Quick Takeaways
- Accounting software really costs $1,800 to $4,000 a year for a small Houston team once payroll and add-ons are in, not the price on the ad.
- Your own hours are the biggest hidden cost. Eight hours a month is 96 hours a year, worth $7,200 to $14,400 of your time.
- A Houston CPA runs $400 to $1,200 a month for bookkeeping with review, or $1,200 to $2,500 a month for a full relationship with quarterly calls and the return.
- Software is genuinely enough if you have no employees, one bank account, and revenue under about $250,000.
- The moment you run payroll, the math changes. Late deposit penalties climb to 15 percent and unpaid withholding can become your personal debt.
- Most owners land in the middle. Keep the software, pay a CPA to review it quarterly and handle the filings.
What Accounting Software Really Costs in 2026
The advertised price is not the price. Small business plans usually start around $35 to $100 a month. Call it $420 to $1,200 a year. That part is honest.
Then the add-ons stack up. Payroll inside the software adds $40 to $180 a month, plus $6 to $15 per employee. Receipts, time tracking, inventory, and a card reader run $10 to $50 each. A file cleanup, when the file goes sideways, runs $500 to $2,500.
Add it up for a Houston shop with four employees and you land between $1,800 and $4,000 a year. That is before anyone checks whether the numbers are right.
- Core plan: $35 to $100 a month, so $420 to $1,200 a year
- Payroll module: $40 to $180 a month, plus $6 to $15 per employee
- Add-ons for receipts, time tracking, or inventory: $10 to $50 a month each
- One time cleanup when the file gets messy: $500 to $2,500
- Typical all in for a small Houston team: $1,800 to $4,000 a year
The Cost Nobody Puts in the Spreadsheet: Your Hours
Software does not do your books. You do. The software holds the file and adds it up.
Owners who keep their own books spend about 5 to 10 hours a month on it, reconciling accounts, chasing receipts and fixing categories that imported wrong. January and quarter end run higher.
Say 8 hours a month. That is 96 hours a year, close to two and a half work weeks. Now put your own rate on it. At $75 an hour, those hours cost $7,200. At $150 an hour, $14,400.
Those are also the worst hours you have. Sunday night, kitchen table, after a full week. That is when the bookkeeping mistakes we fix most often get made.
Errors, Notices, and the Penalty Math
Software will let you do the wrong thing quickly and neatly. It will book an owner draw as an expense. It will let a payroll deposit go in late. It will treat a worker as a contractor when the IRS would call that person an employee.
Penalties are set by rule, not by how sorry you are. Late payroll deposits step up from 2 percent to 15 percent of the deposit, based on how late they are. Filing late runs 5 percent a month, capped at 25 percent. We laid out what payroll tax penalties actually cost so you can read the tiers before you meet them.
One rule is worse than the rest. If payroll taxes come out of employee checks and never reach the IRS, the trust fund recovery penalty can be assessed against you personally, not against the company. That liability survives the company closing.
One bad quarter can cost more than a full year of CPA fees. That is the whole argument in one line.
What Software Misses in Texas
Texas has no state income tax, which fools people into thinking state filings are easy here. They are not.
The Texas franchise tax report is due in May, on the state portal, with its own rules about which revenue counts. Plenty of small businesses owe nothing and still have to file. Skip it and your entity can lose its right to do business until you clean it up. That gets discovered at the worst moment, usually when a bank or a general contractor asks for a certificate of account status.
Sales tax is the other one. If you sell goods, or certain services, you are holding money that is not yours and reporting it on a schedule. Software can track it. Software will not tell you that you were supposed to register in the first place.
Storm season adds its own mess. A repair, an insurance payout, and a replaced roof are three different things on a tax return. The software will happily lump them together.
What a Houston CPA Actually Charges
Nobody should have to call for a price. These are the ranges in this market.
