Hire Outsourced Bookkeeping in 24 Hours

What is outsourced bookkeeping?

Outsourced bookkeeping is the practice of moving your day-to-day financial record-keeping to a dedicated professional outside your company, rather than hiring an in-house bookkeeper or absorbing the work yourself. The bookkeeper handles transaction coding, reconciliations, accounts payable and receivable, and month-end close, and reports to you or to your accountant. You keep ownership of your books and your software; what you outsource is the labour.

What does an outsourced bookkeeper handle?

A full outsourced bookkeeping engagement typically covers:

• Transaction coding and categorisation: Classifying every bank, card and payment-processor transaction to the correct account.
• Bank and credit card reconciliation: Matching statements to the ledger monthly so the books tie out.
• Accounts payable: Entering bills, scheduling vendor payments, and keeping the AP ageing current.
• Accounts receivable: Raising invoices, applying payments, and chasing overdue balances.
• Month-end close: Accruals, prepaids, journal entries, and a clean set of statements by an agreed date each month.
• Payroll support: Preparing payroll input and reconciling payroll liabilities alongside your provider.
• Catch-up and clean-up work: Bringing neglected or misclassified books back to a reliable state before ongoing work begins.

Outsourced bookkeeping vs in-house vs a bookkeeping firm

Most businesses weighing this decision are choosing between three models, and the trade-offs are straightforward.

• In-house bookkeeper: Full control and full attention, but a US salary plus payroll taxes, benefits, software seats and management time. You also carry the recruitment cost and the risk of a single point of failure.
• Bookkeeping firm or agency: No hiring risk, but you are one account among many. Work is often split across a rotating pool, response times are governed by a service tier, and scope creep is billed.
• Dedicated outsourced bookkeeper: One named professional working your books on a fixed monthly retainer. You get the continuity and the direct relationship of an in-house hire without the salary, the payroll burden or the recruitment cycle.

The third model is what HireAccountants provides. The bookkeeper is yours, works your hours, uses your systems, and does not rotate off your account.

How much does outsourced bookkeeping cost?

Less than most businesses expect, because most businesses do not need a full-time bookkeeper. Pricing through HireAccountants is a flat monthly retainer set by the hours your books actually need: from $999 a month for ten hours a week, from $1,499 for twenty hours, and from $1,999 for a dedicated full-time bookkeeper. There is no hourly billing, no per-transaction pricing and no onboarding fee.

For comparison, shared-team online bookkeeping services publish rates of $299 to $1,150 a month and commonly add onboarding of up to $1,000, which puts a first-year cost close to $1,000 a month for work split across a rotating pool. Freelance bookkeepers bill $25 to $50 an hour, which becomes unpredictable as volume grows. A US in-house bookkeeper costs $4,100 to $6,200 a month once payroll taxes, benefits and equipment are included, based on the Bureau of Labor Statistics median wage plus a standard employer burden.

At around 173 hours a month, a full-time bookkeeper at $1,999 works out to roughly $11.50 an hour, against $24 to $36 an hour fully loaded for the US equivalent.

How many hours a week do you actually need?

This is the question that decides your cost, and most small businesses over-buy. A rough guide:

• Ten hours a week is plenty for a typical small business with one or two bank accounts, a card, a payment processor and payroll for a handful of people. Books stay current and the month closes on time.
• Twenty hours a week starts to make sense with multiple entities, high transaction volume, or when you want your bookkeeper running accounts payable and receivable rather than only recording them.
• Full-time suits companies where bookkeeping is a daily operational function, or where one person owns the whole finance back office.

Tell us your transaction volume during the consultation and we will tell you which tier you need, including when that answer is the cheapest one.

Is outsourced bookkeeping right for your business?

It tends to be the right call when at least one of these is true:

• Your books are consistently late, and closing the month has become a bottleneck for decisions.
• A founder, office manager or controller is doing bookkeeping that is well below their pay grade.
• Your CPA is charging cleanup rates each year for work that should have been done monthly.
• Transaction volume has outgrown a part-time freelancer but does not justify a full US salary.
• You are an accounting or bookkeeping firm that needs dedicated capacity without adding headcount to your own payroll.

Why outsource bookkeeping to Latin America?

Bookkeeping is a daily, collaborative function, which makes time zone the deciding factor. A LATAM-based bookkeeper works US business hours, so questions get answered the same day and month-end close is not delayed by a twelve-hour lag. The professionals in our pool are fluent in English, trained on US GAAP, and experienced with US-based clients and their software stacks.

The cost difference is substantial without the coordination penalty that comes with more distant offshore markets, which is why most of our clients choose LATAM over the traditional offshore destinations for finance and accounting work.

Which accounting software do your bookkeepers use?

We match on software as well as on skill. Our talent pool covers QuickBooks Online and Desktop, Xero, NetSuite, Sage Intacct, Bill.com, Ramp, Expensify, Gusto and ADP. If your stack is unusual, tell us during the consultation and we will filter the shortlist accordingly rather than expecting you to migrate.

How outsourced bookkeeping works with HireAccountants

Tell us your transaction volume, your software, and the scope you want covered. Within 24 hours you receive a shortlist of pre-vetted bookkeepers matched to that brief, with rates and availability. You interview the ones you like, choose your bookkeeper, and they start on your books. There is no long-term lock-in, and if the fit is wrong we replace the placement.

HireAccountants.com is the largest pre-vetted marketplace of bookkeeping and finance professionals built specifically for US companies. Receive a custom shortlist for your role in 24 hours, and save up to 75% against the fully loaded cost of a US hire.