The shape of business is shifting faster than ever before, and it’s important to get a clear understanding of the trends that affect you and your future. Intuit partners, Michelle Long, CPA, and Heather Satterley, EA, surveyed more than 1,000 accounting and tax professionals to provide an in-depth look at several areas of business, featuring rates and technology adoption.
2018 Intuit Rate Survey: Results at a Glance
- This year, the rate survey includes an interactive tool that gives a quick overview of key findings, including a map that allows users in the US and Canada to see what their peers are charging for different services in their specific region.
2018 Intuit Rate Survey: Billing Rates, Value Pricing and Much More
- When billing for QuickBooks-related services, clearly hourly billing is still most widely used for catch-up bookkeeping (75 percent), cleanup and troubleshooting (79 percent), and training (73 percent).
- Fixed fee billing is gaining popularity with ProAdvisors who provide monthly services (50 percent) compared to hourly billing (57 percent).
- Fixed fee pricing was the most popular method to bill clients for payroll (55 percent), individual (57 percent) and corporate (54 percent) tax preparation services, while hourly billing was most popular for advisory services (70 percent) and technology consulting (72 percent).
- Comparing the data to the last Intuit Rate Survey, done in 2016, we found a slight dip in the average rates for bookkeeping and accounting services ($73 in 2018 compared to $80 in 2016), average rates increased for QuickBooks troubleshooting ($87 in 2018 compared to $82 in 2016) and training services ($90 in 2018 compared to $77 in 2016).
2018 Intuit Rate Survey: Rates by Region, Credential & Certification
- The areas with the highest hourly rates were the Atlantic and the northern regions, while the lowest rates seemed to vary depending on the type of service.Respondents living in rural or semi-rural areas reported the lowest rates, while urban dwellers reported the highest.
2018 Intuit Rate Survey: Best Sources to Find New Clients
- Referrals from existing clients, peers, others, the Find-A-ProAdvisor® website and other websites continue to remain the primary sources.
- Facebook is the number one social platform that respondents obtained clients from, followed by LinkedIn.