Home › FAQ
Common questions
Pricing, monthly reports, cleanup, payroll, security. If the answer you need is not here, email hello@flowbookkeepingservices.com for a written answer, no call required.
Pricing and plans
Monthly bookkeeping plans start at $149/month. Plans are based on transaction volume, not hours:
A transaction is one line imported from a connected bank, credit card or loan account in a calendar month.
Transactions above the plan cap are billed at $0.50 each. If the business runs over the cap two or three months in a row, you will be told and offered the tier that costs less. Plans are never upgraded silently.
No. Plans are month to month and you can cancel at any time. The books stay yours because they live in your own QuickBooks Online file, not in software someone else controls.
Monthly bookkeeping is invoiced each month and due within 15 days. A one-time $15 late fee applies to a monthly invoice paid after its due date. Cleanup projects are billed half before the work starts and half at delivery.
Cleanup is priced by tier based on how far behind the books are, not by the hour:
Cleanup projects start at $750. Final price is set after a free diagnostic, and you see it in writing before any work begins.
Months behind is the starting point, but it is not the whole answer. A file that is three months behind but has a tangled chart of accounts, unreconciled bank feeds going back two years and personal spending mixed in is not a Light cleanup. That is what the free books diagnostic is for: the actual file is reviewed and the actual work is quoted.
Getting started
Start with the free books diagnostic. Call (843) 749-8691 or email hello@flowbookkeepingservices.com, then invite Flow Bookkeeping Services into QuickBooks as your accountant from Manage Users. Within one business day you get a written, plain-English report: what is clean, what needs fixing, which plan fits and what it costs. No credit card and no obligation.
No. The review happens over email, so you can read the report on your own time. If you would rather talk it through, call (843) 749-8691.
Send statements and receipts by the 5th of the month. Reports are delivered by the 10th of the following month. The first month can take longer while the chart of accounts and bank rules are set up. If a cleanup is needed first, its timeline is quoted up front.
No. The work happens inside your existing QuickBooks Online file. There is no proprietary portal holding your ledger, and if you leave, your books stay where they are.
One-time QuickBooks setup for a new or empty file starts at $450: company settings, chart of accounts, bank and card feeds, and bank rules. Take $200 off any setup tier when you start a monthly plan at the same time. Setup does not include catching up past transactions; that is a cleanup.
Who the service is for
Small businesses in the Charleston area and across South Carolina: service businesses, retail and online stores, restaurants and food businesses, professional and creative firms, health and wellness practices, and contractors and home service companies.
Yes. For businesses that need to see profit by job, location or service line, income and costs are tagged with projects or classes in QuickBooks, so you can see what each one actually made rather than only total spending.
Yes. Payments to independent contractors are tracked through the year: W-9s collected before the first payment, payments totaled per vendor, and a running list of who will cross the IRS reporting threshold for the year. There is more on the 1099 threshold page.
A deposit is a liability until you have earned it, not revenue on the day it lands. Booking deposits straight to income is one of the most common errors in small business books, and it produces two bad outcomes: a month that looks more profitable than it was, and a tax bill on money you may still owe back.
Yes. By default, retainage is kept out of ordinary receivables and is not recognized as revenue until it is released. With progress billing, billed, earned and collected are kept separable. See the retainage guide and the progress billing guide.
Scope of service
Payroll processing and reporting are included with the Growth and Scale plans. The Starter plan does not include payroll.
No. Flow Bookkeeping Services is a bookkeeping firm, not a CPA firm, and does not give tax or legal advice. The job is to hand your CPA a clean, reconciled set of books in the format they want.
No. Flow Bookkeeping Services prepares the books your tax preparer works from and coordinates with them at year end, so you are not the one forwarding spreadsheets back and forth.
Every file and every month-end close is handled by the same QuickBooks-certified bookkeeper, an Intuit ProAdvisor at the Gold tier. The work is not outsourced and not passed between staff, so you always know who is accountable for your books.
Charleston, North Charleston, Mount Pleasant, Summerville and the surrounding Lowcountry, plus businesses elsewhere in South Carolina. The work happens remotely inside your own QuickBooks Online file, so location does not limit service.
Security and access
Bank connections are read-only and documents are shared through a secure client portal. Flow Bookkeeping Services never asks you to email or text a password. Automated tools may assist with bookkeeping workflows, and a person reviews the work before each month-end close.
No, and you should never send a password to any bookkeeper by email or text. Bank and card connections are made by you, from your own login, as read-only feeds. Accountant-level access to your QuickBooks Online file is granted by you and can be revoked by you at any time.
You can cancel at any time. Because everything lives in your own QuickBooks Online file, nothing has to be migrated or exported. Full control is handed back and accountant access is removed.
Keep reading
Longer answers to the questions that come up once you are actually running the books.
The step most contractors skip, and why it quietly ruins project margin.
Read the guide →Why retainage does not belong in ordinary accounts receivable.
Read the guide →What the 2026 change means, and why it does not mean less record-keeping.
Read the guide →Send your QuickBooks Online file for a free books diagnostic and get a written, plain-English answer within one business day, with no call required.
Get your free books diagnostic →Call or email and share where the books stand today. You'll get a written assessment and a quote within one business day.
Call or email. Replies go out within one business day.
Call (843) 749-8691 Email hello@flowbookkeepingservices.com