How Much Does Bookkeeping Cost in Ottawa?

How much does bookkeeping cost in Ottawa?

Bookkeeping with Mir Financial Services starts from $100 a month, with your exact fee set after a free discovery call based on your transaction volume and how many accounts you run.

Most Ottawa bookkeepers price one of two ways, by the hour or as a flat monthly fee. An hourly rate sounds simple until the invoice arrives and every email and phone call is on it. A flat fee means one number, agreed upfront, that covers the work regardless of how many questions you ask along the way.

Why does hourly billing get expensive?

Hourly billing charges for every interaction, so asking a question costs money. That means most people stop asking, and small problems turn into big ones by tax time.

The irony of hourly bookkeeping is that it punishes the exact behavior that keeps your books accurate: asking questions as things come up, instead of guessing and hoping. A fixed monthly fee removes that penalty entirely. Calls and questions are included, not billed separately.

What does a fixed monthly fee actually include?

The fee covers reconciled monthly bookkeeping, financial statements, GST/HST filing, payroll and slips, and both your corporate and personal tax returns, all under one number.

• Your books kept current and reconciled every month.
• Financial statements delivered before the next month closes, backed by Mir's guarantee that if a statement is ever late, that month is free.
• GST/HST prepared and filed.
• Payroll run with T4/T5/T4A slips.
• Your corporate and personal tax returns, filed on time.

What affects your exact quote?

Six things: how many income sources or entities you have, your transaction volume, payroll frequency and headcount, how often you file GST/HST, the state of your existing records, and how often you want to meet.

A business with clean, current books and one bank account costs less to service than one with three accounts, a backlog of unreconciled transactions, and weekly payroll. That's why the quote comes after a free 30-minute discovery call, not off a generic price list. A generic number would either overcharge simple businesses or undercharge complicated ones.

What happens if my books are already a mess?

A one-time clean-up project gets everything current and reconciled first, then you move onto the regular monthly fee. Messy books are common, not a dealbreaker.

Clean-up work is usually billed hourly at first, since the amount of work is not known until we look at what is actually there. Once your books are caught up and move onto a regular monthly schedule, that becomes a flat fee like everything else. Depending on the size of the backlog and how quickly you can get us documents, a clean-up typically takes anywhere from a few days to about a month.

Is a fixed fee always cheaper than hourly?

Not necessarily cheaper for every single month, but always more predictable. You know your number every month regardless of how busy tax season gets.

The real value of a fixed fee shows up over a year, not any single month: a month with a CRA letter, a payroll correction, or three follow-up calls costs the same as a quiet month. Under hourly billing, that same month would cost noticeably more.

See also: what clean books actually look like, sole proprietor vs incorporation, and GST/HST for Ottawa small businesses.

Written by Amir Mirhadi, Founder, PhD in Accounting