What Outsourced Bookkeeping Actually Costs a CPA Firm
How white-label capacity is priced across four markets, plus the onboarding, review and rework hours that never appear on a rate card — what buying outsourced bookkeeping capacity actually costs a firm.
A published rate card tells you what a vendor charges. It doesn't tell you what capacity actually costs your firm, because three real costs sit on your side of the engagement and never show up as a line item: the time before anyone is productive, the review hours your own reviewer spends before signing anything out, and rework when a file comes back wrong. All three are real. None of them are billed by the vendor. A comparison that only looks at the rate card is comparing the wrong number.
The vendor's rate card is one side of the cost. Onboarding, review and rework sit on the buying firm's side of the ledger and rarely make it into the comparison.
If you're buying for your own practice's books
This piece is about buying capacity to produce work for your clients under your own brand — the white-label model. If you're looking for bookkeeping for the firm's own books instead, that's priced on the standard bookkeeping tiers rather than the white-label card below.
How the white-label card is structured
A firm pays Salt per client, per month, in a tier set by that client's monthly transaction volume. The tiers are the same in all four markets, and each client file is quoted in writing within 24 hours.
- Starter — up to 150 transactions per client, per month.
- Growth — up to 500 transactions per client, per month.
- Scale — up to 1,000 transactions per client, per month.
- Above 1,000 transactions a month: quoted in writing before the higher volume takes effect — never billed as a surprise line on the next invoice.
Ad hoc and dedicated-seat rates
Not every client fits a flat monthly tier. Two other ways to buy the same capacity, both on the same card:
- Production (bookkeeping, AP/AR), billed per hour.
- Qualified (accounts, tax preparation), billed per hour.
- Manager review (sign-off), billed per hour.
- Cleanup, 20-hour minimum, quoted before work starts.
- Dedicated seat, 150 billable hours a month — L1 Bookkeeper, billed monthly.
- Dedicated seat — L2 Accountant, billed monthly.
- Dedicated seat — L3 Senior/Manager, billed monthly.
- Seat terms: no setup fee, no recruitment fee, month-to-month on 30 days' notice, free replacement inside six months.
- Turnaround under 48 hours during peak season carries a surcharge; standard turnaround is 48–72 hours.
Three ways to buy the same capacity — per client, per hour, or a dedicated seat — and every rate on all three is set in writing before work starts.
The cost that isn't on the card: onboarding
No setup fee and no recruitment fee on a dedicated seat doesn't mean onboarding costs the firm nothing. Provisioning named access across several systems takes longer than handing someone a login, and the first week or two of any engagement is slower than the fifth month, whichever provider you use. That time belongs to whoever is granting access and answering the new team's questions on your side — it's real, and it's yours, not a line on anyone's invoice.
The cost that isn't on the card: review
Manager review is a genuine SKU on the card above — but that pays for the delivery team's own internal sign-off, not yours. Your licensed reviewer still has to review the work before it goes out under your firm's name, because that judgment doesn't transfer to a subcontractor. Outsourcing review as well as production is the single most common way this arrangement goes wrong, and it's the one thing on this list that no rate card, from any provider, can price for you.
The cost that isn't on the card: rework
There's no rework SKU on any rate card, because rework isn't a service — it's the reviewer's pass happening twice. When a file comes back wrong, the cost is your reviewer's time a second time, not a fee anyone bills you for.
The honest position on this: Salt has no published white-label engagement history yet to cite an error or rework rate, and a claim about accuracy with nothing behind it isn't worth more than a competitor's. Ask any provider you're evaluating, Salt included, for a documented rework rate — not a general assurance about quality.
Rework has no line item because it isn't a service — it's your reviewer's time spent twice. Ask any provider for a documented rework rate, not an assurance.
The comparison that actually matters
The number that matters isn't the rate card figure — it's that figure plus your own onboarding time, plus your reviewer's hours, plus whatever rework rate the provider can actually document. The middle three don't appear on any vendor's card, Salt's included, which is exactly why they're the questions worth asking every provider you compare, not just the one you're leaning toward.