What it does. You type in what you know about a catch-up job: how many months behind, how many accounts, roughly how many transactions a month, whether personal spending is mixed in, whether there is payroll, and how many states. It gives you a low, likely and high fixed price and the hours behind each, at your own hourly rate, plus scope lines you can paste into the engagement letter. Download the quote as a PDF, or quote a whole list of prospects from a CSV.
It uses your numbers, not ours. The times it starts with are placeholders for you to replace with your firm's own. They are not industry figures. Nothing you type leaves your computer: it is all worked out by this page, in your browser.
1. One job
Your firm's times and rounding (change these to your own)
These starting values are placeholders, not industry figures. Put in your own times from past jobs. They apply to the one-job quote and to the list below.
2. A list of prospects (CSV, optional)
One row per client, with columns for months, accounts, transactions per month, personal, payroll and states, and optionally client and rate. The transactions column has to say it is a monthly figure (“transactions per month” or “transactions a month”). Column names are matched in any order and extra columns are ignored. Your firm's times above apply to every row.
How it works it out
- Likely hours are months × transactions a month × your minutes per transaction (times your multiplier when personal spending is mixed in), plus months × accounts × your minutes per reconciliation, plus payroll and extra-state hours for each month, plus your one-time setup hours.
- Low and high are your two factors times the likely hours.
- Price is the hours times your rate, worked from the exact minutes and then rounded up to your step. A price that is already on a step stays where it is.
- A row that does not read cleanly is not guessed. A blank yes/no, a negative count, “12 months” or 12.5 in a count, or a number out of range: the row is listed with every reason, and left out of the totals.
What it does not do
- It is an estimate from the inputs you give it, not a promise of hours. A file that turns out worse than described takes longer, which is what the over-volume scope line is for.
- The starting times are placeholders, not industry figures or benchmarks. Use your own.
- It does not look at the client's books. It knows only what you type or what the list says.
- It does not know a total row from a client. Leave totals out of the list, or they are quoted too.
- It does not price tax returns, payroll or sales tax filings, or state registrations.
- It is not tax or legal advice, and the scope lines are a starting point for your own engagement letter, not a contract.
Questions
- Is anything sent anywhere?
- No. The page works everything out in your browser and nothing you type or load is sent. You can load the page, turn off your internet, and the quote, your own list and both downloads still work. Only the sample list needs the connection.
- Where do the starting times come from?
- They are round numbers to start from, not measured figures. Change them to your firm's own before you send a quote.
- Why did a row in my list say “could not read”?
- Something in it was not a clean number or a clear yes or no. The reason is listed beside the row. Fix it in the file and load it again.
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