Tax preparation rates

[joelgilb]

My guess is that we are only going to to see the low end publish their rates on the internet and so that is what I found.

I accumulated them mainly because I was curious. I start with my hourly rate and Mark Up from there.

[mcb39]

Joel --

For example, and accounting-only client of mine, a partnership, gets their 1065 done by the CPA who referred them to me for accounting work, and he charges about $1200 a year. I charge my partnerships around $550 - $600 -- but your spreadsheet shows $260 to $399 for a 1065. The partnerships I have would -not- be worth it to me at $400.

Catherine

Rates here in Central WI are more in line with the ones from Joel's sheet. According to your rates, my Husband's Partnership, alone, owes me about $14,000 in back payment. (Good Luck with That!) There seems to be much varity according to the locale, distressed economy, etc. This is a very interesting thread. :unsure:

[taxxcpa]

I let my tax software calculate a charge both on an time basis and a per-form basis. Then I make a seat-of-the-pants adjustment to increase or decrease one or both. If the time billing or the per-form is under $ 100 , I raise the fee. If it is over $ 500, I usually decrease the fee.

A form may take an hour in one case and five minutes in another case. A return may only take ten minutes, but you need to have some minimum fee since it is not worth dealing with a client if you can only get $ 50 for his return.

[kcjenkins]

it's up to 96 now. :)

[joelgilb]

And now 104.

By the way, if anyone finds any published rates on the net and wants to add them or update them and upload it back here ... well I am not holding any "Copyright" on this spreadsheet and won't hold it against you.

Maybe we can just consider this the start of a Work In Progress?

[TaxCPANY]

For those of us who don't 'need' full-blown QuickBooks -- e.g., I still use Quicken v.6.0 -- and balk at spending three figures on time & billing software, I recommend BillingTracker Pro, now in version 4.0.7 and still "shareware" conscientiously-attended to by its original programmer, Jeremy. www.billingtracker.com

Not only is it enormously flexible in how you want to bill -- hours vs. projects vs. forms vs. retainer etc., rounded or not -- it's just as flexible in offering handsome, default or customizeable invoices. Its timer also can track two jobs at once -- e.g., get a call in the middle of one job, pause that with one click and start tracking the caller's time -- as QB Timer can. Also, with one click, you can change an invoice showing a wholesale amount to one listing each component of time -- the "line by line" display cited below.

IMHO, TaxCPANY

As far as charging by the hour, you essentially need a decent time clock software.

I used to use TimeSlips and then switched to the QB Timer bundled with QuickBooks.

If someone calls that I am going to bill, just switch to a new timeslip (lingo I still use from TimeSlips, but QB calls it an activity) without turning off the clock at all, and immediately the new slip is accumulating your time.

I can look, at any time at Time Activity Log and use it to add a bill int ATX and still export to QB for my own records.

Has abilty to accumulate time in multiple rates, items, add classes etc. You can add additional and specific descriptions which will be added to the default descriptions from your items listed in QB, upon import into QB.

One of the few things Intuit did right (for those of you that know me you know I HATE INTUIT).

I can also use it in conjunction with Intuit's Billing Solutions (a pay for service of Intuit/QB) and Merchant Services (Intuits Credit Card Service) to facilitate getting paid by credit card and emailing bills to clients. And Billing Solutions will send out automatic reminders of unpaid invoices to my clients that I bill. Its like have a billing clerk without a salary!

And well for an Attorney, the Courts often require us to have very detailed line by line bills.

Only thing it doesn't do well that TimeSlips did is round invoices to the nearest "?" (you fill it in - tenth, sixth, or quarter hour or nearest multiple of $5, or $10), and I find I have to manually round off my billing items.

[mcb39]

I still use Quicken v6 also.; which is my only concession to Intuit. I use it for a lot of bookkeeping for several clients. If they have payroll, I use Medlin with ATX. I have always thought that in most cases Quickbooks is overkill and the need to update every year is rediculous and expensive IMO.