What does Excite Tax charge?
Excite Tax's planning ranges are pending confirmation and will appear on pricing, dated, once set.
How much does a bookkeeper cost in Utah?
Excite Tax's answer: in Utah, BLS (OEWS May 2025) puts the median wage for Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerks at $23.77 an hour, before employer taxes.
Short answers
Is outsourcing cheaper than hiring a bookkeeper?
Compare the whole cost. An employee costs the wage, a Utah median of $23.77 an hour, plus the employer's share of FICA, 6.2% social security and 1.45% Medicare, plus the hours you spend supervising. An outside service is paid for the work, not for slow weeks.
Can a small business afford a virtual bookkeeper?
Price it against the alternative. Books that are not ready by the due date mean a late return, and IRC §6651 adds 5% of the unpaid tax for each month it is late, up to 25%.
How much does catch-up bookkeeping cost?
More than keeping current, because every missing month has to be rebuilt from statements. The price scales with the months behind and the transactions in them; see the catch-up section below.
What an in-house bookkeeper costs
In Utah, the median wage for Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerks was $23.77 an hour in May 2025. A wage is not a price: an employer adds 6.2% social security and 1.45% Medicare on top of it, before benefits, software, a desk or paid leave.
An in-house bookkeeper at the Utah median wage, 20 hours a week, before benefits (BLS OEWS, May 2025; IRS Publication 15)
| Cost | Per hour | Per year (1,040 hours) |
|---|---|---|
| Median wage | $23.77 | $24,720.80 |
| Employer social security and Medicare (7.65%) | $1.82 | $1,891.14 |
| Total before benefits | $25.59 | $26,611.94 |
Multiply by the hours the books actually take, then add benefits and software. That total, not the wage, is what a service's quote should be compared with.
In Utah, an employee brings state filings too
Hiring in Utah means a state withholding account, applied for through Taxpayer Access Point (TC-69), and a TC-941E return by April 30, July 31, October 31 and January 31. Those filings come with any employee, whoever keeps the books; an outside bookkeeping service adds none of them.
What moves the price of a bookkeeping service
- Transactions per month: the single biggest driver.
- Accounts: each bank, card, loan and merchant account is another statement to match.
- Payroll and sales tax: each adds its own filings and its own dates.
- How far behind the books are: current months are cheaper than rebuilt ones.
- How clean the records are: one business account is quicker than a shared personal one.
Monthly packages and flat fees
Many services quote a flat monthly fee for a band of transactions and accounts. A flat fee is only comparable to another if both cover the same work: ask whether it includes reconciling every account, payroll entries, the year-end close, and how many questions a month.
How much does catch-up bookkeeping cost?
Catch-up is priced by the job, not the month: the number of months to rebuild, the transactions in them, and how many statements are missing. Waiting makes it dearer twice, because the file grows and the late-filing penalty adds 5% of unpaid tax a month while it does. See catch-up bookkeeping.
What Excite Tax charges
Excite Tax's planning ranges are pending confirmation and will appear here, with a reviewed date, once confirmed.
When to hand this to a preparer
Hand the books over when keeping them costs more hours than the business can spare, or when they stop agreeing with the bank.
Excite Tax keeps these books; the return they feed is reviewed and signed by a licensed CPA at TBD CPA LLC.
Sources
- BLS, Utah – May 2025 OEWS State Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates · retrieved September 2026
- IRS Publication 15 (2026), (Circular E), Employer's Tax Guide · retrieved September 2026
- 26 U.S.C. § 6651, Failure to file tax return or to pay tax · retrieved September 2026
- Utah State Tax Commission, Withholding Tax · retrieved September 2026
Ranked and explained on the sources page.