Price moves with transaction volume, how many bank and card accounts you have, employee count, and how clean your records are on day one. A restaurant with three card readers and 40 employees is not priced like a two person consulting firm. We break the numbers down further in tax preparation cost for a Houston small business, including what pushes a quote up.
- Business return only, S corp or partnership: $900 to $2,500
- Personal return with a Schedule C: from $950 at Nguyen Accounting Group
- Texas franchise tax report: $250 to $600
- Monthly bookkeeping with CPA review: $400 to $1,200 a month
- Payroll processing and filings: $60 to $200 a month plus a per employee fee
- Full monthly relationship with quarterly calls and the return: $1,200 to $2,500 a month
- First year cleanup, if the file needs it: $500 to $2,500 one time
Side by Side: Software Only vs Working With a CPA
Picture one business with four employees, one location, and about $900,000 in revenue. Here is how the two setups compare.
Now price the hours. Software at $2,400 plus 96 of your hours at $150 comes to roughly $16,800. A mid range CPA setup at $9,000 a year, with 20 of your hours, comes to about $12,000. The cheap option stopped being cheap somewhere around the second employee.
Run the same math for a one person business with 30 transactions a month and it flips hard the other way. Which is the point. Size and payroll decide this, not opinion.
- Cash cost: software only $1,800 to $4,000 a year; CPA $6,000 to $18,000 a year depending on scope
- Your time: software only 60 to 120 hours a year; CPA about 1 to 2 hours a month
- Who catches an error: with software only, you, usually in April; with a CPA, your CPA, usually inside the same month
- The year-end return: with software only, you prepare it from your own entries; with a CPA, prepared from books your CPA has already reviewed
- IRS notice: with software only, you write the response; with a CPA, your CPA answers it and handles the follow up
Choose Based on Your Situation, Not the Price Tag
Four clear buckets. Find yours.
The second bucket is where most Houston owners actually sit, and it gives them the cheapest honest answer. Keep the software. Pay a professional to review it four times a year and file the returns.
If you are not sure the review needs a CPA at all, read whether you need a CPA or just a bookkeeper. The right answer is not always the expensive one.
- Pick software only if you have no employees, one business bank account, no inventory, revenue under about $250,000, and you file a Schedule C.
- Choose software plus a CPA at tax time if you sit between roughly $250,000 and $750,000, use one or two contractors, and you can keep the file clean month to month.
- Go with a monthly CPA if you run payroll, hold inventory, passed about $750,000, run more than one entity or location, or you are applying for a loan.
- Call a CPA this week, at any size, if you have unfiled returns, unpaid payroll taxes, a letter from the IRS, or you are buying or selling the business.
The Setup Most Houston Owners Land On
Almost nobody ends up at either extreme. The setup that holds up looks like this. The owner or an office manager does daily entry in the software. A CPA reviews the file quarterly, runs or oversees payroll, handles the state filings, and prepares the return from books that are already clean.
That costs less than full service bookkeeping and removes the part that creates penalties. It also keeps you close to your own numbers, which matters more than owners expect the first time a bank asks a hard question.
One more thing worth saying plainly. Many family businesses we work with along Bellaire keep records across notebooks, apps, and a folder of receipts, and the person who knows where all of it lives speaks Vietnamese at home. Having a CPA who works with Vietnamese owned businesses takes out a translation step at the exact moment detail matters most.
Before you sign anything, read how to choose a CPA and ask for the fee range in writing. A firm that will not put a number on paper before the first meeting is telling you something.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is accounting software enough for a small Houston business?
Often, yes. If you are one owner with no employees, one business bank account, no inventory, and revenue under roughly $250,000, software plus a tidy habit will carry you. File receipts weekly. Reconcile the bank every month. Keep personal spending on a personal card. That is most of the job. Software stops being enough the moment payroll starts, you add a second entity, or a bank asks for real financial statements. Those are the points where the file has to be correct as well as complete. Until then, spending about $2,000 a year on software instead of $10,000 on a firm is a fair trade.
