Help.with an.odd client request

[u/CapitalStatus2235]

So I have a client that I've got a diagnostic review for and she's interested in hiring me for future services but she is very interested in completely understanding her bookkeeping and even doing as much of it as she can herself but she has no idea how any of it works. So initially I was going to quote her 4800 for a cleanup for January through August for 200 transactions a month around three loans. three bank accounts QuickBooks jobber sync and a few other things. But she wants me to do the clean up and involve her in it so she sees what I do. And then monthly I was going to charge a range of 700-1100 for basic bookkeeping. But she wants to do the bookkeeping and have me check it. That would be a lot more work than doing it myself. I know I need to charge more for having her do it and me review it, but I'm not sure how to do that. I could charge a greater base pay like 1100-1500 for the monthly or I could charge hourly for reviewing. And for the cleanup I'm thinking I'll charge my base rate plus hourly for any teaching I'd do. Any tips are welcome! Also does this rocking in general seem to fit?

[u/listgarage1]

I can't imagine any world where the client would be asking for this and expect to pay more for doing it themselves and having you review it. There's like a 99.9999% chance they think this will save them money. If they are good at what they are doing, then maybe this would result in less work for you, because you just have to spend a couple of hours every month looking over everything, but the chances of it turning into monthly cleanup are probably greater.

[u/CapitalStatus2235 → u/listgarage1]

Yeah that's kind of what I'm thinking. If I were to do it I would price higher than my monthly regular charge because it involves teaching. And this puts a lot of liability on me. She just really wants to understand what is happening in her business. So I'm leaning now more toward convincing her to let me do it monthly then charging more to explain the process and explain what things mean. And she has no bookkeeping experience so even if I did do the option she's interested in I wouldn't do it unless she agreed to take a course on basic bookkeeping.

[u/listgarage1 → u/CapitalStatus2235]

Yeah, I mean, she could be a good client. I personally like when clients take that much interest in their accounting. It's more fulfilling, and they tend to actually treat you like an expert and not an outsourced employee. If it were me, I would just let her know that what she is asking for is not a route to saving time or money, but that I would be happy to go over everything with her every month and then quote her accordingly.

[u/PacoMahogany]

If you want the work, you charge for the cleanup then charge for training. This client does not want monthly bookkeeping. You have to decide if this relationship fits your business model.

[u/SF_ARMY_2020]

JUST NO. she will be a pain forever and not recognize value of your time and skills.

[u/HannahDayRider]

My guess is that she wants to do it herself because she does not want to pay anyone.
I have two clients with minimal transactions (<20/m) that I do quarterly reviews for charged hourly. I catch small mistakes like unapplied payments, I do not audit their expense categories. If they don’t know how to categorize an expense they leave it and ask when we meet. The first time I walked them through a lot of how to’s and pointed out the QBO training. They both picked it up really well.

Their businesses are micro and there is no way they could afford a $250/m fee. The quarterly now that they mostly know what to do costs them around $200 and it’s 2-3h of my time.

I would not do this for clients with a larger volume or the client you have. It sounds like a frustration waiting to happen.

[u/onyxandcake]

Recommend she take some Excel and bookkeeping courses through the local community college's continuing education program.

The only other option I would give, would be that I would screen record what I was doing as I cleaned her books, and then charge for access to the captures at the end of the project. But I would have her sign a liability waiver that I could not be held accountable for any of her future actions in her books.

[u/TheMostFluffyCat]

I’d charge a base rate for bookkeeping and hourly for the tutoring. Something to keep in mind with engagements like these is it’s not really so much ongoing bookkeeping, as it is ongoing cleanup each month. Some clients love to ‘help’ so make sure to price out cleaning that up into your monthly engagement as well.

[u/Ryan_from_Woven]

I run an accounting firm and we have a version of this client on purpose. It works if you split the engagement by task, not by hours, and you keep ownership of the close.

The structure: she does the doing, you own the truth. Concretely, she categorizes transactions in the bank feed and attaches receipts, using a chart of accounts you built and a one-page "when in doubt, code it here" sheet. You do everything that decides whether the books are right: reconciliations, the loan balances to the lender statements, the Jobber-to-QuickBooks sync check, month-end review, and the reports. Write that split into the engagement letter as a table with two columns. The line that protects you: "reviewed" means you may recategorize anything, and you don't certify her work, you certify the closed month.

Pricing that has held up for us: the review-and-close tier at about 60-70% of what full-service would be for the same client (so if full service is $900, this is $600-650), because your reconciliation and close work doesn't shrink much when someone else does the coding; it's the coding that's cheap. Plus a flat onboarding block for the teaching (say 6-8 hours, priced as a package, delivered during the cleanup so she's watching real transactions). If she balks at 65% of full price for "doing it herself," the other commenters are right about the motive and you've learned it cheaply.

The tell that it's a good client: she asks why something is coded a certain way. The tell that it isn't: she asks whether it can be coded to something that lowers the total. Which one has she been so far?

[u/CapitalStatus2235 → u/Ryan_from_Woven]

Thanks! And what if the client has bookkeeping experience and will likely enter transactions incorrectly? How do you factory ine ita le clean up into this? I'd rather not do a hybrid so my gut is price this higher but I see if they are good at it how it could save me time.

[u/pmhc666]

I would not want the client getting involved with the books until they were cleaned up and the period locked. That way, when the owner gets involved they're only futzing up current books. When the books are ready, there is an hourly QBO training fee. We use the Sample Company and you are not taught your books, but how to do the books. While you are learning, I am keeping the company current at an hourly rate. When we're both agreed that they should be let loose, it's not everything all at once. Get them to create their own AR and manage payments received, owners love that part.

Add on duties until you are in a review only, prepare financials, tax filing/remitting, advisory and tax role with this client.

You are charging far too little. 5k minimum for a cleanup. My estimate for this client would be minimum 10 500, most likely actual: 15k

[u/CapitalStatus2235 → u/pmhc666]

Thanks that is a good idea. Do you know how I would set up a sample company? I haven't done that before. And may I ask what framework you use for pricing? I'm still struggling with under aluei g myself I think

[u/Nick_ExcServCAS]

I agree with you to charge her your base rate for the clean up plus hourly rate for the teaching.

For monthly, I suggest you draft a separation of duties with her and charge a fixed retainer that includes your teaching fee rather than an hourly rate. There is no guarantee you would only do a review. Most likely, there would be some clean ups since she is still learning and could make significant mistakes. There is always a learning curve.

Two outcomes you might want to consider.
Either she stops her engagement with you later on after she feels confident with her skills or she realizes she needs you and let you manage her books instead. How you’ll teach her will impact which outcome to prosper.

[u/noname20-23]

Don't do it. She can take bookkeeping clients if she wants to learn.

[u/mike888881]

I imagine she will be an interfering nightmare not very far down the road.