To be fair there is overhead and admin time factored into the variance but still it's an absurd multiple over their cost even with that in mind.
Just to add my salary is 84k a year but I put in 2400 hours last year bringing it down to $35 an hour. If you include my bonus it goes to $37 an hour but still.
My billable rate goes up to $240 or $300 as well if I'm called on as a witness or need to testify....but funny enough I don't get anything extra when I do haha *cries into my calculator tape*
They use the notion I am salary when I bring up pay issues. Its the type of firm where if you don't have an offer from somewhere else they think what they are offering is fair.
Maybe I am giving them too much credit but I don't think they're malicious just ignorant. The Partners in our office have all been with the firm pretty much since they started their accounting career. I think they see my complaints as something that's just normal in the industry because its what they had to deal with when they were non-partners but they don't realize how destructive it is.
For example they literally told me that they never track their assignments. 2 of the partners have inboxes with like 2,000 unread emails and they don't sort their emails to keep track of different requests from clients. When I voiced my complaint about workloads and how some of our clients were getting angry at the turn around times because we keep having to jump from one fire to the next. They responded with
\*Our priorities are always changing and trying to keep track of all the assignments wasn't efficient. Sometimes we forget about an assignment until the client messages us about a deadline within a few days and then we just shift gears to get that churned out. That's just how it is.\*
Now personally I think its completely insane. I've been asking for some kind of project management for 2+ years now so we can budget our hours to our assignments efficiently and so we can actually keep up with the deadlines needed without having to force non-partners like me to have to keep pivoting and working excess to meet the clients needs. Because of this i've stopped prioritizing my assignments myself and have started to request the partners direct me on what to work on so I don't get blamed when other things fall behind. It's saved me a few times with angry clients because the partners come asking me why its not done after 6-8 months, I have a list of the assignments they gave me that they told me took priority over that client.
Employee cost is calculated with all benefits included. Holidays, vacation, Insurance all types (health, professional) , anything like a company car, desk, ac, heat, Expenses, materials, computer.
Part of why im dipping out.
9 YOE total but only about 3 in public accounting. The other 6 were split between my own business and accounting manager in industry for a manufacturing company.
There was another topic somewhere in this sub where others in public pointed out the same that it's usually 1/4 not close go 1/6 like ours is.
I'm just trying to survive like 2 more months to finish my personal book of business projects that I brought into the firm before leaving with my clients.
Nope. 1550 is my charge hour goal for the year and I’m slightly over so far YTD. Hoping to get promoted with a big raise this month and if not I will be bouncing
Tale as old as time. My wife is a therapist and makes $30/hour, but her employer bills for $255/hour. They take care of overhead and liability, for sure, but holy shit
I think that’s every CPA firm is it not? I remember about the same rate ~30/hr for my pay but the firm charges 150/hr for audits and tax prep to the client
It doesn't matter what firm you join, that will always be the case. The true money is in owning your own firm and charging the larger number to clients on your own.
I got $35 and the client was charged $130. I asked for a raise; I got it, but quit shortly after. A good split is 45/55. Employee should get 45% of the total fee. Only if I am desperate and don't mind being taken advantage of I would work for 35% of the total fee.
Part of that $60 is still going to you in the form of payroll taxes/health insurance/business costs. But yeah they’re absolutely pocketing profit off you. That’s how all businesses except co-ops work
It won't make you feel any better, but Big 4 bill rates to clients for associates was like $200-$300/hr back when I was there. That would be like $400k annual salary (assuming only 2,000 hours).
My old tax firm (regional, between 75-125 for size) was $215/hour and I was paid around $32/hour.
Given my net billings goal was like $265K but we dealt with a lot of smaller clients that we did not charge enough. Getting 100% realization on a client was pretty much unheard of and I think averaged like 75-80% for a lot of high performing staff and that was even with eating some hours. We did a lot of small town taxes.
Completely normal I'm afraid.
I once "did a deal" with a company I was working for and we cut out the agency, I got a 50% pay increase and the company cut their wages bill by 25%.
We should have paid a severance fee /finders fee to the agency but they never twigged.
That’s the price you pay for not being able to find your own job unfortunately. Why not start applying for jobs directly? Or starting your own bookkeeping business for 100/hr?
In theory. In practice: the underwhelming minority of people actually do that. Get your CPA out of the way before becoming an Accounting Entrepreneur, as your time will be sucked up by the grunt work (initially) and all of the other drama associated with being a business owner.
I’d just like to add a note here that it’s incredibly rare for bookkeepers to charge $100 per hour. It’s more realistically in the like 30-50 range from my research. I thought about doing this myself, but decided to hold off until I leave public accounting.
I charge monthly (charging hourly, at least for recurring work, is a terrible business model) and it works out to $100-125 / hr in a small college town. You should have some E&O insurance, software, you have to factor in time spent finding and meeting with new clients, plus SE tax, it is not worth it to me for anything less.
I make more doing consulting/projects. I just demand a certain rate and sometimes I get 2-3 projects offered at a time and do a little bidding war. Like this other company is offering 70/hr, can you do 75? It’s just chiseling their profit but it’s zero if they can’t fill the role.
This is how Robert Half and most other talent agencies work. I've worked with a client who was hiring through Robert Half, and they were perfectly aware of their pricing strategy.
$95/hr is actually not that expensive for an accounting consultant based on my experience although your pay does suck. I’ve seen competing firms range from $130 to $240 per hour
Ok, so I wasn't aware how it worked. Instead of this serving as a learning experience, people like you come here to contribute nothing, only to make passive-aggressive comments.
Hope it made your day.
Insulting someone when you don't have a counterargument is the biggest sign of immaturity. You, on the other hand, will most likely never grow up.
Look at the flair in my post. It says "Advice."
Before deciding whether or not it's fair, you should really look into why staffing firms charge what they charge. In addition to a normal, market fee for engaging and bringing talent to the client, staffing brings an additional level of administrative cost and risk. So, depending on if you're W2 or 1099, they will charge for the administrative portion of employing you. This covers - payroll costs, all the necessary insurance costs, and any other administrative costs, plus a profit on providing that service. So, it's really two services in one - recruiting plus actual employment costs.
Bill rate is not meant to reflect what your market rate is as the employee. It's apples and oranges. You should compare your hourly rate to what the going rate is for any other similar hourly role in the market.
Companies pay these rates to get access to talent (often that they are unable to get on their own for whatever reason), to have someone to actually do the work of finding and engaging the talent, then to offload the administration and risk of employing the person.
