Switching Accountants
What Does It Cost to Switch Accountants?
The honest breakdown of onboarding and backwork fees — so you know exactly what you're walking into before you ever sign anything.
Frank Fiore, our President, walks through the ISS fee, Backwork, and the Tax Prep True-Up, and why we keep them separate from your weekly fee.
Read the transcript
Here's a question most accounting firms dodge: "What's it going to cost me to switch?" Usually the answer is "we'll talk about that later." Then a surprise shows up on your first invoice.
We'd rather tell you now. When you switch to Accounting Freedom, there are up to three one-time costs. One applies to everyone. The other two depend on your situation. Let me walk you through each one.
First, the ISS fee. That stands for Initial Strategy Sessions. Before we touch a single transaction, we need to understand your business: how you make money, how you're set up, and what's keeping you up at night. The ISS fee covers building your chart of accounts, mapping your systems, and setting the plan for how we'll work together. It's a one-time fee, equal to two times your monthly equivalent fee. Every new client pays it.
Second, Backwork. This one only applies if your books aren't current. If they're behind, someone has to catch them up before we can do our job right. The math is simple: your weekly fee times the number of weeks you're behind. So if your fee is $200 a week and you're 10 weeks behind, Backwork is $2,000. No hourly clock, no guessing. And if your books were done by another accounting firm and they hold up when we review them, we use them as-is. No Backwork at all.
Third, the Tax Prep True-Up. A small piece of every weekly payment goes toward preparing your tax return at year-end. Over a full year, that funds the work. But if you join in, say, October, we haven't collected those payments yet. The True-Up closes that gap up front. And if Backwork already covers some of those weeks, your True-Up shrinks to match. You never pay twice for the same week.
Now, I know what some of you are thinking: "I was already paying someone to keep my books. Why am I paying again?" That's fair, and it stings. But everything we do for you, from your taxes to your planning to your numbers, is built on what's in your books. If those numbers are off, every decision after that is off too. We'd rather fix it once, the right way, than watch it turn into a bigger problem down the road.
One more thing: waiting until January usually costs more, not less. Backwork grows every week your books go unmaintained, and the tax planning months you miss don't come back.
Here's the bottom line. Every proposal we send breaks out your ISS fee, your Backwork if it applies, your True-Up, and your weekly fee as separate numbers, before you sign anything. No surprises.
If you want to see real examples, they're on our website. And if you have questions about your number, just ask. That's what we're here for.
In one sentence: Switching to Accounting Freedom involves one guaranteed one-time cost — the ISS (Initial Strategy Sessions) fee — and one conditional one-time cost, the Backwork fee, which only applies if your books aren't current. A small Tax Prep True-Up ensures your first year's tax return is fully funded no matter when in the year you join. Below, we break down exactly how each is calculated, with real client numbers.
Three Numbers, Explained Plainly
No hourly clock, no mystery line items. Here's exactly what each fee covers and how it's calculated.
Before we touch a single transaction, we need to actually understand your business — how you make money, how you're structured, what's kept you up at night. The ISS fee covers building your chart of accounts, mapping your systems, and setting the plan for how we'll work together going forward.
If your books are current, this doesn't apply to you. If they're not, someone has to get them caught up before we can start doing our job right. It's priced simply: your weekly fee times the number of weeks you're behind. No hourly clock, no guessing.
On average, new clients are about 6 months behind when they switch to us. At our average weekly fee of $185, that works out to roughly $4,800.
A small piece of every weekly payment is already earmarked toward preparing your tax return at year-end. If you join partway through the year, we collect the difference up front. If Backwork already covers a missed week, your True-Up shrinks to match — you're never paying twice for the same week.
Because bundling this into your weekly fee would mean you're paying for work that's already finished — for years. The ISS and Backwork fees cover work that happens once: getting your systems built and your books caught up. Your weekly fee only covers what we actually do for you every week after that.
Keeping them separate means your ongoing fee stays honest — it reflects the work we're doing right now, not work we finished a year ago.
Every weekly payment you make to us includes a small amount set aside specifically to fund your tax return at year-end. Over a full 52 weeks, that adds up to what it actually costs us to prepare your taxes properly.
Here's the catch: if you sign on with us on December 1, we'll only collect about 4 weeks of payments before your return is due — nowhere near enough to have funded that work. The True-Up simply closes that gap up front. And if you're also being charged Backwork, those missed weeks already carry their own built-in tax allocation, so your True-Up only covers whatever gap Backwork doesn't already fill. You never pay for the same week twice.
When these fees are smallest
The size of your Backwork and True-Up fees comes down to one thing: how many weeks have gone by since your books were last actually closed out, with nobody doing the work in between. If you switch early in the year, that gap is usually just a handful of weeks since January 1 — so both fees stay small. The longer you wait, the more weeks stack up, and the bigger both numbers get. These fees exist to make sure that work gets paid for exactly once — not to pad your bill.
We hear this a lot — and the honest answer depends on who "someone" was.
If your prior accountant was a licensed CPA or accounting firm and their financial statements hold up under our review, we use them as-is. We don't charge you to redo work that's already correct — you'd only see the ISS fee and Tax Prep True-Up, no Backwork at all.
If your books were kept in-house, by a non-accounting bookkeeper, or weren't professionally prepared, we typically can't rely on them without doing our own review — so Backwork applies.
And if your prior firm was a licensed firm but our review turns up real errors, you get the choice: have them fix it, or have us redo it. Backwork only applies if you choose us to redo it.
Either way, you'll know exactly which of these applies to you before you sign anything.
Real Clients, Real Numbers
On average, new clients are about 6 months behind when they switch — here's what that actually looked like for three of our newest Core+ clients, anonymized and unedited.
$407/week · 15 weeks behind
$331/week · ~14 months behind (since 1/1/25)
$286/week · 4 weeks behind (since 7/1/26)
Business Owners Who Made the Switch
We've walked hundreds of business owners through this exact transition. Here's what a couple of them said, pulled straight from our Google reviews.
Great business for small business. Had no idea what I was doing with bookkeeping. They helped so much.
I was recommended to Accounting Freedom, and I was in contact with Daisy and she was well prepared and very informative. A great help — I definitely plan on continuing business here!
Switching Now vs. Waiting Until January
A lot of business owners assume it's easier to wait for a "clean" start date. Usually, it isn't.
Switching Accountants: Questions We Hear Most
Ready to See Your Exact Number?
We'll walk through your specific situation — including your real ISS, Backwork, and True-Up numbers — on a free consultation.