Based on what we see with small businesses in Allen and across Collin County, monthly bookkeeping typically ranges from $300 to $2,500 or more, depending on transaction volume, complexity, and what’s actually included in the scope. That’s a wide range, and the gap matters: a $300/month engagement and a $1,500/month engagement aren’t doing the same work.
This guide breaks down what bookkeeping commonly costs for a small business in Allen, Plano, McKinney, Frisco, and the rest of Collin County in 2026, what you should expect at each price point, and what to look for so you don’t end up paying later for cleanup that could have been avoided.
We’re a tax and bookkeeping firm based in Allen, TX. The ranges below come from what we see in our own work and what we hear from clients about other firms and platforms in the area.
Quick answer: bookkeeping cost ranges in Texas for 2026
If you only have thirty seconds, here are the numbers we typically see for a Collin County small business:
| Business Profile | Monthly Bookkeeping Cost | Typical Provider |
|---|---|---|
| Solo, side business, under 100 transactions/month | $0–$200 (often DIY) | DIY in QuickBooks Online or Wave |
| Solo with employees, 100–250 transactions/month | $300–$600 | Local bookkeeper or national platform |
| Established small business, 250–500 transactions, 1–10 employees | $500–$1,200 | Local bookkeeping firm |
| Growing business, 500–1,000 transactions, multiple accounts | $900–$1,800 | Local firm or specialized service |
| Multi-entity or higher-complexity (accrual, inventory, multiple LLCs) | $1,500–$2,500+ | Local firm or fractional controller |
These ranges are for monthly bookkeeping — ongoing, every-month work. Catch-up or cleanup of past months is quoted separately as a one-time fee. We’ll cover that further down.
Want a quote based on your actual transaction volume? Book a free 30-minute discovery call with Tax by Lonestar — you’ll leave the call with a flat-rate number, not a follow-up proposal.
Book a discovery call: Free Consultation
Or call us: 469-888-8492
What actually drives bookkeeping cost
Two businesses with the same revenue can pay very different bookkeeping prices — because revenue isn’t really what drives the work. The actual cost drivers are:
1. Transaction volume
The single biggest driver. A business with 50 transactions a month and one with 800 take very different amounts of time to keep current, even if both bring in similar revenue. Most bookkeepers price in tiers based on transaction count for this reason.
2. Number of accounts to reconcile
Three bank accounts, two credit cards, a Stripe account, a Square account, and a SBA loan account is a lot more work than one bank and one credit card — regardless of how many transactions flow through each.
3. Cash vs accrual basis
Accrual books require tracking accounts receivable, accounts payable, deferred revenue, and prepaid expenses as they occur, not just when cash moves. That’s meaningfully more work. Most growing businesses eventually need accrual; smaller and simpler businesses can stay on cash-basis longer.
4. Industry complexity
A construction company tracking job costs, retainage, and subcontractor 1099s has more bookkeeping work than a consultant invoicing one client a month. A restaurant with daily POS imports, tips, and inventory has more than an online coaching business with a single Stripe feed. Industry matters more than revenue.
5. Number of entities
Owners with multiple LLCs (an operating company, a holding company, a real estate entity) need separate books for each. Pricing usually scales near-linearly with entity count.
6. Sales tax obligations
A Texas-only business with one sales tax filing is straightforward. A business with economic nexus in five other states, marketplace sales, and taxable services across jurisdictions has substantially more sales tax work.
7. Cleanup state at the start
If your books are six months behind, that’s catch-up — a one-time project priced separately. We’ll cover those numbers below.
What “bookkeeping” should actually include at each price point
This is where bookkeeping pricing gets misleading. A $300/month engagement and a $1,500/month engagement both call themselves “bookkeeping,” but they’re different services. Here’s what each tier should cover:
$300–$600/month: basic monthly bookkeeping
At this level, you should expect: monthly bank and credit card reconciliation, transaction categorization in QuickBooks Online or Xero, basic P&L and balance sheet reports, and a year-end tax-ready package for your CPA. This is enough for a simpler small business with under a few hundred transactions a month.
What you probably won’t get at this level: detailed industry-specific tracking, AR/AP management, multi-state sales tax, or proactive flagging of issues.
$600–$1,200/month: full-service small business bookkeeping
At this level, expect everything in the basic tier plus: AR and AP tracking, payroll journal integration, sales tax tracking, multiple-account reconciliation, monthly review of unusual transactions, and a real point of contact who knows your business. This is where most Allen-area small businesses land once they have employees and meaningful transaction volume.
