The $72,000 Bookkeeper: What Australian Businesses Actually Pay for In-House Staff

Reading time: 8 minutes

When Australian business owners consider hiring a bookkeeper, they typically focus on salary. A mid-level bookkeeper in Brisbane or Melbourne commands $60,000-$75,000 annually. It seems straightforward: budget for salary, recruit someone capable, and the position pays for itself through accurate financials and saved owner time.

Through our work supporting Australian businesses with their bookkeeping, we've observed this calculation repeatedly. And we've seen where the calculation consistently goes wrong, not in the obvious costs, but in the hidden ones that appear only after the hiring decision is made.

The Real Cost Structure

Let's start with a typical scenario: You need someone for accounts payable, receivable, reconciliation, and monthly reporting. You budget $65,000 for salary. Here's what you actually pay:

Base Salary: $65,000

Superannuation: $7,150 (11% from July 2024)

Annual Leave: $5,000 (four weeks at full pay)

Sick Leave: $2,500 (ten days, partially used on average)

Public Holidays: $2,500 (11 days in Queensland, for example)

WorkCover Insurance: $650-1,300 depending on your industry classification

Recruitment Costs: $3,000-8,000 for advertising, agency fees if used, or time spent on DIY recruitment

Onboarding & Training: $4,000-6,000 in reduced productivity during the first 3-4 months

Accounting Software & Tools: $1,200-2,000 annually for their workstation licences and access

Workspace Costs: $3,500-5,000 for desk, computer, phone, supplies

Payroll Tax: Applicable if your Australia-wide wages exceed $1.3-1.4 million (varies by state)

Total Year One Cost: $94,500-$102,000

Ongoing Annual Cost: $87,000-$94,000

That's before considering management time, the risk of turnover, or capability limitations. The $65,000 bookkeeper actually costs your business $87,000-$94,000 in ongoing expenses.

The Hidden Costs That Appear Later

Management Overhead

A bookkeeper doesn't manage themselves. Someone needs to review their work, answer questions, resolve issues, provide direction, and ensure quality. For small businesses, this responsibility typically falls to the owner.

The time investment is rarely massive, perhaps 3-5 hours monthly for check-ins, report reviews, and problem-solving. But it's time that has opportunity cost. At a conservative $120 per hour (well below what most business owners actually generate), that's $4,320-$7,200 annually in management overhead.

For businesses without financial expertise, this management is also stressful. You're responsible for work quality you're not qualified to verify. You're making decisions about processes you don't fully understand. The bookkeeper asks whether a transaction should be categorised as equipment or supplies, and you're expected to know the implications for tax treatment.

The Capability Ceiling

You hire someone appropriate for your current needs. They handle your transaction volume competently, understand your processes, and deliver reliable results.

Then your business grows. Transaction volume doubles. You expand into a new service area with different GST treatment. You take on government contracts with specific compliance requirements. You acquire another small business.

Your bookkeeper is now working beyond their capability level. They're competent at what they were hired for but not equipped for what you now need. You face a choice: provide additional training (time and cost), hire a second person with complementary skills (doubling costs), or replace them with someone more capable (recruitment costs plus loss of institutional knowledge).

This progression is common and rarely considered during initial hiring. The person who's appropriate for a $1.5 million business isn't necessarily appropriate for a $4 million business. Growth requires upgrading capability, which means either training investment or personnel changes.

Turnover Risk and Cost

The average Australian bookkeeper changes roles every 3-4 years. When your bookkeeper resigns, several costs hit simultaneously:

Knowledge Loss: They understand your specific processes, supplier relationships, client quirks, and system configurations. This knowledge walks out with them.

Recruitment Cost: $3,000-$8,000 to find a replacement, more if you use agencies.

Transition Time: 2-4 weeks between resignation and replacement starting, during which someone (usually you) covers essential tasks.

Training Period: 2-3 months for the new person to reach full productivity, longer to match the departing person's institutional knowledge.

Error Risk: New staff make mistakes whilst learning. These can be costly if they affect client billing, supplier payments, or GST reporting.

The total turnover cost typically ranges from $15,000-$25,000 when all factors are included. If turnover occurs every 3-4 years, that's $4,000-$7,000 annually in amortised turnover costs.

The Single Point of Failure

Your bookkeeper is on annual leave for three weeks. Who processes urgent invoices? Who handles the supplier query about a missing payment? Who manages time-sensitive banking?

You have several options, none ideal:

• Handle it yourself: Negates the entire purpose of hiring someone
• Have them work remotely during leave: Creates resentment and isn't truly leave
• Hire temporary coverage: Expensive and requires training someone for three weeks of work
• Let it accumulate: Causes supplier issues, cash flow delays, and an overwhelming backlog

Small businesses typically default to option one or four, meaning the owner either works during the bookkeeper's absence or business operations are disrupted.

This single-point-of-failure risk extends to sick leave, family emergencies, and any unexpected absence. Your bookkeeping stops when your bookkeeper is unavailable.

The Performance Challenge

When Good Enough Isn't

You hire someone competent. They process transactions accurately, maintain tidy records, and produce reports on schedule. By reasonable standards, they're performing well.

But "performing well" and "adding strategic value" are different things. A competent bookkeeper ensures compliance and accuracy. An exceptional one identifies cash flow patterns, flags unusual expenses proactively, spots opportunities for cost reduction, and provides insights that inform business decisions.

The challenge is this: exceptional bookkeepers are rare and expensive. They're hired by large companies or accounting firms that can pay $90,000-$110,000 and provide career progression. Small businesses typically access good-but-not-exceptional talent, which means adequate bookkeeping without strategic value-add.