In accounting you at least get (some) access to the company's financial information. You'll have a clue if they are likely or not to pay. Well, the companies that don't pay their bills gain notoriety very quickly so perhaps it's a moot point.
A 3x multiple is actually fairly reasonable for a consulting firm. You should see what multiples the Big 4 have.
Get your CPA, open your own firm, and when your name is on the door then you can decide whether to charge a 3x multiple or give more salary to the employee.
Consider all this part of your continuing education, OP. Here endeth the lesson.
Even if you were hired directly but utilized the recruiter, they still get 18-25% of your salary as a comission fee. It's robbery, but a cost of business from the company that the employee pays. Only way around this is direct applications, direct resumes, or network referrals.
It’s not really a rip off for a CPA firm - 25k to provide a CPA that they will make 300k-500k a year on as they are a profit centre.
For industry roles it’s often pure cost sure but for CPA firms even if they CPA stays for 6 months they make decent money
Completely normal. Started my career in strategy consulting with a base pay of $75k while the firm charged over $500 an hour for my work. It comes with the territory in consulting and outsourced roles.
That doesn’t sound too bad actually. I was getting billed out to clients between 200 to 500 depending on what sort ofwork, and my hourly rate was more like 45. This was 6 years ago in a small big4 office.
I started Big 4 making $30K a year back in the day. The firm was billing my time out at like $150 per hour. This is the nature of the industry and why being a partner is so lucrative
This tells you that the client is willing to pay $95 per hour, so use that information to your advantage when applying for new jobs. Of course that's a contract rate...no employer taxes, benefits, etc.
Lol. I used to be a consultant for robert half too and when I saw how much they were charging the clients in comparison to how much they were paying me, i dipped
I got hired through a similar recruiting company and I was tasked with handling their billing and saw similar numbers. I was a little pissed knowing I was making a fraction of what they were billing for my services
It's common practice for CPA firms to bill out at 3x to 4x the hourly rate of staff, closer to 3x more recently. 1/3 hourly rate to cover employee salary, 1/3 hourly rate to cover benefits including unbilled time, time off, and taxes, and 1/3 to cover firm overhead, such as facilities, technology, insurance, business development and partner comp. Yes you can make more on your own, but you are also taking on all of the risk and other costs, so it's not like your personal take home is going to 3x.
Your position as a sub-contractor may be a little different because much if the overhead is already being paid for by your client and you would not need to absorb many of those costs.
That’s crazy! Do you have low utilization goals? I make about $110 an hour, and they charge clients $400- $600 for my time, but I also have to have over 80% utilization each year.
Talk to your client and see if they’ll take you on directly as a contractor. You’ll have to start your co and get insurance but youll make more and theyll save more usually
I used to work at a healthcare staffing agency mostly for nurses and I can tell you we usually paid out 40-60 percent as wages and kept the rest. So this feels about on par. However, we were paying for hotels, gas, rental car and flights so it’s nowhere near this exploitive
Like 20+ years ago, I did temp accounting/admin work because I was burnt out and trying to figure out what to do next. I was paid $12/hr and company paid the agency $20/hr.
It looks like times have changed!
This isnt just accounting, every employee helping with services for another company is billed at least 4x what they get paid.
Im not justifying it because the higher ups are definitely are taking their portion but youd be extremely surprised at how many costs go into that billable rate
It's not abnormal for billings for your time to be over triple what you get paid.. They are a business and they hire you to make a profit. Maybe there's a multiplier that is too high, but it's way more than triple.
I doubt all of your time is billable btw. So they are not billing all of your time, even though you get paid for all of it.
Thanks, I wasn't sure what the standard multiplier was. There seems to be a consensus that it's 3x.
I am paid hourly, so that is that. I am happy with hourly rather than salary.
Request an increase and if they don’t give it to you, get another job. Simple.
Understandably they will not pass on anywhere close to the full $95 rate on to you. Assuming overhead, let’s say their gross profit margin is 50% (37% your rate + 13% estimate for your benefits and most OH). That is a huge margin. They can afford to give you another 5%-15%.
I asked for an increase, and given a stellar review from my client, they said they agreed on an increase, but I will get more info in our meeting on Monday.
There are a lot of hidden costs in employment. Taxes, technology, permits/fees, rent, utilities, insurance, etc that all has to be covered. Your billed rate is covering a lot of items, including other staff that is not billed out. For example, Robert Half has admins answering phones, hr staff on boarding you, accounting office paying bills and sending invoices to the company you work for. To be honest, I am surprised the billing rate is that low. I would expect it to be higher.
Yes, RH does this. Same with many placement services. The pro is quick onboarding and help through the hiring process. The con is the deep cut in pay. However, this can be turned around when the company wants to hire you on permanently. Placement agencies make good money on candidates. When I saw this processing invoices, it prompted me to ask for more salary for permanent positions or direct hires.
I’m at $19/hr currently, but I have good insurance and non-contributory pension. I always look at these numbers and the “the grass is greener,” but I dunno. Good post!
$95/hr is Grad rates here in Australia. Firm charged 80 for my work when I joined as an intern, the grad’s time was charged at 120. I was paid around 34, which would be 27 is normal terms (cutting out the casual pay bonus that interns get). This would be a cheaper multiple I guess
Welcome to capitalism. It’s why it always feels a little icky at the end of the day. No matter how good your boss is, their company functions by charging your value and paying you less than it. The clients are willing to pay your salary+payroll taxes/fringe benefits+overhead costs+profit, but you’re only getting the salary piece of it. Part of me would love to go out on my own and be able to pocket the entire piece the client is willing to pay, but the other part enjoys the protections of the company
I have studied indirect rates, typically fringe costs is about 50% of your salary, overhead can have a big range think at least 100% of salary and fringe. Plus profit.
Looks about right...
I would reach out to 1/2’s competitors and line up alternative opportunities. They’ll continue to lowball you if they think you’re depending on them for work and not looking elsewhere. Funny how you’ll find the rate moves up if they think they might lose you. Also that markup is a bit high - I’ve normally heard that they pay half the bill rate to the consultant. Someone once told me that’s where the name “half” comes from, you get half
The value of the Robert Half brand.
Firms do the same thing, with the average associate getting 1/3 to 1/4 of the billable rate.
I related news, my billable rate is $400/hour.
The fee has to cover all non-billable folks too. A typical firm will spend somewhat around 45% of net fees on unburdened salary (w/o taxes, benefits or bonuses) of all full-time equivalent employees. While your personal ratio is 35/95 , the firm might have different ratios for other billable folks. The composition of non-billable staff and admin has to be taken into account for each firm individually to arrive at conclusion about what’s (ab-)normal.
