Comparing bookkeepers for your startup

Why comparing on the monthly fee misleads

A monthly fee is only meaningful together with its scope. If one firm includes your VAT and corporate tax returns, the year-end close and unlimited questions, and another charges the returns separately and bills questions by the hour, then a lower headline price can easily be the more expensive option.

The second reason is that the price is often the price of last year's volume. Almost every model scales with something (invoices, transactions, employees, revenue), so ask not only what it costs now, but what happens when you double.

The three pricing models you'll run into

Nearly every quote is a variation on one of these three. Each has a situation it fits.

• Hourly billing. Fair per unit of work, unpredictable in total. It also has an unfortunate side effect for a startup: every question costs money, so founders postpone questions, which is exactly what you don't want in the phase where you have the most.
• A fixed monthly fee that scales with volume. Predictable and comparable, provided you can count the unit yourself. Ask what the unit is: invoices you can count, or ledger lines you can't.
• An all-in package per legal form. Simple to compare and often attractive at the low end, but the scope tends to be tight, so extra work shows up as a separate invoice, and the year-end work is the usual place for it.

Why you won't find competitors' names and rates here

You'd expect a comparison page to list other firms with their prices. We don't, for one reason: we can't verify those prices for you at the moment you're reading this. Rates change, scopes change, and a table that's three months old would quietly make us look better than we are.

So instead of asserting what someone else charges, this page gives you the questions to ask them. Ask us the same ones. If the answers are comparable and the other party fits you better, that's a good outcome.

The questions to ask every firm

Put these in an email and send them to every party you're considering. The differences show up fast, and how a firm answers is information in itself.

• What exactly is included in the monthly fee, and what is invoiced separately?
• Are the VAT and corporate tax returns included?
• Is the year-end close included, and is a formal set of annual accounts for the KVK extra?
• What is the unit the price scales on, and can I count it myself?
• Are there setup or onboarding costs, and is migrating my current administration included?
• Does asking a question cost money?
• How often are my books updated: daily, monthly or per quarter?
• Who is my point of contact, and what is the response time on a question?
• What does payroll cost per employee, and what is included in that?
• Whose name are the software account and the books in, and what happens to them if I leave?

Red flags

None of these are automatically wrong, but each of them deserves a follow-up question before you sign.

• A low monthly fee with extra work billed by the hour. The fee is then a starting point, not a price.
• The annual accounts as a separate item that isn't quoted up front.
• Setup costs for onboarding or migrating your own administration.
• A unit of measure you can't verify yourself, so you can't check the invoice.
• No answer to how current your books will be, only to how often you'll meet.
• A contract in which your software account is in the firm's name.

The dimension almost nobody compares on

Price and scope are visible; currency of your figures isn't, and for a startup it's the one that matters most. A cheap bookkeeper who updates once a quarter leaves you steering on figures that are on average six weeks old, which is fine for a stable business and useless when you're deciding whether you can hire.

So ask the question directly: how old are my figures on average, and can I see my cash position today without asking anyone? The answer tells you more about whether a firm fits a startup than any price comparison.

Where we stand on our own checklist

Since we're asking you to hold every firm to the same questions, here are our answers in one place.

• A fixed monthly fee per entity, scaling on invoices you can count yourself: Starter 0 to 75, Growth 76 to 125, Scale 126 to 200 per month.
• VAT, payroll and corporate tax returns and the full year-end close are included.
• A formal (accountant-reviewed) set of annual accounts is an optional add-on at an agreed fee, quoted before we start.
• No setup costs: onboarding and the migration of your current administration are part of the fee.
• No time-and-materials, so asking a question costs nothing.
• Your books are updated daily, and you see cash, burn and runway in a real-time dashboard.
• Payroll always costs 20 euros per employee per month, payslips and the payroll tax return included.
• The software account and the books are in your name. We're the operator, never the owner.
• We don't advise: no strategic or financial advice, no tax planning, no valuations, no statutory audit. If you need that, you need a second party alongside us, and we'd rather say so now than halfway through.