There's nothing wrong with this—adequate bookkeeping is valuable. But it's worth recognising that in-house hiring for small businesses usually means settling for competent rather than exceptional, because exceptional talent gravitates towards opportunities you can't match.

The Generalist vs. Specialist Trade-off

You need someone who can handle accounts payable, accounts receivable, reconciliation, payroll, and BAS preparation. That's five distinct skill areas, each with its own complexity.

You're hiring one person to cover all of them. This means hiring a generalist—someone competent across multiple areas but not expert in any specific one. It's the only practical approach for small business hiring.

The limitation appears in specialised situations. Your BAS preparation is correct but not optimised for maximum credits. Your payroll processing is accurate but doesn't leverage available efficiencies. Your reconciliation catches errors but doesn't identify patterns that could prevent them.

A team of specialists would deliver superior results in each area. But you can't afford a team, so you hire one generalist and accept the capability trade-off.

The Alternative Economics

Professional bookkeeping services operate on completely different economics:

Team-Based Delivery: Your work is handled by multiple specialists—someone focused on accounts payable, someone on receivables, someone on reconciliation. Each brings depth in their area rather than general competency across all areas.

Built-In Redundancy: Staff leave, illness, and workload variations are absorbed by the team. Your bookkeeping never depends on a single person's availability.

No Management Burden: The service provider handles staff management, quality control, training, and performance oversight. You engage with the output, not the process.

Scalable Capability: As your needs change, the service scales without recruitment, training, or termination costs. Need additional capacity? It's available immediately. Reduced requirements? Adjust service level without redundancy obligations.

No Turnover Risk: Staff changes are invisible to you. Institutional knowledge is maintained in documented processes and team structures rather than individual memory.

Predictable Fixed Cost: One monthly fee covers all the costs that appear as separate line items with employed staff.

For most small businesses, professional bookkeeping services cost $4,000-$8,000 annually for work comparable to a part-time bookkeeper, or $12,000-$24,000 annually for work comparable to a full-time bookkeeper.

Compare this to the $87,000-$94,000 annual cost of employed staff, plus management time, plus turnover risk, plus capability limitations.

When In-House Hiring Makes Sense

Employment isn't always the wrong answer. Larger businesses often benefit from dedicated staff who develop deep institutional knowledge and work across multiple financial functions beyond standard bookkeeping.

In-house hiring makes sense when:

• Your transaction volume and complexity justify full-time specialised staff
• You need someone physically present for operations integration (manufacturing, retail, construction sites)
• Financial management is integrated with other responsibilities (admin, HR, operations)
• You have the expertise to properly manage and develop bookkeeping staff
• You're large enough that turnover risk is mitigated by team structures

For businesses below roughly $5-8 million in revenue, these conditions rarely apply. The bookkeeping requirement isn't sufficient to justify full-time specialised staff, and the cost burden is significant relative to business size.

The Hybrid Approach That Doesn't Work

Some businesses attempt a middle path: hiring part-time bookkeepers or contractors. The theory is sound—get the benefit of dedicated staff without full employment costs.

In practice, this model combines the disadvantages of both approaches:

• All the recruitment and turnover risk of employment without the commitment that retains staff
• Limited availability creating the single-point-of-failure problem
• Fractional attention meaning they're not deeply engaged with your business
• Still your management responsibility without guaranteed availability or continuity

Part-time and contract bookkeepers work well in specific situations, particularly for experienced financial professionals supplementing retirement income or building portfolio careers. But as a cost-saving strategy for essential business functions, it typically creates more problems than it solves.

Making the Decision

The choice between employed bookkeepers and professional bookkeeping services comes down to honest assessment of three questions:

1. Can you absorb $90,000+ annual cost?
Not just afford it—absorb it comfortably enough that the investment makes sense relative to the value received.

2. Can you properly manage bookkeeping staff?
Do you have the financial expertise to verify work quality, provide meaningful direction, and ensure compliance?

3. Can you handle the operational risk?
If your bookkeeper resigns, goes on extended leave, or underperforms, can your business continue smoothly?

If the answer to all three is yes, employment might make sense. If any answer is no, professional bookkeeping services typically deliver better outcomes at substantially lower cost.

The Reality for Most Australian Businesses

For the majority of small to medium Australian businesses, the economics clearly favour professional bookkeeping services over employment:

• 67% lower annual cost ($24,000 vs $90,000 for comparable service levels)
• No management burden on owners without financial expertise
• Better risk management through team-based delivery and business continuity
• Superior capability through specialist depth rather than generalist coverage
• Complete flexibility to scale with changing business needs

The businesses we see struggle most with this decision are those comparing salary alone ($65,000) against service cost ($18,000) and missing the $25,000-$30,000 in additional employment costs that make the true comparison $90,000 vs $18,000.

When the full cost structure is understood, the decision becomes straightforward for most businesses.

Moving Forward

If you're currently considering hiring a bookkeeper, or struggling with the cost and complexity of employed bookkeeping staff, start with clear-eyed cost analysis:

Calculate the full employment cost including superannuation, leave, insurance, recruitment, onboarding, management time, workspace, and tools. Add management overhead and turnover risk. Compare this genuine total cost against professional service pricing.

For most Australian businesses under $5 million in revenue, the mathematics consistently favour professional services. Not as a cost-cutting measure, but as a strategic decision that delivers better results at lower cost with less operational risk.

The $72,000 bookkeeper isn't actually $65,000. Once you account for what employment truly costs, the comparison becomes clear.

Considering hiring a bookkeeper? Compare the true costs against Lynk Global's fully managed bookkeeping services—no recruitment, no management, no turnover risk. Get your custom quote at lynkglobal.com.au or call 07 2142 0024 to discuss your specific situation.