I have this job too and started a few weeks ago. They pay me $27ish but I only have an A.S. in Business and two years experience bookkeeping. My assignment got terminated a few weeks in and now I will just be getting paid to sit at home for awhile.
I’m working on becoming an Enrolled Agent though. Don’t let the security of a job derail you from dreaming and entrepreneurship if that’s a good path for you.
This is why I left being a Charted accountant and went into recruitment first cpa job processing my own hours invoice and seeing the agency get three times more then me for my work.
I realized I was on the wrong side of this and switched over.
The CPA market has got so hot that the even at 3 times your hourly rate the firm is still making money by billing you out.
If I find 4 senior managers a year I basically get paid more then a senior manager would - simple maths.
I’m an intern at my public company, my charge rate is $180 an hour and I make $28…it’s public accounting where most of the profits are fed into the company and partners.
If your are not aware there is a CPA platform that splits the recruitment fee with the CPA for referring a friend or yourself! They work mainly with CPA firms but all over Canada and America
This happened to me earlier in my career. I was paid $55 and charged at $250. I tried to leverage more money, but was let go from my project. It was a shit show of proportions that left me scarred and out of work for four months because my city was in a downturn. Robert Half is a publicly traded company and they have to make their margins on the backs of your labor. You pay the admin staff and sales/relationship management teams; however your benefits aren’t ever as good as the internal teams and most of these sales people couldn’t locate a balance sheet in a text book.
I’m glad I learned from what I did, but at a certain point unless you’re one of their full time consultants, it’s best to leverage your time and find another job. It could be another project, but you bounce around until you have the money you’re looking for and overtime options that fit your situation. When you leave contracting jobs, it’s best to do it on your terms without any bridges burned to make the jumps more effective. Over a period of four years, I had built up a marketable reputation that ended with multiple competing consulting projects from the firms I bounced between. It panty twisted some sales people but my come to Jesus with them was I am more money and bring you more money. If it’s too high for the client, the wiggle room isn’t from me. We were all adults and they understood I knew how the game worked.
I suggest you complete this project and recalibrate your next one or go find another with a higher amount in mind, but you need to be professional about everything. You’re not a contractor: You’re a consultant and one with a special set of skills (fake it until you make it).
Given that you’re a FTE consultant: Review your contract to determine the wage language. I remember a colleague’s wage being locked until they were up for some review process.
They have a budget for consultancy service but not payroll, if u were to be hired under the company directly. U wont be getting near what RH is getting
My old employer used to send us out on assignment - paid me £28 per hour but charged £200 and just generally treated us like shit. Also sent out two FAs and charged £75 an hour for each of them. I couldn't get them to pay the FA's more than minimum wage.
After two months of a day a week they poached all three of us.
Old Employer couldn't do anything as HR (Also my team) had removed the clause about working for customers when issuing the pay rise contracts which the Director actually went on record at the time saying it was a stupid term because none of the customers would take us on anyway.
Also poached the HR admin because decent HR are gold dust frankly. First thing I did - move the external accountant to a different firm that aren't dickheads.
3x is standard. 1/3rd goes to each the employee, the operations and the partner/owner. You could recommend that your billable rate be increased and subsequently your 1/3rd will be a larger amount.
I did consulting for a firm structured similar to the way that RH does it about 20 years ago. At that time, their markup was 102% of total costs (never got an explanation for the extra 2%, but I digress).
So if you have benefits and you get full pay when you're on the bench, it'd be pretty easy to get that $35.00 you see up to $45.00 (hell, FICA alone takes it to $37.67). Then you double that, and the $90.00 billing rate seems pretty standard for the industry for the past 20 years.
If you are really good (like to the point where clients don't care how much they're paying for you, because they "can't get through the project without you"), you're in a pretty strong negotiating position. I *was* that guy, and after doing the consulting for about 18 months, they'd offer me projects and I'd just lay out for them "this is what I need to do that project".
A lot of mine required spending weeks or months in a hotel out of town, so I'd not only negotiate the pay rate I wanted, but the type of hotel I'd be staying in, rental car, meal per diem, frequency of flights home, flying my wife up for a week here and there, etc. I ended up doing that job for 5 years, and they never once failed to meet my demands..... maybe I just wasn't demanding enough.
I feel like it’s important to point out to a bunch of accountants that the $35/hr rate is your direct pay rate. The $95 includes your direct rate, all of the associated burden/overhead that your company doesn’t have to pay, and the mark up. You can’t just subtract the 2 and like ZOMG PROFIT!!
That’s what additional overhead looks like
Variable and fixed expenses on breakdown to bill out for profit
You may get 35$ but you cost more in payroll taxes and benefits
Then lights rent software equipment etc
Basic concept
Hi,
1. If you are still under contract with RF ( This is between your company and RF when you were hired RF signed that how many months they want to make a profit out of you)
2. Don't be upset with your company. It is not their fault. RF is the one that sets what you make and the lowest amount that you agreed upon signing the contract, the more profit that RF received. RF is in business for it they have to pay all the agents and advertising.
3. Since tomorrow is your day, you are the only person that able to change your destination.
Some agencies won't release you unless your company pays to buy you out!
Good luck
It’s overhead and a small portion of commission. When you work for ANY employer there’s over head just the same. The difference is you’re able to see it in a bill to Robert Half. Source: I work for Robert Half
Not 100% sure how it works, but I’m going to assume it’s this structure.
You work for Robert half, then they find clients that need your services, and then you work for those clients. If they do not have work for you like a month between gigs, they still pay you.
Therefore
The cost Robert half charges includes many things
- your salary
- your benefits, insurance, tax
- your salary when they do not have work for you
- the selling cost (finding a job)
- commission
- oversight (your supervisor)
- fixed overhead for Robert half
- profit
So if you work for a client for 1 month then sit waiting for a job for 1 month, then they actually only made $47/hr off you. Minus your salary and it’s $12/hr. Minus your benefits and other expenses and they’ve lost money. Add in those other costs and they’re even deeper in the hole.
You could work for yourself, and charge clients $95/hr. Even more if you get your cpa, but your yearly salary won’t be super high because you’ll have unemployment periods
The general rule in public accounting historically was your hourly rate is 1/3 of the bill rate to the client. 1/3 is overhead and taxes and 1/3 is firm profit.
