How do I quote a bookkeeping catch-up job without getting burnt?
Do not quote off the phone call. Charge a fixed fee for a short look at the file first, then send a quote with a scope note that says what is included, what is not, and what turns into a new quote. The size of the job is known before the price is agreed.
Here is a made-up version of how catch-up work can go wrong. The client says three months behind, you quote off the call, and the file turns out to hold eighteen months and a business account full of personal spending. You do the work anyway and wear the extra hours in your evenings.
What helps is to stop quoting before you have seen the file. The first quote is for a fixed look at it, an hour or two, and it says so. Make it a paid step, with a set fee you decide. A client who will not pay for the look is telling you something about the job.
During the look, count what is actually there: the months, the accounts, the unreconciled lines, the missing statements, the size of the pile of paper. Write down the number of each. Those counts are your evidence, and they are what lets you say “this is bigger than we discussed” without it feeling like a favour.
Then send two things on the same day: the quote and a scope note. The scope note is short. It lists what the price covers (these months, these accounts, reconciled to these statements), what it does not (anything found beyond that, and anything needing the client's documents you have not received), and what turns into a new quote (more months, a second entity, repairing earlier errors). Agree it before work starts, so a later change is a reminder of something both of you already signed up to.
A made-up example. A client says three months. The look finds eleven months of statements missing for one account and personal spending coded across the business account. The scope note prices the three months asked for, lists the eleven missing statements as the client's to supply, and says personal spending recoding is quoted separately once they arrive. When the statements come in, the second quote is two lines long because the note already named it.
If your accounting software lets you save a quote template, put the look-first fee and the scope note on it, so the same words go out whoever sends the quote. A chatbot can help you draft the note from your own file counts, but keep client names and figures out of a public chatbot and add them afterwards. Where your clients' information goes explains why.
A Three Fixes report looks at how you scope and price today and gives you the steps and the words to draft your scope note and extra-work message.
The way in
Not sure where to start with AI in your business?
This page answers one question. Give our AI 15 minutes and get a starting plan written from your week: where AI could help, the first steps you can take this week, what agencies will try and sell you, what they usually charge, and the questions to keep them honest.
Show me where to startA$99, once. An AI writes it from your answers. We don't sell anything else.
Want to look around first? Read a full example report, or see every question we answer.