If she is setting up a lot of systems for you then I think that $10,000 sounds pretty fair. One of the things I've had to learn as a business owner is that there are plenty of tasks that I could be doing, but that I need to be paying someone else to do. The more that I'm caught up in the day to day operational tasks, the less time I'm spending bringing in more clients and more projects for the company. When I can concentrate on those things, and on keeping the current clients and projects running smoothly, then I'm better able to make sure I've got a good amount of money coming into the business.

Also, I have clients pay me all the times for stuff they could do themselves. But their time is worth more to them than my hourly rate. In hard business terms, what do you value your time at per hour? What do you charge clients per hour, and what is your actual hourly rate after unbillable hours, expenses and so on? Don't tell us,we don't need to know, but say it silently to yourself. Compare that to her hourly rate. Look at the time she estimates to do it. Could you do it in less time? If not $10,000 might not be an insane amount to do everything under two conditions:

1) The ding is one you can afford.

2) If you get all $10,000 in work done, the odds are the benefits yielded will be at least twice that.

You should prioritize tasks in any case but:

A) if the answer to either 1 or 2 is no just negotiate a lower amount for only the most important work

B) If the answer to both 1 and 2 is yes, then still negotiate to get the most important tasks done. With the option to do the rest if she performs well on the priority ones, and if the benefits of her completing the priority ones prove worth the expenditure.

Drew, that is exactly the lesson I've been working on getting. I'm a good lawyer. I'm not so great at those other things and I don't really want to be.

eta: and Typo, that's a really good way to think about it.

Well, and if that's $10K over six months, do you have to pay it all at once, or part by part? Is it easier to think of it as a $1200 a month or something? And if she can implement a couple things quickly, would those things being implemented de-stress you? Is being de-stressed for 40 hours a week worth $1200 a month?

Are there any parts of it that can be doing by online services, such as Shoeboxed for receipts and FreshBooks for invoicing?

$10,000 will pay for itself in how many months? That's what I would say.

Will it add to your quality of life? No-brainer. Especially if it pays for itself within 6 months.

Of course, the irony here is that I won't know if it's worth it until she does the audit because I don't currently have systems in place to monitor that stuff.

In the consultants we use, we always treat the audit and the implementation as two separate jobs - basically, we hire them to tell us the problem and then reserve the right to hire them to help us solve the problem. Some consultants push back out of a concern that we'll take the audit results and shop for a better deal but we generally handle that through a confidentiality agreement and a reminder that they have the best shot at the implementation since there is an existing relationship. Also, I think a $10k commitment to a vendor without a track record is risky so splitting it out would give you a chance to see if this is someone you can work with on the implementation portion.

lcat, makes a lot of good sense.

I also like the idea of splitting up tasks to see how you like her implementation of part of her plan before you commit to the whole enchilada.

So this is the only thread where I am not zillions of posts behind!

Lots happening on the business front which makes me more crazed than my normal crazed level.

We are moving our offices out of an office/warehouse space and into an office space in a shiny Bank of America building. Pluses include: 1) a mile from the house 2) forces me to sort through crap that we have kept for decades because we had warehouse space 3) more appropriate corporate image 4) much cheaper with bonus of no more bathrooms to stock and clean and electric included.

We also are setting up our datacenter where we are moving a number of our client/server practices and utilizing the technology for backup services for our practices that stay in house. In a couple years we will no longer support client/server which will result in a vast decrease in tech support issues. Big technical transition that is all good stuff.

So yeah, I am exhausted and overwhelmed. But as I explained to DH recently, this is the first time in years that I have felt like things were happening, with real movement, in an actual direction. I have been just going through the motions and saying we needed to do something for a long time. So big changes and I hope when we celebrate our 25th year in business next year we will look like a new company.