Robert Half is the worst. Those recruiters who are your "manager" are extremely shifty. They get a big chunk of the difference between what you earn and what RHI charges. Back in 2012 I worked for them as a salaried professional and a client wanted to hire me. RHI told them a 50% placement fee on my first year salary. The client who wanted to hire me didn't have the budget for that. I decided after that I needed to leave. RHI would blast my resume around town via email to contacts as well as companies hiring locally. I would apply for positions and not get a response. Finally one hiring manager let me know she had gotten my resume from RHI via email. I was so grateful, changed up my resume so it didn't look like the one RHI sent out and finally got a position with a local company.
Shady AF jerks. I am currently unemployed after a layoff but I'd rather be broke and living out of my car than work for those folks again.
Ask for a lot more and start looking for a new job. Get away from the big evil!
Your employer was a rather shitty negotiator. I worked with RH through salaried professionals, they basically told RH “we want to hire him but we won’t pay over 25% if you want to do business with us again”
My RHI "Manager" had already lined up another gig for me and was pulling me from the client I was on. That was when the client made the move to try to hire me. She offered him other candidates for less than 50% but not me. Maybe that client could have pushed harder, but they were a small company, I was their first RHI engagement, and it was a one man accounting department. A threat like "I won't do business with RHI" really would not have teeth.
RHI paid me $25 an hour and billed me at $110. I never benched, I could fill any roll from AP to Interim Controller. Every client I had would ask for me back when they needed another roll filled. When my recruiter "manager" quit I started to report directly to the branch manager and she never reassigned me back to a recruiter.
Apparently I was the reason she got invited to Las Vegas every year whatever awards thing RHI (I found this out after I left from someone who worked closely with her but left RHI). She had a lot to lose if I left and she needed that 50% to hit her numbers that year if i did leave. Also she needed me to work the new gig she was pulling me for.
Even though that was 12 years ago, I get so mad when I think of what I put up with. I was a single mom, I needed steady pay and benefits, and i couldn't work overtime. RHI gave me that but paid me below market wages. I thought at the time it was the best I could do. The job market wasn't that great in 2012 and I couldn't work overtime because I had to pick up my daughter after school. So it took a bit to find a new employer who could give me a straight 40.
RHI used and abuses their temps and salaried professionals... At least in my city.
PwC charges $200-300 an hour for offshore advisory work in my group lol
As a senior, they charged anywhere from $350-600 an hour for my work depending on the engagement.
lol does this surprise you? A larger regional firm I worked for at one point billed $275/hr for interns and this was years ago. You think they're making anywhere near $500k/yr?
This is my first time doing agency work, so I was not very familiar with the rates. But based on the answers, half of the people say it's fair, the other half says it's not.
Isn’t this normal with literally every job?
That’s like the chefs saying they only get $15 an hour when the restaurant makes significantly more. Of course they’re not going to pay you exactly what the client pays them, they need to turn a profit.
Can someone explain to me how this is a problem? IMO you should always expect that.
Everything RH needs to do as a firm is part of the markup. Paying recruiters, getting clients, advertising, paying for office rent, wtv is all part of that mark up. You can always start your own firm and pay your own rent, find your own clients, buy your own benefits and etc.
I get paid an average of $35 an hour while the firm bills $185 for my time as a CPA. I know I need to GTFO of this firm lol.
Holy cow, we really do need to get it together and look somewhere else.
To be fair there is overhead and admin time factored into the variance but still it's an absurd multiple over their cost even with that in mind. Just to add my salary is 84k a year but I put in 2400 hours last year bringing it down to $35 an hour. If you include my bonus it goes to $37 an hour but still. My billable rate goes up to $240 or $300 as well if I'm called on as a witness or need to testify....but funny enough I don't get anything extra when I do haha *cries into my calculator tape*
Wow, that is so lame of them not to give you a cut when you are billed at a higher rate. Have you considered talking to them about it?
They use the notion I am salary when I bring up pay issues. Its the type of firm where if you don't have an offer from somewhere else they think what they are offering is fair.
They sound like horrible people.
Maybe I am giving them too much credit but I don't think they're malicious just ignorant. The Partners in our office have all been with the firm pretty much since they started their accounting career. I think they see my complaints as something that's just normal in the industry because its what they had to deal with when they were non-partners but they don't realize how destructive it is. For example they literally told me that they never track their assignments. 2 of the partners have inboxes with like 2,000 unread emails and they don't sort their emails to keep track of different requests from clients. When I voiced my complaint about workloads and how some of our clients were getting angry at the turn around times because we keep having to jump from one fire to the next. They responded with \*Our priorities are always changing and trying to keep track of all the assignments wasn't efficient. Sometimes we forget about an assignment until the client messages us about a deadline within a few days and then we just shift gears to get that churned out. That's just how it is.\* Now personally I think its completely insane. I've been asking for some kind of project management for 2+ years now so we can budget our hours to our assignments efficiently and so we can actually keep up with the deadlines needed without having to force non-partners like me to have to keep pivoting and working excess to meet the clients needs. Because of this i've stopped prioritizing my assignments myself and have started to request the partners direct me on what to work on so I don't get blamed when other things fall behind. It's saved me a few times with angry clients because the partners come asking me why its not done after 6-8 months, I have a list of the assignments they gave me that they told me took priority over that client.
Bro, that sounds like hell. Also, ignorance is not an excuse. Hope you find something better soon.
Yeah, this is a terrible practice.
Hope you find something better soon. Don't give up!
Employee cost is calculated with all benefits included. Holidays, vacation, Insurance all types (health, professional) , anything like a company car, desk, ac, heat, Expenses, materials, computer.
Wow. Doing expert witness work but only taking home 84k? That seems odd. How many YOE?
Part of why im dipping out. 9 YOE total but only about 3 in public accounting. The other 6 were split between my own business and accounting manager in industry for a manufacturing company.
I’ve always been of the opinion 1/4 of billable rate should be the minimum comp, so yeah that’s rough.
There was another topic somewhere in this sub where others in public pointed out the same that it's usually 1/4 not close go 1/6 like ours is. I'm just trying to survive like 2 more months to finish my personal book of business projects that I brought into the firm before leaving with my clients.
I'd honestly argue for 1/2.
Yes that's crazy. I'm paid $100/hr and they bill me out a little under $300. 2.5-3x pay seems the norm. This is like 5x
lol I’m $80 and hour and firm charges almost $650
RIP
lol it’s ok I see the billing we collect closer to $300 on a good engagement.
But you also make bank man! Good for you! Hopefully, I pass my CPA within the year, and then I can get closer to 150k.
My salary is $65k and I’m billed out at $215/hr. Insane
The fuck? I'm here hoping you only work like (napkin math) 900 billable hours a year and just chill the rest of the time?