$1,200–$2,000/month: complex or specialized bookkeeping
This level adds: accrual-basis books, multi-entity handling, inventory accounting, multi-state sales tax, investor or lender reporting packages, KPI tracking specific to the business, and tighter monthly close timelines. Typical for growing businesses, multi-location operators, e-commerce sellers, and venture-backed companies.
$2,000+/month: controller-level work
Once you’re past about $2,000/month, you’re moving from bookkeeping into fractional controller territory: forecasting, budget vs actuals analysis, treasury management, cash flow projections, board reporting. This may make sense for businesses doing $5M+ in revenue or in active growth mode.
What about national bookkeeping platforms?
Bench, Pilot, Bookkeeper360, Zeni, and similar national platforms all serve Texas small businesses. Their pricing for a typical Collin County business often runs $300–$900/month, depending on volume and plan tier. A few honest notes:
- The pricing is comparable to local firms at the lower tiers, and sometimes lower. They scale through technology and distributed teams.
- Texas-specific work may be out of scope. Franchise tax, Collin County sales tax filings, and business personal property rendering are often handled separately or as add-ons, depending on the platform.
- Staffing models vary. Depending on the platform and plan, you may work with a team rather than one consistent bookkeeper. For some businesses that works well; for others, the lack of continuity becomes a friction point at year two.
- Tax filing is usually separate. Most national platforms hand the books to a CPA you source on your own. Local firms that do both bookkeeping and tax under one roof remove that handoff.
National platforms work well for some businesses, particularly very early-stage ones or those with very simple operations. For many growing Collin County small businesses, a local firm ends up being a better long-term fit — but it’s not a one-size-fits-all answer.
Hourly bookkeeping rates in Allen and the surrounding area
Some bookkeepers still bill by the hour. In the Allen / Collin County market in 2026, expect to see:
- Independent bookkeepers: $40–$80/hour
- Bookkeepers at small firms: $65–$110/hour
- Controllers or accountants doing bookkeeping work: $100–$175/hour
Honest take: we don’t recommend hourly bookkeeping for ongoing work. It can create a poor incentive structure — the bookkeeper makes more money the longer the work takes, and the business owner may hesitate to ask questions because every email is on the clock. Flat-fee monthly engagements align incentives better for both sides.
Where hourly billing does make sense: one-off projects, training, specific consulting questions, and short-term cleanup where the scope genuinely isn’t known.
What does catch-up or cleanup bookkeeping cost?
Catch-up — getting current after months or years of behind books — is priced as a one-time fixed fee, separate from monthly bookkeeping. Rough ranges we see for a Collin County small business in 2026:
| How Far Behind | Typical Catch-Up Cost (One-Time) |
|---|---|
| 3–6 months | $500–$1,500 |
| 6–12 months | $1,500–$3,500 |
| 1–2 years | $3,000–$7,500 |
| 2+ years or significant complexity | $5,000–$15,000+ |
Catch-up costs depend on transaction volume, how complete the source records are, and whether there are tax filings that also need to be amended or filed late. A good firm will scope catch-up work after reviewing the file and give you a fixed price before starting — not an hourly estimate that drifts.
Red flags when comparing bookkeeping quotes
If you’re getting quotes from multiple bookkeepers, here’s what should make you cautious:
- Quotes meaningfully below the ranges above. Pricing of $99/month for “full bookkeeping” usually means automated categorization with limited reconciliation. You’ll often spot it at year-end when the books don’t tie out.
- Vague scope. If the quote doesn’t list what’s actually included — number of accounts, transaction volume covered, reports delivered, tax filings handled or not — assume the scope is whatever the bookkeeper says it is when you ask later.
- No clarity on cleanup. If your books are messy and the quote doesn’t address cleanup separately, you may be surprised by an additional bill or end up with cleanup work skipped.
- “We’ll just use QuickBooks bank feeds.” Bank feeds are a starting point, not bookkeeping. Real reconciliation involves verifying transactions against source documents, catching duplicates and miscategorizations, and tying ending balances to actual statements.
- Hourly billing with no estimate cap. For ongoing work, this often ends up more expensive than a flat-fee engagement and can create friction around questions and revisions.
