A bookkeeping proposal has one job: make it easy for a good-fit prospect to say yes. That means being specific about what they get, honest about what they don’t, and clear about the monthly price, so the decision is simple and scope creep is settled before the engagement starts.
Use the structure below as your standard bookkeeping proposal. It’s built for recurring monthly engagements, where the value is consistency and the risk is an ever-expanding scope.
The bookkeeping proposal template
1. Cover & summary
- Your firm, the prospect, and the date
- A two-sentence summary of what you’re proposing and the outcome (e.g. “clean, up-to-date books every month and a clear picture of the numbers, without you touching a spreadsheet”)
2. Understanding of your situation
Restate what the client told you, in your words. This is the single most persuasive part of a proposal: it shows you listened.
- Where their books are today (behind, messy, DIY, switching from another provider)
- What’s prompting the change and what “good” looks like for them
3. What’s included
Be concrete. List the recurring deliverables and their cadence:
- Transaction categorisation and coding
- Bank and credit card reconciliations (monthly)
- Accounts payable / receivable tracking
- Payroll journal entries
- Monthly financial statements (P&L, balance sheet, cash flow)
- A short monthly summary or check-in
4. What’s not included
The section that saves the relationship. Name the common extras and how they’re handled:
- Tax return preparation and filing
- Catch-up / cleanup of prior periods (quote separately)
- Payroll processing, sales tax filing, CFO / advisory work
- One-off projects, charged at your project rate
5. Investment
- Fixed monthly fee, tiered by transaction volume or complexity
- What’s covered by the fee vs. billed separately
- Billing cadence and payment method
- What would trigger a price review (e.g. volume growth, added entities)
6. Getting started
- Onboarding steps and timeline
- What you need from them to begin
- Start date
7. Acceptance
- Signature and date, or a link to accept online
How to use this proposal template
Keep it short. A tight two-to-three-page proposal that a prospect actually reads beats a ten-page document that impresses nobody. Lead with their situation, not your firm’s history. Once accepted, roll it straight into a signed engagement letter so the terms are locked in.
For firms proposing project or advisory work rather than recurring bookkeeping, use the broader professional services proposal template instead.
Send proposals that convert in Tidyflow
In Tidyflow, proposals and engagement letters live where the work does. Build the proposal with your pricing, send it for online acceptance, and carry the agreed scope and fee straight through to the engagement letter and the client’s recurring bookkeeping job, no copy-pasting between documents.