Hi Susan,
I currently do not offer payroll for a couple of reasons. First, even though I learned bookkeeping by hand posting first and then took on QuickBooks, the class I took didn't offer how to calculate payroll so I just don't have the proper experience. I am doing some payroll now for a church preschool for their teachers but that is a volunteer position and the previous person has shown me how to do it and is always available if I have a question. I'm happy to be getting this experience. With the QB service, it's not that bad really. However, even if down the road I have more experience and feel more comfortable with it I have to ask myself do I really want that responsibility/liability and do I want to be jammed up every Friday creating payroll. Currently I let the pros do that part. When a client asks me if I do payroll, I say no but I have people I can refer them to. I am also currently a one woman show so if you plan on having staff you may not be as conservative as I am right now. This may not always be the case for me but for the moment, this is my stance. I don't know if not offering payroll has kept me from getting business but I still have paying clients and I take their payroll report from their payroll company and show everything from these reports appropriately in QB.
Also you may want to check out
www.aipb.org and
www.nacpb.org. I get the list serve e-mails for aipb and that allows me to read a lot about what other bookkeepers go thorough.
Good luck with your decision. I hope this helps.