How much does a CPA cost per month in Houston?
Monthly bookkeeping with CPA review usually runs $400 to $1,200 a month for a small business. Add payroll and expect another $60 to $200 a month plus a per employee fee. A full monthly relationship, with quarterly calls and the business return included, lands around $1,200 to $2,500 a month. Price moves with transaction volume, account count, employee count, and how clean your file is when you arrive. A messy first year almost always adds a cleanup fee of $500 to $2,500. Ask for that number up front. Any firm that will not give you a range before the first meeting is wasting your time.
Can I keep doing my own bookkeeping and hire a CPA only for taxes?
Yes, and plenty of Houston owners do. You handle daily entry in the software. The CPA takes the file in January, cleans what needs cleaning, and files the return. A personal return with a Schedule C starts at $950 at Nguyen Accounting Group. Houston-area firms that publish business prices start at $675 to $1,250 for an S corp, partnership or C corp return. The catch is that a year of small mistakes takes hours to unwind, and you pay for those hours. Owners who keep the file clean pay the low end. Owners who hand over a shoebox pay the high end plus a cleanup fee. The habit saves the money, not the software.
At what revenue should I hire a CPA?
Revenue is a weak trigger on its own. Complexity is the real one. Still, most Houston businesses feel the pull between $500,000 and $1 million, because that is usually when payroll, a second location, or a real loan application shows up. Below that, with no employees and one bank account, software is fine. Above it, the judgment calls alone tend to cover the fee. Payroll filed on time, a vehicle handled properly, and equipment depreciated correctly can move your tax bill by thousands. Software will not catch any of that. It records what you tell it and stops there.
Does accounting software handle the Texas franchise tax?
No. Most software is built for federal filings and payroll. The Texas franchise tax report is a state filing with its own portal, its own May deadline, and its own rules about which revenue counts. Many small businesses owe nothing and still have to file. Miss it and you can pick up penalties and interest, and your entity can lose its right to do business in Texas until you fix it. That last part surprises people, usually when a bank or a general contractor asks for a certificate of account status and it comes back bad. Put the May date on the same calendar as your federal deadlines.
What if my software categorized everything wrong all year?
This is fixable, and common. The usual pattern is owner draws booked as expenses, transfers counted twice, and personal spending mixed in. Those three make your profit look wrong, which means your estimated tax payments were wrong too. A cleanup runs $500 to $2,500, depending on volume and how many months are affected. Do it before the return, not during. If bad numbers already went out on a filed return, an amended return may be needed, and that costs more. Bring bank statements, card statements, and loan documents. Those three sources let a CPA rebuild the year properly instead of guessing at it.
Is a CPA worth it if I only have one or two employees?
Payroll is where doing it yourself gets expensive fast. Late deposits carry penalties that climb from 2 percent to 15 percent based on how late they are. Taxes withheld from paychecks that never reach the IRS can become a personal liability through the trust fund recovery penalty, which follows you even after the company closes. Having one or two employees does not lower that risk. It only lowers the dollar amount. Payroll handled properly costs $60 to $200 a month plus a per employee fee, which is small next to a single penalty notice. If you run payroll at all, hand that piece over first.
Do I need a CPA who speaks Vietnamese?
You do not need one, but it changes the work. Tax questions are detail questions. When an owner can describe a family loan, a partner arrangement, or how tips get split in the language they think in, the answer comes out right the first time. Our practice works in both English and Vietnamese for that reason. It also helps with the paperwork behind the paperwork, since records often live across a notebook, an app, and a folder of receipts. If your books are simple and your English is comfortable, any good CPA will serve you well. If either is not true, pick the one who can hear the whole story.
Talk to a Houston CPA
Nguyen Accounting Group serves Houston small businesses with tax preparation, tax resolution, and bookkeeping. See how our tax preparation services and bookkeeping and QuickBooks support work, or Book Your 15-Minute Intro Call. 15 minutes to get to know you and see if working together makes sense.
