depreciation posting, accrual accounting to provide audit ready financials.
- Standardized reporting package utilizing QuickBooks only reports delivered by the 20th of the month.
- Annual S-Corporation tax preparation.
Sandra’s engagement runs $1,500–$1,800 per month.
Maria — Executive Director, Small Nonprofit
Maria runs a nonprofit with eight part time employees and about $1M in annual revenue. She has administrative staff who handle basic accounts payable support and bank deposits. The organization uses QuickBooks Online, and the accounting records were inconsistent before they came on board with us.
What we do for Maria:
- Weekly Bank and Credit Card Transaction coding through QuickBooks Online
- Monthly reconciliations of all balance sheet accounts, fixed asset tracking and depreciation posting, accrual accounting to provide audit ready financials.
- Accounts Payable for approximately 30 bills per month through Bill.com
- Customized financial package with monthly profit-and-loss, balance sheet, fund tracking, budget vs actual reporting and industry benchmarks delivered by the 15th of the following month
- Annual budget preparation
- Annual audit workpaper preparation and coordination with auditor.
- Annual industry report submission
- Quarterly meeting with the Executive Director and Board of Directors to review results and flag anything that needs board attention
Maria’s engagement will run $2,000 – $2,500 per month.
David — Administrator, Growing Hospice
David oversees a 125-patient for profit hospice with approximately $8M in annual revenue. They have an in-house biller and a part-time administrative assistant who handles accounts payable, but no one with real financial expertise on staff. David’s executive team wants more useful reporting than what they’ve been getting.
What we do for David:
- Full monthly accounting close, including accruals and adjusting entries
- Monthly executive financial summary with key metrics: average daily census, labor and expense tracking as a percentage of revenue and cost PPD, days of cash, and A/R days outstanding. Reporting package is delivered by the 10th of every month.
- Reach Reporting dashboard so leadership has live visibility into the numbers between monthly closes
- Monthly meeting with the executive team to review the financials and flag anything that their team needs to focus on.
- Annual budget development with department-level detail
- Coordination on Medicare cost report data with their billing team
David’s engagement runs $4,500–$6,000 per month.
Price Is Important. It’s Not the Only Thing.
We’re not going to pretend cost doesn’t matter — of course it does. But the organizations that get the most out of a relationship like this are the ones who also think about fit, responsiveness, and expertise.
A few questions worth asking any accounting firm before you sign on:
- Do they have direct experience in your industry, or will you spend the first year educating them?
- How quickly do they return calls and emails when something comes up mid-month?
- Do they bring you problems before they become crises?
- Can they grow with you — or will you outgrow them in two years?
We specialize in hospice organizations and nonprofits because that specialization makes us genuinely better at the job — not because we’re trying to niche down for its own sake. When your auditor sends a letter about your cost report, we already know what it means. When your census drops and you need to model the cash flow impact fast, we’ve done it before.
Want to Connect?
If you are building something and want to have a real conversation with someone who has been in the trenches, reach out. No pitch. Just a conversation.