What does it cost to work with CSI Accounting & Payroll? This page explains pricing factors for different services, add-ons, and situations. We update this regularly, but prices are subject to change.
Want to learn about the cost of a specific service? Click the corresponding tab below:
Our average accounting fee comes out to approximately $675 per month. However, depending on your activity and complexities, your fee can range from $500 to $1,000+ per month.
Need an incentive to bundle? Clients who work with us for both accounting and payroll save $105 per month.
Every business has different monthly accounting needs, so each monthly accounting quote is different. However, your customized fee depends on these variables:
Think of this as the volume of work.
How many business transactions do you have on an average month? Your monthly accounting fee can largely depend on how much financial activity your accountant has to work with.
Think of this as the difficulty of the work.
Examples of factors that can be considered complexities include owning multiple business locations, requiring sales tax management, and having multiple bank accounts.
Here are the secondary services that our monthly accounting clients can add on:
After onboarding, your monthly accounting fee moving forward includes:
When you first start with an outsourced service, you’re probably expecting a startup fee. It’s the norm now, and if a service thoroughly explains the extra work they do to get you up and running, it’s often very reasonable.
At CSI Accounting & Payroll, we charge an onboarding fee for our clients. Our price varies for everyone since it’s based on our monthly accounting fee. The formula to find your upfront cost to work with us is:
Onboarding Fee = (Monthly Fee * 2) + $1,000
This is what the onboarding fee includes.
Nothing extra! Costs associated with year-round tax strategy and annual business tax filing are included in your monthly accounting fee.
While our business tax service isn't separate from our monthly accounting service, we still list out the pricing separately. Check out the taxes pricing tab at the top of this page for more information.
Back taxes, or back work, are necessary to get a business’s books caught up when they are transitioning from one accounting service to another. It is also part of how CSI is able to guarantee audit-proofed books at no additional cost.
The basic formula to determine the price of your back work is:
Back Work Price = Number of Prior Months to Work On * Monthly Fee
To determine how far back we need to go, we find the last verifiable tax return or financial statement that was prepared by a party outside of your company. If the last completed item was a tax return, then your books are likely accurate through the end of December for that filed year.
Xero is our preferred software to work with, but it's not the only one we can work with! However, to incentivize clients to use Xero, we cover the cost of the subscription.
If you've been using another accounting system but would like to switch to Xero, we can also help you convert your accounting data to save you the cost of the software subscription.
We offer unlimited one-off advice included in your monthly accounting fee. Consulting services for monthly accounting clients are generally more complex projects that require work beyond the initial advice.
It is an additional service that incurs an additional cost that will range significantly by project. You won’t be surprised by any fees, though! We will write up a separate agreement if you decide you want to explore a consulting service.
An example of a consulting project that we can put a price range to is software integration. It takes between several hours for common, simple integrations and upwards of 30 hours for rare, complex ones. For these reasons, there can be a price range of about $1,000-$2,500.
Here are some situational or optional things that you would face additional charges for, such as selling a building or obtaining a loan.
Out of our current payroll-only client base, an average month of payroll fees can range from a little under $100 to $500+. The average payroll client sits at a fee of around $225 per month.
Need an incentive to bundle? Clients who work with us for both accounting and payroll save $105 per month.
Payroll services charge for different basic payroll specifications. Here are the most critical factors in pricing a basic payroll package:
Fees will be added per state that we need to process per pay period. If your employees all live in the same state, you will only need to pay taxes to one state.
The more often you pay your employees, the more often we process your payroll. This means higher fees per pay period. Our offered pay frequencies include weekly, bi-weekly, semi-monthly, and monthly.
Payroll fees are heavily influenced by the number of employees on payroll. There will typically be a small fee per employee per pay period.
There are a variety of optional add-on services that go beyond a basic payroll package. These come at additional costs.
Here are the add-ons that we provide:
A basic payroll package includes:
These, plus any optional add-ons or situational factors, make up a payroll fee.
Nope! Depending on which add-ons and situational factors you have, our pricing is comparable to what the big guys charge you.
Here's a satisfied client of ours who says our customer service is better anyway, and that's made a huge difference in value.
Here are some situational or optional things that you would face additional charges for, such as handling paycheck garnishments or retirement plan reporting.
We don't offer one-off business tax services, but the costs associated with year-round tax strategy, preparing your taxes, and filing your taxes are all included in your monthly accounting fee.
Proper tax strategy consists of three things: tax planning, projections, and preparation. Bookkeeping solutions and tax solutions can't capture the full picture the way that monthly accounting does.
All year long, tax strategy (done through monthly accounting) monitors your situation to help reduce the stress of tax season and legally minimize what you owe.
If you didn't get your taxes filed this year (and maybe even the years before that!) and want to come on board with CSI Accounting & Payroll, then you'll need back taxes.
Back taxes, or back work, are necessary to get a business’s books caught up when they are transitioning from one accounting service to another. It is also part of how CSI is able to guarantee audit-proofed books at no additional cost.
The basic formula to determine the price of your back work is:
Back Work Fee = # of Prior Months to Work On * Monthly Fee
Costs associated with year-round tax strategy and annual business tax filing are included in your monthly accounting fee.
It is not a separate service and will cost whatever your customized monthly accounting fee comes out to. For more pricing associated with our monthly accounting service, check out the taxes pricing tab at the top of this page.
Stand-alone annual tax filing isn't offered at CSI. It's only offered as part of our monthly accounting service.
However, if you're curious about how our pricing compares to filing with an annual tax accountant, let's look at the costs.
For small businesses looking to file their annual business taxes, an annual tax accountant will typically charge between $500-$2,500 for that service alone.
With CSI, that cost is included in your set monthly accounting fee.
Back taxes are necessary to get a business’s books caught up when they are transitioning from one accounting service to another. It is also part of how CSI is able to guarantee audit-proofed books at no additional cost.
The basic formula to determine the price of your back work is:
Back Work Fee = Number of Prior Months to Work On * Monthly Fee
To determine how far back we need to go, we find the last verifiable tax return or financial statement that was prepared by a party outside of your company. If the last completed item was a tax return, then your books are likely accurate through the end of December for that filed year.
We can go back as many years as you need, whether we're doing the books for the first time or adjusting books that need changes.
Do you know what not getting your back work done costs you over time?
Luckily, we have a free eBook for you that talks about everything back work and back taxes-related all in one place. Check out Beyond the Deadline here!
To find time to grow your business, you need to get accounting and payroll off your plate and under one roof. Using multiple providers for these services means poor communication, extra work, and frustration.
There's a better solution. Outsource your accounting and payroll with one experienced company, just like thousands of our satisfied clients did.