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Most people pick a bookkeeping plan by guessing. They look at their revenue, estimate their size, and choose the middle option. Then they end up on the wrong tier and change plans three months later.
One number decides which plan you need. Not your revenue. Not your industry. Your monthly transaction count. House of Bookkeepers is an Intuit-certified team serving 17,500 clients in 131 countries, and we price every one of our monthly bookkeeping packages on that single number.
Here is how to count it yourself, in about ten minutes, before you talk to anyone.
What Counts as a Transaction
A transaction is any deposit, payment, or transfer recorded in your bank or accounting software. That is the whole definition.
The dollar amount does not matter. A $4 coffee and a $40,000 wire both count as one transaction each. This is the part people get wrong most often. They assume big businesses have more transactions and small ones have fewer. What actually matters is how often money moves, not how much moves.
A consultant billing three clients a month might have 25 transactions. A coffee shop with a fraction of that revenue might have 400. The coffee shop needs more bookkeeping work, because someone has to match and categorize every one of those lines.
How to Count Your Monthly Transactions in Ten Minutes
You do not need software or a spreadsheet formula. You need last month’s statements.
Pull one full month of statements. Use a normal month, not December or your busiest season. Download the PDF or CSV for every account your business uses.
List every account. Business checking. Business savings, if money moves through it. Every business credit card. Your PayPal, Stripe, or Square account if you take payments through them. Miss one of these and your count will be low.
Count the line items on each statement. Every row is one transaction. Deposits count. Payments count. Transfers count. Card swipes count. If it appears as a line on the statement, it is a transaction.
Add the accounts together. Four accounts with 60, 45, 30, and 15 lines gives you 150 transactions for the month.
Check a second month. Compare it against the first. If the two numbers are close, use the average. If they are far apart, use the higher one. It is better to be on the right plan in your busy month than to blow past your limit twice a year.
That total is the number that determines your plan.
Four Counting Mistakes That Put People on the Wrong Plan
We see the same errors over and over when someone tells us their count on a call.
Forgetting the payment processors. Stripe, PayPal, and Square generate their own transactions, and they usually generate the most. If you only counted your bank, your real number could be double what you think. To ensure you select the appropriate bookkeeping tier for your business needs, you must accurately Count Monthly Transactions to reflect your true activity level.
Counting invoices instead of payments. One invoice can produce several transactions. A deposit, a partial payment, and a final payment are three lines, not one. Invoices are not the unit of measurement here.
Counting only the money coming in. Every bill you pay, every subscription, every card charge is a transaction too. Revenue-side counting misses roughly half the work.
Counting an unusually quiet month. If you picked January because it was slow, you will undercount and outgrow your plan by spring. Use a normal month, or use your busiest one.
Matching Your Count to a Monthly Bookkeeping Plan
Once you have a real number, matching it to one of our bookkeeping packages is simple. We price our monthly bookkeeping services in three fixed tiers. Every tier comes with a dedicated bookkeeper, monthly financial statements, and bank reconciliation.
Under 100 transactions a month puts you in Basic, at $149 a month. This fits solo founders, freelancers, and consultants with one or two accounts and steady, simple activity.
Up to 300 transactions a month puts you in Comprehensive, at $299 a month. This is where most growing small businesses land, especially once payroll or a second card enters the picture.
500 or more transactions a month puts you in Exclusive, at $599 a month. This fits established businesses with high volume, ecommerce sellers, or anyone running several accounts at once.
If your count lands between 300 and 500, that sits between two tiers. Bring the number to a call and we will tell you which side you belong on rather than pushing you upward by default.
One more thing worth planning for. If your count is close to a ceiling and your business is growing, starting one tier higher usually costs less than switching plans mid-year and re-syncing everything. Our monthly bookkeeping cost breakdown walks through what changes between tiers in more detail.
What If Your Count Looks Wrong?
Sometimes people count and get a number that does not match reality. Usually the total is much higher than expected.
That is often a sign of duplicate entries rather than real volume. When a bank feed and a manually imported statement overlap, the same transaction lands twice. Your count is inflated, and so is your quote.
If your books have not been reconciled in months, count from your bank statements rather than from your accounting software. The bank is the source of truth. The software is only as accurate as whoever maintained it. If you suspect duplicates or a backlog is distorting the picture, a QuickBooks cleanup should come first, so you are pricing an accurate file rather than a messy one.
Frequently Asked Questions
What counts as one transaction for bookkeeping pricing?
Any single deposit, payment, or transfer recorded in your bank or accounting software counts as one transaction, no matter the dollar amount.
Do I count transactions from Stripe and PayPal separately?
Yes. Payment processors generate their own transaction lines and often produce more volume than your bank account. Leaving them out is the most common counting error we see.
Should I count invoices or payments?
Count payments. A single invoice can generate several transactions if it is paid in installments, and invoices that are never paid generate none.
What if my transaction count changes a lot month to month?
Use your busier month rather than your average. It is cheaper to sit comfortably inside a plan than to exceed a limit during your peak season.
Does my industry affect which bookkeeping plan I need?
No. Two businesses with the same transaction count pay the same fixed fee, whether one is a restaurant and the other is a consultancy. Volume drives the work, not the sector.
Can I change plans later if my volume grows?
Yes. Plans move with your business. If you are close to a ceiling now, though, it is usually simpler to start one tier up.
Count First, Then Call
Ten minutes with your statements will tell you more about which monthly bookkeeping plan you need than any pricing page will.
Once you have your number, bring it to a free 15 minute strategy call. We will confirm the count against your actual accounts, tell you which tier fits, and flag anything in your file that needs fixing before ongoing work starts. If the number turns out to be inflated by duplicates or an old backlog, we will tell you that too, rather than quoting you for volume you do not really have.
Pick the plan that matches how your business actually moves money. That is the only way the price stays predictable.