Nope. 1550 is my charge hour goal for the year and I’m slightly over so far YTD. Hoping to get promoted with a big raise this month and if not I will be bouncing
My last job paid me $35 an hour and billed me at $350 an hour
South African here. My firm charges met out at about 30.50 USD per hour and I get paid 4.44 USD per hour (:
Tale as old as time. My wife is a therapist and makes $30/hour, but her employer bills for $255/hour. They take care of overhead and liability, for sure, but holy shit
I think that’s every CPA firm is it not? I remember about the same rate ~30/hr for my pay but the firm charges 150/hr for audits and tax prep to the client
I think 1/4 is the norm but that's just based off what I've read on reddit in this sub. I could be wrong.
It doesn't matter what firm you join, that will always be the case. The true money is in owning your own firm and charging the larger number to clients on your own.
I got $35 and the client was charged $130. I asked for a raise; I got it, but quit shortly after. A good split is 45/55. Employee should get 45% of the total fee. Only if I am desperate and don't mind being taken advantage of I would work for 35% of the total fee.
It’s called robertHALF because they take half.
They are taking way more than half! Lmao
Yeah. That sucks ass. I’m sorry. When I was first hired, my rate was $50 but they cut it down $42. But my firm was paying RH $84/hr
Part of that $60 is still going to you in the form of payroll taxes/health insurance/business costs. But yeah they’re absolutely pocketing profit off you. That’s how all businesses except co-ops work
I wish they only took half lol
It won't make you feel any better, but Big 4 bill rates to clients for associates was like $200-$300/hr back when I was there. That would be like $400k annual salary (assuming only 2,000 hours).
My old tax firm (regional, between 75-125 for size) was $215/hour and I was paid around $32/hour. Given my net billings goal was like $265K but we dealt with a lot of smaller clients that we did not charge enough. Getting 100% realization on a client was pretty much unheard of and I think averaged like 75-80% for a lot of high performing staff and that was even with eating some hours. We did a lot of small town taxes.
Completely normal I'm afraid. I once "did a deal" with a company I was working for and we cut out the agency, I got a 50% pay increase and the company cut their wages bill by 25%. We should have paid a severance fee /finders fee to the agency but they never twigged.
This is risky since they have it in the contract that the client can't hire the consultant behind the agency.
This ain’t new. You’re on the rev side of accounting. My company splits my rate 50/50 with me
Plus, this is pretty unethical. A company that would breach their contract like that is pretty shady.
I don't know if this is still the case, but it used to be the client could hire the consultant as an FTE after 90 days without paying a fee.
That’s the price you pay for not being able to find your own job unfortunately. Why not start applying for jobs directly? Or starting your own bookkeeping business for 100/hr?
I feel I should get my CPA before jumping into starting my own business.
You don’t have to. You can always get your CPA after
In theory. In practice: the underwhelming minority of people actually do that. Get your CPA out of the way before becoming an Accounting Entrepreneur, as your time will be sucked up by the grunt work (initially) and all of the other drama associated with being a business owner.
I’d just like to add a note here that it’s incredibly rare for bookkeepers to charge $100 per hour. It’s more realistically in the like 30-50 range from my research. I thought about doing this myself, but decided to hold off until I leave public accounting.
I charge monthly (charging hourly, at least for recurring work, is a terrible business model) and it works out to $100-125 / hr in a small college town. You should have some E&O insurance, software, you have to factor in time spent finding and meeting with new clients, plus SE tax, it is not worth it to me for anything less.
I make more doing consulting/projects. I just demand a certain rate and sometimes I get 2-3 projects offered at a time and do a little bidding war. Like this other company is offering 70/hr, can you do 75? It’s just chiseling their profit but it’s zero if they can’t fill the role.
The employee is not paying that. That is the cost of the employer outsourcing Hr hiring team and all the liability and taxes involved
A lot easier said than done to start a bookkeeping business as an entry level accountant. How would they get business?
[удалено]
Exactly.
This is how Robert Half and most other talent agencies work. I've worked with a client who was hiring through Robert Half, and they were perfectly aware of their pricing strategy.
$95/hr is actually not that expensive for an accounting consultant based on my experience although your pay does suck. I’ve seen competing firms range from $130 to $240 per hour
OP finds out how consulting works
Beat me to it.
Literally any company with staff. Pretty concerning that a consultant doesn't have any idea about it!
I was aware of how it worked, I just didn't imagine how big of a cut staffing companies keep.
That’s not even a big cut lol, big 4 and other dev companies loan out offshore dev for like $200-500/hour and their internal cost is like $25-50/hour
[удалено]
Ok, so I wasn't aware how it worked. Instead of this serving as a learning experience, people like you come here to contribute nothing, only to make passive-aggressive comments. Hope it made your day.
[удалено]
Insulting someone when you don't have a counterargument is the biggest sign of immaturity. You, on the other hand, will most likely never grow up. Look at the flair in my post. It says "Advice."
That’s any company
Before deciding whether or not it's fair, you should really look into why staffing firms charge what they charge. In addition to a normal, market fee for engaging and bringing talent to the client, staffing brings an additional level of administrative cost and risk. So, depending on if you're W2 or 1099, they will charge for the administrative portion of employing you. This covers - payroll costs, all the necessary insurance costs, and any other administrative costs, plus a profit on providing that service. So, it's really two services in one - recruiting plus actual employment costs. Bill rate is not meant to reflect what your market rate is as the employee. It's apples and oranges. You should compare your hourly rate to what the going rate is for any other similar hourly role in the market. Companies pay these rates to get access to talent (often that they are unable to get on their own for whatever reason), to have someone to actually do the work of finding and engaging the talent, then to offload the administration and risk of employing the person.
As an add on note, the staffing company is fronting the payroll, the client is invoiced, and then pays usually on net 15 or net 30 terms. It's risky.
In accounting you at least get (some) access to the company's financial information. You'll have a clue if they are likely or not to pay. Well, the companies that don't pay their bills gain notoriety very quickly so perhaps it's a moot point.
Got $25/hr at a consulting firm that was billing $250/hr for my work when I was an intern.
As someone who does consultant billing, that is absolutely insane to bill a intern at $250/hr. Good night!!
Lol yeah I think as a staff I was billed at $150 an hour
A 3x multiple is actually fairly reasonable for a consulting firm. You should see what multiples the Big 4 have. Get your CPA, open your own firm, and when your name is on the door then you can decide whether to charge a 3x multiple or give more salary to the employee. Consider all this part of your continuing education, OP. Here endeth the lesson.
Even if you were hired directly but utilized the recruiter, they still get 18-25% of your salary as a comission fee. It's robbery, but a cost of business from the company that the employee pays. Only way around this is direct applications, direct resumes, or network referrals.
