These days small businesses are faced with many different options for accounting and bookkeeping services online…

A new generation of CPA firms is even starting to get in on the act.

Note that this firm is selling year-end packages monthly that don’t actually include the bookkeeping. The price for year end work looks fair. They seem to work on the assumption that they can actually train non-accountants to do the bookkeeping themselves during the year.

It isn’t until they reach annual billings of $12,000 to $60,000 that they include bookkeeping services in their service offerings.

BENCH.CO – A Vancouver Success Story

I initially ran into BENCH when they were a New York-based startup operating as 10 SHEET. They use their own proprietary software – and all of their bookkeepers are local and have been subjected to criminal record checks.

The cost of their services seems very high, given their notion of what constitutes theirSTARTER or MICRO packages (STARTER below $1k – MICRO up to $7.5K in monthly transactions).

At these levels we’d expect to see unincorporated individuals whose “businesses” represent working part-time out of their apartment…I just hope that those prices are in Canadian dollars!

LESSACCOUNTING.COM

Less Accounting does a great job of marketing – I love the picture of Donnie Cooper with tape on his glasses. But then I’m a sucker for self-deprecating humour.

However the pricing is in US dollars and once again seems pretty high.

“Businesses” that qualify for the TINY or FREELANCER plans should probably just download credit card and bank transactions and have someone summarize them once a year for their tax accountant.

WAVE ACCOUNTING SERVICES

Depending on how quickly the cost of their bookkeeping services escalates, WAVE may actually offer the most cost effective services of those discussed in this post…