White-label bookkeeping for firms

What does an outsourced bookkeeper do?

An outsourced bookkeeper categorizes every transaction, reconciles each bank and credit card account to its statement, and closes the month by a set date. Here that's the 5th business day, so the file is ready to hand to a reviewer instead of re-entered. Any backlog gets caught up first, priced separately, before the monthly cadence starts.

What white-label bookkeeping looks like to your client

Nothing at all. We work as an accountant-level user on the client's QuickBooks Online file, a role they can see in their user list but which carries our name nowhere else. Reports, working papers and the monthly close summary all come back to you unbranded, in your own format if you have one.

The one exception is an emergency where only the client can unblock a file, say a bank connection they alone can reauthorize. Even then we ask your firm first and let you decide whether the message comes from you, or from us with your firm named as the reason.

We don't take clients you introduce

This is the objection worth answering before any of the others. A subcontractor who also sells direct is a competitor holding your client list, and no amount of white labelling fixes that. So it's written into the engagement: any business you introduce is your client permanently, we don't market to them, and we won't accept a direct engagement from them, including after your firm's relationship with them ends.

We do also sell directly to small businesses, and pretending otherwise would be worse than saying it plainly. In practice there's a hard line between the two: a name that arrives from your firm is off the direct list for good.

How much does it cost to outsource bookkeeping?

Monthly close starts at $199 per client file per month, and cleanup runs $199 per month of backlog. Same published figure whether you send us one file or fifty. There's no partner rate to negotiate and no volume tier that quietly reprices a file once you've committed.

Per client file, per month, at the same published figure on every page of this site. What your firm charges its own client on top is your margin, and we have no view on what it should be.

How much does it cost to white label?

Nothing extra. White-label isn't a pricier tier, it's simply how we deliver by default, at the same $199-per-file monthly fee whether or not your client ever learns we exist. What you charge on top of that fixed cost, once the file comes back clean, is yours to set.

How much can you actually absorb?

We take files in batches with a scheduled delivery date each, instead of accepting them open-endedly and queueing them. So the honest answer to "can you take ten more" depends on when they're due, and you get that answer before you commit a client rather than after. That includes "no, not by that date," which is the answer a subcontractor is most tempted to avoid giving.

A file that arrives current stays on a monthly cadence closed by the 5th business day. A file that arrives behind gets caught up first, priced per month of backlog, with the monthly cadence starting the moment it's current. One continuous engagement rather than two, so there's no gap between "caught up" and "current."

What we need to start a file

Accountant-level access to the client's QuickBooks Online company, the last two statements for any account not already on the bank feed, and whatever your firm's own conventions are: a chart of accounts you standardize on, a close checklist, a report pack your client expects. We work to your conventions, not imposing ours, because the file has to look like your firm's work when it comes back.

If the QuickBooks login sits with the client instead of your firm, we're happy to send the access request straight to them with your firm named as the reason, so you're not the one chasing credentials from someone slow to answer email.

Confidentiality and access

We sign your firm's NDA rather than asking you to sign ours. Access is accountant-level only, which is enough to categorize, reconcile and run reports and not enough to touch billing or delete a company file, and you revoke it at any time from the client's own user list without asking us.

Client documents stay in the client's QuickBooks file or in a folder your firm controls. We don't build a parallel archive of your clients' records, which also means there's nothing of yours to hand back at the end of an engagement. It was never held separately in the first place.

Should a bookkeeper be a CPA?

No. A CPA license is required in all 50 states to sign an audit opinion, not to categorize transactions or reconcile a bank account. Bookkeeping itself isn't a credentialed activity. What matters far more for continuity is the same person on the file every month instead of whoever happens to be free that week.

That's the standard the engagement is built to, whoever is on the file: a named person who stays with the same client roster month after month, not a queue a file passes through.

Who this is for

US bookkeeping firms on QuickBooks Online with more files than hours: turning work away, carrying a file that should have been handed off months ago, or covering a departure. It fits equally well for one overflow file and for a standing roster.

It's not the right fit if your clients are on Xero or Sage, if you'd prefer a dedicated seat billed by the hour to a fixed fee per file, or if you need same-day turnaround measured in hours.

Start with one file

Send the client file you least want to open. The free 48-hour file review comes back with what's wrong, how many months it touches and the fixed fee to put it right, and the report is yours whether or not you send us the work. It's a much cheaper way to judge a subcontractor than a contract is.

For a client whose file also needs fixing first, see cleanup or catch-up. Every figure on this page is on the pricing page.