It’s not really a rip off for a CPA firm - 25k to provide a CPA that they will make 300k-500k a year on as they are a profit centre. For industry roles it’s often pure cost sure but for CPA firms even if they CPA stays for 6 months they make decent money
Yes I was at $52/hr being billed at $275/hr. It is what it is
Completely normal. Started my career in strategy consulting with a base pay of $75k while the firm charged over $500 an hour for my work. It comes with the territory in consulting and outsourced roles.
That doesn’t sound too bad actually. I was getting billed out to clients between 200 to 500 depending on what sort ofwork, and my hourly rate was more like 45. This was 6 years ago in a small big4 office.
I started Big 4 making $30K a year back in the day. The firm was billing my time out at like $150 per hour. This is the nature of the industry and why being a partner is so lucrative
[удалено]
I am full-time, hourly, with benefits and PTO. And this is extremely informative. Thank you so much for all this information!
That’s quite normal. Firms need to charge at least 2-3x your hourly to be profitable
This tells you that the client is willing to pay $95 per hour, so use that information to your advantage when applying for new jobs. Of course that's a contract rate...no employer taxes, benefits, etc.
Also the ability to fire at will without reason!
I remember when I graduated in 2008 my salary was 40k $20/hr in public. My billable rate was $125. wtf moment for sure
2.5-3x is typical to cover marketing sales slow periods etc. to operate
Lol. I used to be a consultant for robert half too and when I saw how much they were charging the clients in comparison to how much they were paying me, i dipped
What was the difference between what they were paying you vs what they were billing the client?
UK here, paid £25 an hour, billed out at £130. I know there's extra costs like pension and IT but I feel most of the industry is taking the piss.
I got hired through a similar recruiting company and I was tasked with handling their billing and saw similar numbers. I was a little pissed knowing I was making a fraction of what they were billing for my services
It's common practice for CPA firms to bill out at 3x to 4x the hourly rate of staff, closer to 3x more recently. 1/3 hourly rate to cover employee salary, 1/3 hourly rate to cover benefits including unbilled time, time off, and taxes, and 1/3 to cover firm overhead, such as facilities, technology, insurance, business development and partner comp. Yes you can make more on your own, but you are also taking on all of the risk and other costs, so it's not like your personal take home is going to 3x. Your position as a sub-contractor may be a little different because much if the overhead is already being paid for by your client and you would not need to absorb many of those costs.
2,8 is a normal multiplier for office workers.
I mean somebody has to pay for all those HR folks to post on LinkedIn all day…
Haha I bill out at $800/hr and receive about $70/hr
That’s crazy! Do you have low utilization goals? I make about $110 an hour, and they charge clients $400- $600 for my time, but I also have to have over 80% utilization each year.
I had a psycho boss that forced a bunch of people to quit and then hired 6 RH employees.
Why would they do that?
Talk to your client and see if they’ll take you on directly as a contractor. You’ll have to start your co and get insurance but youll make more and theyll save more usually
RH contracts prohibit this and state it on their contracts, as they consider jt going behind their back to avoid paying them a comission.
I mean it is lol smart on them for including that clause. Ive seen a few firms leave it out and thats exactly what happens
This is about the bare minimum for them to turn a buck in putting you out there. Labor is expensive
I used to work at a healthcare staffing agency mostly for nurses and I can tell you we usually paid out 40-60 percent as wages and kept the rest. So this feels about on par. However, we were paying for hotels, gas, rental car and flights so it’s nowhere near this exploitive
find a new job
Like 20+ years ago, I did temp accounting/admin work because I was burnt out and trying to figure out what to do next. I was paid $12/hr and company paid the agency $20/hr. It looks like times have changed!
Seems high for staffing agency, recruiters only get 15-25% here in Canada
That's great for you guys!
This isnt just accounting, every employee helping with services for another company is billed at least 4x what they get paid. Im not justifying it because the higher ups are definitely are taking their portion but youd be extremely surprised at how many costs go into that billable rate
It's not abnormal for billings for your time to be over triple what you get paid.. They are a business and they hire you to make a profit. Maybe there's a multiplier that is too high, but it's way more than triple. I doubt all of your time is billable btw. So they are not billing all of your time, even though you get paid for all of it.
Thanks, I wasn't sure what the standard multiplier was. There seems to be a consensus that it's 3x. I am paid hourly, so that is that. I am happy with hourly rather than salary.
Request an increase and if they don’t give it to you, get another job. Simple. Understandably they will not pass on anywhere close to the full $95 rate on to you. Assuming overhead, let’s say their gross profit margin is 50% (37% your rate + 13% estimate for your benefits and most OH). That is a huge margin. They can afford to give you another 5%-15%.
I asked for an increase, and given a stellar review from my client, they said they agreed on an increase, but I will get more info in our meeting on Monday.
There are a lot of hidden costs in employment. Taxes, technology, permits/fees, rent, utilities, insurance, etc that all has to be covered. Your billed rate is covering a lot of items, including other staff that is not billed out. For example, Robert Half has admins answering phones, hr staff on boarding you, accounting office paying bills and sending invoices to the company you work for. To be honest, I am surprised the billing rate is that low. I would expect it to be higher.
I am aware of all the costs RH incurs, I was just not sure if the rate was normal/fair compared to other agencies. Thanks for all this info!
Start. Your. Own. Firm.
Yes, RH does this. Same with many placement services. The pro is quick onboarding and help through the hiring process. The con is the deep cut in pay. However, this can be turned around when the company wants to hire you on permanently. Placement agencies make good money on candidates. When I saw this processing invoices, it prompted me to ask for more salary for permanent positions or direct hires.
I’m at $19/hr currently, but I have good insurance and non-contributory pension. I always look at these numbers and the “the grass is greener,” but I dunno. Good post!
You can’t spell Robert Half without Rob. As in you’re getting robbed by working for them.
$95/hr is Grad rates here in Australia. Firm charged 80 for my work when I joined as an intern, the grad’s time was charged at 120. I was paid around 34, which would be 27 is normal terms (cutting out the casual pay bonus that interns get). This would be a cheaper multiple I guess
Welcome to capitalism. It’s why it always feels a little icky at the end of the day. No matter how good your boss is, their company functions by charging your value and paying you less than it. The clients are willing to pay your salary+payroll taxes/fringe benefits+overhead costs+profit, but you’re only getting the salary piece of it. Part of me would love to go out on my own and be able to pocket the entire piece the client is willing to pay, but the other part enjoys the protections of the company
I have studied indirect rates, typically fringe costs is about 50% of your salary, overhead can have a big range think at least 100% of salary and fringe. Plus profit. Looks about right...
