QuickBooks Online setup services

$199 per client file, one-time. That covers the company settings, the chart of accounts, opening balances, bank and card feeds with rules, sales tax, open invoices and bills, and users. It does not cover Intuit's subscription, which is a separate monthly charge, or months that already happened before the start date, which are catch-up at $99 per month. What QuickBooks Online setup costs compares the published setup prices of other firms.

Setup builds the file as of one start date: the accounts, the opening balances on that date, and the feeds that bring in everything after it. Catch-up enters and reconciles the months before that date that never made it into the books. A business that started trading eight months ago and is opening its first QuickBooks file needs both, and a quote that calls all of it setup is pricing eight months of bookkeeping as configuration.

Each bank and card account opens at the balance on its statement for the start date. Everything else on the opening balance sheet comes from the client's last filed tax return or a year-end balance sheet from their preparer, which is why the start date is usually that year-end; a later start date means the months in between are catch-up first. Those balances are entered as one journal entry, with open invoices and unpaid bills entered individually so the aging reports agree with the balance sheet.

The check at the end is the balance sheet as of the start date. Every account ties to its source, and Opening Balance Equity is at zero. A file that starts with a balance sitting in Opening Balance Equity carries that question into every year-end after it.

One built for the client's industry, not Intuit's default list with a few accounts renamed. The starting point for construction, restaurants, law firms, real estate, trucking and nonprofits is published in the chart of accounts explorer, with a QuickBooks Online import file for each. If your firm has its own standard chart, we build to that instead, so the new file matches the rest of your client list.

Yes. The work happens as an accountant user inside the client's QuickBooks Online company, and everything that comes back, including the handover notes, goes to your firm to deliver under your own name. We do not contact the client unless you ask us to.

The subscription stays where your firm already keeps its clients' subscriptions: billed to the client directly, or through your firm's QuickBooks Online Accountant account. We never hold the master admin role.

For a new QuickBooks Online subscription, yes. Intuit's ProAdvisor discount takes 30% off QuickBooks Online for as long as your firm pays Intuit for the subscription, or for the first 12 months if the client pays Intuit directly. Workforce and Time get 30% off the base fee and 15% off the per-employee fees on the same terms. It applies to new subscriptions only, so a client already paying Intuit does not qualify. If your firm already bills clients through its own ProAdvisor discount, keep using it; setup does not touch the subscription.

Their most recent filed business tax return or a year-end balance sheet from their preparer, bank and card statements covering the start date, a list of open customer invoices and unpaid vendor bills, their sales tax registrations, and the names of anyone who needs a login. Your firm collects these; we send one list of anything missing.

From QuickBooks Desktop, the history can usually be converted, and that is priced as a migration: this setup plus cleanup on the months that convert badly. From Xero, another system or spreadsheets, the new file opens on balances from the last closed period, and any history the client wants inside QuickBooks Online is entered as catch-up. Some files are better started fresh than converted; when to start a new QuickBooks file covers how to tell.

Entering months before the start date, which is catch-up. Setting up the payroll provider itself, which happens on the provider's side. Filing returns of any kind. Ongoing training beyond the handover walkthrough. Multi-state payroll and complex point-of-sale integrations are scoped in the free file review before any price is agreed, so nothing gets added to the invoice after the fact.

The file is handed back ready for its first close. If your firm runs the monthly bookkeeping itself, it starts from a file that reconciles. If you want it closed for you, the same file can go straight onto a monthly close under your firm's name. The QuickBooks Online setup checklist lists every step in order if you would rather run a setup in-house.