When DIY bookkeeping makes sense
Not every Collin County small business needs to hire a bookkeeper. DIY is reasonable when:
- You’re under $100K in revenue with a true side business
- Your transaction volume is under 100/month
- You have one bank account, one credit card, and no employees
- You enjoy or don’t mind the work, or it forces you to know your numbers
- You have time to keep current — not catching up at tax time
Once any of those break down — usually around $250K in revenue, or when you add an employee, or when you take on inventory or multi-state sales — the math on DIY shifts. Two to four hours a week of your time is worth more than $400–$600/month of a bookkeeper’s. That’s often the point where outsourcing starts to make sense.
How to think about whether the cost is worth it
A useful frame: bookkeeping isn’t a cost, it’s an input. The output is decisions you can make about the business with confidence.
If your books are clean, you know your real margin, you can answer a banker’s questions in a meeting, you can spot the customer who’s quietly become unprofitable, and you can hand your CPA a tax-ready file in January instead of paying tax-prep rates to clean up bookkeeping in April.
If your books are a mess, you’re making decisions on incomplete information, and you may miss tax positioning opportunities that would have cost less than the bookkeeping itself.
Most Collin County small businesses we work with conclude that monthly bookkeeping is one of the lower-cost ways to take a real problem off their plate — when the bookkeeping is actually being done, not just billed for.
What Tax by Lonestar charges for bookkeeping
For transparency, here’s what we charge for monthly bookkeeping out of our Allen office:
- Solo and very small businesses (under 100 transactions/month): starts at [$XXX/month]
- Established small businesses (100–500 transactions, employees, single entity): starts at [$XXX/month]
- Higher-complexity businesses (500+ transactions, accrual, multi-entity, or specialized needs): starts at [$X,XXX/month]
Catch-up is quoted separately as a fixed one-time fee. We don’t bill hourly for ongoing work.
We do bookkeeping and tax under one roof, which removes the year-end handoff that’s a friction point for businesses using separate firms. Most of our clients use us for both.
Want a real number for your business? The discovery call is free, takes 30 minutes, and you’ll leave with a flat-rate quote — or an honest recommendation for what to do if we’re not the right fit.
Book a discovery call: Free Consultation
Or call us: 469-888-8492
Frequently asked questions about bookkeeping cost in Texas
What’s the cheapest way to handle bookkeeping for a small business?
DIY in QuickBooks Online ($30–$90/month for software) or Wave (free) is the cheapest option, and it works for many businesses under about $100K in revenue with simple operations. Once you have employees, multiple accounts, or sales tax obligations, DIY often costs more in your time than monthly bookkeeping would cost in dollars.
Is bookkeeping tax-deductible for a Texas business?
In most cases, ordinary and necessary bookkeeping fees are deductible business expenses on the federal return. Texas has no state income tax, so there’s no state-level deduction to consider. Ask your tax professional how that applies to your specific business.
How often should I be billed for bookkeeping?
Monthly is standard. A flat monthly fee, charged automatically, with the work delivered each month. Be cautious of bookkeepers who bill quarterly or annually — that may mean the work is being done in batches at quarter-end or year-end, which defeats much of the value of bookkeeping in the first place.
Will I need to pay extra for tax filings?
Usually yes, because bookkeeping and tax preparation are different services even at the same firm. Bookkeeping keeps the records clean; tax preparation files the returns. At Tax by Lonestar we do both, with the bookkeeping pricing covering the year-end tax-ready package and the tax preparation priced separately.
What’s the difference between a bookkeeper and an accountant?
A bookkeeper records transactions and maintains the books. An accountant — especially a CPA — interprets the books, files taxes, advises on strategy, and handles work that requires a license. The two roles work together, and most small businesses need both.
Can I switch bookkeepers mid-year?
Yes, and it’s common. The transition is cleanest at a month-end or quarter-end. The new bookkeeper will usually review the existing QuickBooks or Xero file, identify anything that needs cleanup, and start fresh from a defined date. You won’t have a gap in your records.
Bottom line
Bookkeeping cost in Texas for a typical Collin County small business is commonly somewhere between $300 and $1,500 per month in 2026, depending on volume and complexity. The right number for your business depends less on revenue and more on transaction count, account complexity, industry, and how much your time is worth.
The wrong move is picking the cheapest quote without knowing what’s actually included. The right move is getting two or three real quotes that lay out scope clearly, then choosing based on fit, not just price.
About the author: Tax by Lonestar is a tax and bookkeeping firm based in Allen, TX, serving small businesses across Collin County and the wider DFW metro. This article is general information, not legal or tax advice for your specific situation.
