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So, even back then, size mattered?

I was visiting my son and finished a book on my Nook. Had lots and lots of books on my Nook, but I'd just learned that the same author had a second book out. I immediately downloaded it and was a very happy camper. The nearest bookstore or even library of any size was a ninety-minute drive to Scranton. Hubby saw the receipt show up and called me to say I must've liked that author. (With Nook, it's a family plan, so both of us and our daughter who has my old Nook can read anything that any of us downloads.)

You could tell the engineering majors with their six-inch slide rules from the science majors with their 12-inch slide rules.

I still have the little plastic slide rule I bought in junior high school (now known as "middle school") for fifty cents. It lives in my car, and I use it to calculate my mileage when I feel like being more exact than I can be, quickly, in my head just using percentages. My husband has a nice collection of wooden ones, including a *circular* slide rule. We all know how to use them - although I think both girls are pretty rusty at this point. Most of their peers don't even know what one is, though.

One of my brothers-in-law lives in Phoenix; there, when they get 1" of rain, it means the spacing between the drops that fell!

Thanks to all. In adding up my thirty five years of payments and dividing by 35 I come up with a figure larger than what this part time work amounts to. Oh well, it never hurts to check these things and I still enjoy the work.

Bill what the return is worth. Then work out your percentage of billing to meet your requirements. That way, the time-consuming or more complex or PITA return was billed more; therefore, your employee who dealt with those issues is paid more.

https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/6866390272/h043ADC0F/

Yes, I've done that too. That's why BookBub is so smart giving away free copies of the first in a series, so often.

I have my slide rules and my CRC book of tables.

I used to do all those, myself. Now, I use my Nook for almost all my reading, for 2 reasons. 1] My eyes are not what they used to be, so being able to enlarge the fonts is a huge advantage to me. 2] I'm a VERY fast reader, and always carried a book in my purse, but often used to be frustrated when I finished it while out somewhere. I've left many a paperback behind for someone to discover, but the problem is 'what to read now?' With my nook, I have always got the next book or magazine right there. Plus, the subscriptions are cheaper, for the nook version! I have over 800 books, and 25 apps, so I'm never just sitting wishing I had something to read.

I agree with Jack and KC. Tax returns and taxpayers are too varied to come up with an average time or cost. You can have two clients with Sch Cs, one with all receipts neatly summarized, another with a shopping bag full of every piece of mail that looks financial he got all year, including birthday cards and the life insurance bill he threw in the bag instead of paid. Of course you charge the shopping bag guy a lot more because it takes so long to organize his mess. You still end up with two Sch Cs, so an average makes no sense. Then there are the clients you have to chase for missing info. Some of these people are missing half their tax data, and they piecemeal it to you so you never know where you are in the return. Others are missing something simple like their car taxes and get the number to you the next day (or two months later). The preparer not only has to input the data but be thorough enough to know what's not there and communicate with the client. Takes time, but again the fees will reflect that. At the chains the model is pretty much to get every client in and out in an hour or less. I wonder how often things like car taxes are ignored because the client doesn't have them with him or her and no one wants to put a return on hold. In a professional practice, it can take a whole season to determine how much an employee brings in per hour. Some days I put more returns on hold than I complete--looks like I didn't cover my pay. Then one day a dozen clients provide that last bit of info and I collect thousands. Again, averages don't work. Perhaps instead of calculating ratios and averages, you should offer a reasonable hourly rate. If you only have a only few employees it won't take long to see who is earning their keep and who is texting all day. Remember too that experience with each client's quirks will help to speed things up in the future. I have a couple of shopping bag clients who used to take me hours to sort and categorize. Now that I know them and what to expect in those bags, I can separate the wheat from the chaff in no time.

I/we have never computed such a number. More items are far more important. The last 10 years, at the firm, 30,000+ returns, 5 total audits for returns that we prepared. Preparing returns is different than a factory production line. I have a higher regard for our business than that. Therefore, ratio, and all the other indicators I see used in this kind of discussion seem to trivialize my profession. These discussions feel like the method the big box stores use with their "customers." I have clients, not customers. There is a difference, and I will ALWAYS have clients instead of customers.