Very interesting, thank you.
Any big 4 geeks want to share their billable rate vs. their actual hourly rate? It will be comforting and make people smile.
I make like $33 an hour and my firm bills me out at like $225 an hour.
I would reach out to 1/2’s competitors and line up alternative opportunities. They’ll continue to lowball you if they think you’re depending on them for work and not looking elsewhere. Funny how you’ll find the rate moves up if they think they might lose you. Also that markup is a bit high - I’ve normally heard that they pay half the bill rate to the consultant. Someone once told me that’s where the name “half” comes from, you get half
The value of the Robert Half brand. Firms do the same thing, with the average associate getting 1/3 to 1/4 of the billable rate. I related news, my billable rate is $400/hour.
Is the RH brand really that prestigious? I would assume they take just about anyone as their consultants...
It’s a national brand, probably the most widely known national brand for staffing in accounting and related professions.
I see. I still wonder how "competitive" it is to land a full-time consultant role with them.
Do you want reality or perception? Perception is reality, so they say.
Reality :3
Fuck RH
100%
The fee has to cover all non-billable folks too. A typical firm will spend somewhat around 45% of net fees on unburdened salary (w/o taxes, benefits or bonuses) of all full-time equivalent employees. While your personal ratio is 35/95 , the firm might have different ratios for other billable folks. The composition of non-billable staff and admin has to be taken into account for each firm individually to arrive at conclusion about what’s (ab-)normal.
I have this job too and started a few weeks ago. They pay me $27ish but I only have an A.S. in Business and two years experience bookkeeping. My assignment got terminated a few weeks in and now I will just be getting paid to sit at home for awhile. I’m working on becoming an Enrolled Agent though. Don’t let the security of a job derail you from dreaming and entrepreneurship if that’s a good path for you.
This is why I left being a Charted accountant and went into recruitment first cpa job processing my own hours invoice and seeing the agency get three times more then me for my work. I realized I was on the wrong side of this and switched over. The CPA market has got so hot that the even at 3 times your hourly rate the firm is still making money by billing you out. If I find 4 senior managers a year I basically get paid more then a senior manager would - simple maths.
Thas smart. Congrats.
I’m an intern at my public company, my charge rate is $180 an hour and I make $28…it’s public accounting where most of the profits are fed into the company and partners.
Oof, that's wild.
Yeah when I was first told that I almost lost my mind. I understand I’m an intern but that’s honestly insane.
Get that experience and move on.
If your are not aware there is a CPA platform that splits the recruitment fee with the CPA for referring a friend or yourself! They work mainly with CPA firms but all over Canada and America
If you worked at the local burger joint for $7.25 an hour, would you quit after finding out you ring up $400 an hour at your register?
I mean, yes? Hence why I became an accountant and didn't stay in fast food minimum wage jobs.
This happened to me earlier in my career. I was paid $55 and charged at $250. I tried to leverage more money, but was let go from my project. It was a shit show of proportions that left me scarred and out of work for four months because my city was in a downturn. Robert Half is a publicly traded company and they have to make their margins on the backs of your labor. You pay the admin staff and sales/relationship management teams; however your benefits aren’t ever as good as the internal teams and most of these sales people couldn’t locate a balance sheet in a text book. I’m glad I learned from what I did, but at a certain point unless you’re one of their full time consultants, it’s best to leverage your time and find another job. It could be another project, but you bounce around until you have the money you’re looking for and overtime options that fit your situation. When you leave contracting jobs, it’s best to do it on your terms without any bridges burned to make the jumps more effective. Over a period of four years, I had built up a marketable reputation that ended with multiple competing consulting projects from the firms I bounced between. It panty twisted some sales people but my come to Jesus with them was I am more money and bring you more money. If it’s too high for the client, the wiggle room isn’t from me. We were all adults and they understood I knew how the game worked. I suggest you complete this project and recalibrate your next one or go find another with a higher amount in mind, but you need to be professional about everything. You’re not a contractor: You’re a consultant and one with a special set of skills (fake it until you make it).
I am a full time consultant guaranteed at least 38.5 hours a week, and also get 1 month bench paid.
Given that you’re a FTE consultant: Review your contract to determine the wage language. I remember a colleague’s wage being locked until they were up for some review process.
That's pretty much the markup at my firm.
They have a budget for consultancy service but not payroll, if u were to be hired under the company directly. U wont be getting near what RH is getting
My old employer used to send us out on assignment - paid me £28 per hour but charged £200 and just generally treated us like shit. Also sent out two FAs and charged £75 an hour for each of them. I couldn't get them to pay the FA's more than minimum wage. After two months of a day a week they poached all three of us. Old Employer couldn't do anything as HR (Also my team) had removed the clause about working for customers when issuing the pay rise contracts which the Director actually went on record at the time saying it was a stupid term because none of the customers would take us on anyway. Also poached the HR admin because decent HR are gold dust frankly. First thing I did - move the external accountant to a different firm that aren't dickheads.
I think getting 1/3 of your hourly is fair. I see the split as 1/3 labor, 1/3 overhead, 1/3 to the selling partner.
I used to do ERP software implementation/consulting. Made 63k/yr but got billed at $225/hr.
iwas under the impression that it was a 30/30/30 kind of thing. 30 to the employee , 30 to the overhead and 30 to the partner
I don't think your math is mathing.
3x is standard. 1/3rd goes to each the employee, the operations and the partner/owner. You could recommend that your billable rate be increased and subsequently your 1/3rd will be a larger amount.
I did consulting for a firm structured similar to the way that RH does it about 20 years ago. At that time, their markup was 102% of total costs (never got an explanation for the extra 2%, but I digress). So if you have benefits and you get full pay when you're on the bench, it'd be pretty easy to get that $35.00 you see up to $45.00 (hell, FICA alone takes it to $37.67). Then you double that, and the $90.00 billing rate seems pretty standard for the industry for the past 20 years. If you are really good (like to the point where clients don't care how much they're paying for you, because they "can't get through the project without you"), you're in a pretty strong negotiating position. I *was* that guy, and after doing the consulting for about 18 months, they'd offer me projects and I'd just lay out for them "this is what I need to do that project". A lot of mine required spending weeks or months in a hotel out of town, so I'd not only negotiate the pay rate I wanted, but the type of hotel I'd be staying in, rental car, meal per diem, frequency of flights home, flying my wife up for a week here and there, etc. I ended up doing that job for 5 years, and they never once failed to meet my demands..... maybe I just wasn't demanding enough.
