This puts your business in a solid position come tax time and helps you keep a finger on the pulse of its financial state. Small-business bookkeeping is the process of accurately recording your business’s financial activity. When bookkeeping tasks become too time-consuming to handle on your own, hiring an online bookkeeping service can be a worthwhile investment.

Who can use the service?

QuickBooks Live Bookkeeping is a comprehensive bookkeeping service that businesses can contract with to maintain their books, properly categorize expenses and perform reporting. With the subscription, the small business is connected with a dedicated bookkeeper who is available to work on the account virtually. There is a cleanup fee to get started and get your books in order, and then pricing drops to the monthly fee of $200 to $400. Read our comprehensive QuickBooks Live Bookkeeping review to decide if this popular managed service is right for your business. If the hours you spend working with your accounting software could be better spent elsewhere and you’re already using the software as efficiently as possible, it might be time to hire an online bookkeeping service. Ultimately, it can benefit your business by freeing up your time and ensuring your books are up to date.

Features: Bookkeeper.com Wins

• The service’s biggest drawback is that it offers limited services and no access to financial advice.
• However, if you are comfortable setting up and maintaining your QuickBooks account on your own, then the additional cost may not be worth it.
• The Plus Plan is $45 per month for the first three months, then becomes $90 per month, and adds up to five users.
• Cleanup takes about 30 days from the time they receive everything they need from you.
• The best bookkeeping service for QuickBooks depends on your specific business needs, the size of your business, and your budget.
• For example, you don’t have to worry about importing your bank statements, since they’re brought in automatically.

With Pilot, accrual-basis accounting is included with all plans, but it doesn’t have cash-basis accounting. QuickBooks Live, on the other hand, offers only cash-basis accounting. For example, companies in the Small Business Advanced plan receive weekly service while companies in the Small Business plan receive monthly service. You probably spend the bulk of your time in QuickBooks Online Plus entering transactions like invoices and sales receipts and recording payments. If these transactions aren’t entered and categorized correctly, your reports and taxes will not be accurate.

Pay your team

Next, your bookkeeper will take on the monthly management of your books. First, a bookkeeper reviews your chart of accounts and past transactions to bring your books up to date. You can cancel your QuickBooks Live plan or upgrade from Live Expert Assisted to Live Expert Full-Service Bookkeeping at anytime.

With five plans available, including a plan specifically for self-employed individuals and independent contractors, there are several options from which to choose, depending on your needs. In this guide, we’ll break down QuickBooks Online pricing, including plans, key features, and alternative platform costs so you can decide which option is best for you. A QuickBooks Expert cannot begin cleaning up your past books until they receive the required supporting documentation, which your bookkeeper will request from you after your first meeting. Once your bookkeeper receives all the necessary documentation, they’ll typically complete your cleanup within 30 days. In some cases, your cleanup may take longer depending on timeliness of documentation and the complexity of your books. For businesses still using QuickBooks Desktop, it’s crucial to start planning the migration to QuickBooks Online or another accounting solution.

• In short, if budget is first and foremost for you, then we think QuickBooks Live should be one of your top picks, as long as you’re prepared for the potential headaches it may bring.
• Meanwhile, after you sign up for Bookkeeper.com, you’ll be assigned a dedicated bookkeeper, and you’ll grant them access to your QuickBooks account.
• For family businesses conducting succession planning, Bookkeeper.com can even prepare the necessary gift and estate tax returns.
• Live bookkeepers aren’t responsible for errors resulting from incorrect information that you provide, or if you re-open the books by overriding closure after a Live Bookkeeper completes the month-end closure.
• Our expert industry analysis and practical solutions help you make better buying decisions and get more from technology.
• Answer a few questions about what’s important to your business and we’ll recommend the right fit.

Depending on the bookkeeping service, costs also rise when your business’s monthly expenses exceed a particular threshold. The decision comes down to whether the time saved is worth the expense. While 1-800Accountant offers less expensive plans that may be useful for businesses that need only tax advice and quarterly reviews, only its most expensive Enterprise plan comes with bookkeeping services.

• While QuickBooks Live offers more basic bookkeeping services like categorization of transactions and financial reporting, Pilot also offers the option of tax, CFO advisory, and A/P and A/R services.
• If your monthly average is $10,001-50,000, the monthly price for Live Expert Full-Service Bookkeeping is $500.
• Subscribing to QuickBooks Live would be a good way to avoid that nightmare.
• These reports provide a broader overview of your company’s financial status.
• There are two more junior versions (Simple Start and Self-Employed) that are much less expensive and better suited to the smallest of businesses.

Before joining NerdWallet in 2020, Sally was the editorial director at Fundera, where she built and led a team focused on small-business content and specializing in business financing. You’ll be granted access to the QuickBooks Live Hub, which is a secure portal where your bookkeeper will post their ongoing action item list that will be updated quickbooks live bookkeeping as tasks are completed. It allows you to check on your bookkeeper’s progress and make an appointment for a virtual meeting. If you ever have a question between appointments, your team is ready to help with on-demand chat. At the end of each month, your bookkeeper will close your books, and you’ll receive custom, up-to-date reports.

The service doesn’t include financial advisory services, tax advice, facilitating the filing of income or sales tax returns, creating or sending 1099s, or management of payroll. QuickBooks Online offers Expert Full Service Payroll for an additional cost. Expert Assisted doesn’t include cleanup of your books or a dedicated bookkeeper reconciling your accounts https://www.bookstime.com/ and maintaining your books for you. Expert Assisted also doesn’t include any financial advisory services, tax advice, facilitating the filing of income or sales tax returns, creating or sending 1099s, or management of payroll. Online bookkeeping services offer several advantages to businesses looking to manage their financial records efficiently.

Level up your bookkeeping with expert guidance

They can also send PDF copies of key financial reports including your profit and loss statement and balance sheet. If you work with a popular subscription service such as QuickBooks Live Bookkeeping, you can pay as little as $200 per month for bookkeeping. Other services may cost as much as $2,500 per month, depending on the complexity of your business’s books. QuickBooks Live and Ignite Spot Accounting are two competitively priced services, where Decimal is substantially higher in cost for the same services. One thing that we found that separated QuickBooks Live from the competition was its accuracy guarantee.