I’m paid $52 an hour based on 2,000 billable hours a year to my salary. I’m billed out at like $450 an hour lol
Firms routinely bill much more than they pay their resources. That margin you referenced is actually low compared to your level at a Big 4.
It's always been 3x salary since forever. This why people starts their own practice/Ltd co. Question: can you find the clients? Good luck out there
I feel like it’s important to point out to a bunch of accountants that the $35/hr rate is your direct pay rate. The $95 includes your direct rate, all of the associated burden/overhead that your company doesn’t have to pay, and the mark up. You can’t just subtract the 2 and like ZOMG PROFIT!!
I am billed out at $200-350 an hour, depending on the assignment, which makes me $40 an hour lmao.
That’s what additional overhead looks like Variable and fixed expenses on breakdown to bill out for profit You may get 35$ but you cost more in payroll taxes and benefits Then lights rent software equipment etc Basic concept
They have been doing this for years. I used to work for them, ask for more money or look for something else
This is pretty standard for contracted services through a firm.
Hi, 1. If you are still under contract with RF ( This is between your company and RF when you were hired RF signed that how many months they want to make a profit out of you) 2. Don't be upset with your company. It is not their fault. RF is the one that sets what you make and the lowest amount that you agreed upon signing the contract, the more profit that RF received. RF is in business for it they have to pay all the agents and advertising. 3. Since tomorrow is your day, you are the only person that able to change your destination. Some agencies won't release you unless your company pays to buy you out! Good luck
It’s overhead and a small portion of commission. When you work for ANY employer there’s over head just the same. The difference is you’re able to see it in a bill to Robert Half. Source: I work for Robert Half
I am pretty much in the same boat as you, I get paid $35 and my billable rate is just over $100
Start your own company or be a freelance. Hire employees.
Not 100% sure how it works, but I’m going to assume it’s this structure. You work for Robert half, then they find clients that need your services, and then you work for those clients. If they do not have work for you like a month between gigs, they still pay you. Therefore The cost Robert half charges includes many things - your salary - your benefits, insurance, tax - your salary when they do not have work for you - the selling cost (finding a job) - commission - oversight (your supervisor) - fixed overhead for Robert half - profit So if you work for a client for 1 month then sit waiting for a job for 1 month, then they actually only made $47/hr off you. Minus your salary and it’s $12/hr. Minus your benefits and other expenses and they’ve lost money. Add in those other costs and they’re even deeper in the hole. You could work for yourself, and charge clients $95/hr. Even more if you get your cpa, but your yearly salary won’t be super high because you’ll have unemployment periods
The general rule in public accounting historically was your hourly rate is 1/3 of the bill rate to the client. 1/3 is overhead and taxes and 1/3 is firm profit.
Lol. That's not a bad ratio. We bill something like 440 for me now. I think I see a tenth of that
Robert Half is the worst. Those recruiters who are your "manager" are extremely shifty. They get a big chunk of the difference between what you earn and what RHI charges. Back in 2012 I worked for them as a salaried professional and a client wanted to hire me. RHI told them a 50% placement fee on my first year salary. The client who wanted to hire me didn't have the budget for that. I decided after that I needed to leave. RHI would blast my resume around town via email to contacts as well as companies hiring locally. I would apply for positions and not get a response. Finally one hiring manager let me know she had gotten my resume from RHI via email. I was so grateful, changed up my resume so it didn't look like the one RHI sent out and finally got a position with a local company. Shady AF jerks. I am currently unemployed after a layoff but I'd rather be broke and living out of my car than work for those folks again. Ask for a lot more and start looking for a new job. Get away from the big evil!
Your employer was a rather shitty negotiator. I worked with RH through salaried professionals, they basically told RH “we want to hire him but we won’t pay over 25% if you want to do business with us again”
My RHI "Manager" had already lined up another gig for me and was pulling me from the client I was on. That was when the client made the move to try to hire me. She offered him other candidates for less than 50% but not me. Maybe that client could have pushed harder, but they were a small company, I was their first RHI engagement, and it was a one man accounting department. A threat like "I won't do business with RHI" really would not have teeth. RHI paid me $25 an hour and billed me at $110. I never benched, I could fill any roll from AP to Interim Controller. Every client I had would ask for me back when they needed another roll filled. When my recruiter "manager" quit I started to report directly to the branch manager and she never reassigned me back to a recruiter. Apparently I was the reason she got invited to Las Vegas every year whatever awards thing RHI (I found this out after I left from someone who worked closely with her but left RHI). She had a lot to lose if I left and she needed that 50% to hit her numbers that year if i did leave. Also she needed me to work the new gig she was pulling me for. Even though that was 12 years ago, I get so mad when I think of what I put up with. I was a single mom, I needed steady pay and benefits, and i couldn't work overtime. RHI gave me that but paid me below market wages. I thought at the time it was the best I could do. The job market wasn't that great in 2012 and I couldn't work overtime because I had to pick up my daughter after school. So it took a bit to find a new employer who could give me a straight 40. RHI used and abuses their temps and salaried professionals... At least in my city.
Yeah, you got fucked hard
It was a shitty time in my life for sure.
Interned last year at $37 or $39 an hour but they charged the client $125
PwC charges $200-300 an hour for offshore advisory work in my group lol As a senior, they charged anywhere from $350-600 an hour for my work depending on the engagement.
[удалено]
Yikes!
Lol you're an accountant who just learned how labor and billing work?
Do you people even read? If you read my complete message, I ask if it was a fair percentage cut, not that I should get all $95/hr.
lol does this surprise you? A larger regional firm I worked for at one point billed $275/hr for interns and this was years ago. You think they're making anywhere near $500k/yr?
This is my first time doing agency work, so I was not very familiar with the rates. But based on the answers, half of the people say it's fair, the other half says it's not.
Oh it's far from fair, just saying it's normal
Isn’t this normal with literally every job? That’s like the chefs saying they only get $15 an hour when the restaurant makes significantly more. Of course they’re not going to pay you exactly what the client pays them, they need to turn a profit. Can someone explain to me how this is a problem? IMO you should always expect that.
$95/hour seems low for someone being paid $35/hr.
Of course that makes sense. Economics of pricing. Just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean you’re entitled to more.
Do you know how to read? I asked if the markup percentage/rate is fair, not that I should get 100%.
Everything RH needs to do as a firm is part of the markup. Paying recruiters, getting clients, advertising, paying for office rent, wtv is all part of that mark up. You can always start your own firm and pay your own rent, find your own clients, buy your own benefits and etc.