Outsourced Accounting Services, Staffed in 24 Hours

What is outsourced accounting?

Outsourced accounting is the practice of running your finance function with professionals outside your company rather than building an internal accounting department. It covers everything from recording daily transactions to closing the month, producing financial statements and preparing the workpapers your CPA needs at year end. You keep ownership of your accounting software, your bank connections and your data. What you outsource is the labour and the process, not control.

What do outsourced accounting services cover?

Scope varies by how much of the finance function you hand over. A typical engagement covers some or all of:

• Transaction processing: Coding and categorising bank, card and payment-processor activity so the ledger stays current.
• Reconciliations: Bank, credit card, loan and inter-company accounts tied out every month.
• Accounts payable and receivable: Bill entry, vendor payment runs, invoicing, cash application and collections.
• Month-end close: Accruals, prepaids, deferrals, depreciation schedules and journal entries against an agreed close calendar.
• Financial statements: Profit and loss, balance sheet and cash flow prepared on a cash or accrual basis under US GAAP.
• Management reporting: Budget-versus-actual, departmental reporting and the recurring schedules your leadership team reads.
• Payroll and tax support: Payroll preparation and reconciliation, sales tax filings, and the workpapers your CPA needs at year end.
• Clean-up and catch-up: Bringing neglected or miscoded books back to a reliable state before ongoing work begins.

Outsourced accounting vs outsourced bookkeeping

The terms get used interchangeably, and for many small businesses the distinction does not matter much. Where it does matter is scope and seniority.

Bookkeeping is the record-keeping layer: transactions in, accounts reconciled, books current. Accounting sits on top of it and is concerned with what the records mean — whether revenue is recognised in the right period, whether the accruals are right, whether the statements will survive a lender’s or an investor’s review. A bookkeeper keeps the ledger accurate. An accountant makes the ledger defensible.

In practice most companies need the bookkeeping layer continuously and the accounting layer at month-end and year-end. That is why our engagements are priced by hours rather than by job title: you buy the capacity your books need, and we staff it at the seniority the work requires. If you only need the record-keeping layer, our outsourced bookkeeping page covers that scope specifically.

Outsourced accounting vs in-house vs a CPA firm

• In-house accountant: Full control and full attention, at a US salary plus payroll taxes, benefits and recruitment cost. Hard to justify until the finance workload genuinely fills a role, and it leaves you with a single point of failure.
• CPA firm: Strong on compliance, tax and assurance, and usually the right people to sign your return. Less suited to day-to-day processing, and priced for advisory work rather than for coding transactions.
• Outsourced accounting service: A shared team handles your books to a service tier. No hiring risk, but you are one account among many and the person doing the work changes without you knowing.
• Dedicated outsourced staff: One named professional who works your hours inside your systems and reports to you. The economics of outsourcing with the continuity of an employee.

The fourth model is what HireAccountants provides, and it sits alongside your CPA rather than replacing them. Your accountant keeps the books close-ready all year; your CPA handles the return.

What does outsourced accounting cost?

Cost is driven by hours, not by the label on the role. Pricing through HireAccountants is a flat monthly retainer: from $999 a month for ten hours a week, from $1,499 for twenty hours, from $1,999 for a dedicated full-time bookkeeper, and from $2,999 for a full-time accountant handling close, reporting and GAAP judgement. No hourly billing, no per-transaction pricing and no onboarding fee.

For comparison, an in-house accountant in the US costs roughly $135,000 a year fully loaded once payroll taxes, health cover, PTO and equipment are counted. Shared-team outsourced accounting services publish rates from $299 to $1,150 a month and commonly add onboarding of up to $1,000.

How many hours a week do you actually need?

Most companies over-buy here. A rough guide:

• Ten hours a week is plenty for a small business with one or two bank accounts, a card, a payment processor and payroll for a handful of people.
• Twenty hours a week fits multiple entities, higher transaction volume, or when you want AP and AR actively run rather than only recorded.
• Full-time suits companies where finance is a daily operational function, or where one person owns the whole back office through to management reporting.

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

Is outsourced accounting right for your business?

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

• Month-end close slips, and decisions wait on numbers that arrive weeks late.
• A founder, office manager or controller is doing work well below their pay grade.
• Your CPA is charging clean-up rates each year for work that should have been done monthly.
• You need investor-ready or lender-ready statements and are not confident the current books would stand up.
• You are an accounting firm that needs production capacity without adding to your own payroll.

Why outsource accounting to Latin America?

Accounting is a collaborative function, which makes time zone the deciding factor. A LATAM-based accountant works US business hours, so questions get answered the same day and the 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 companies and their software.

The cost is comparable to the traditional offshore destinations in Asia, without the coordination penalty. Our offshore accounting page covers that comparison in detail.

Which accounting software do you work with?

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 accounting 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 candidates matched to that brief, with rates and availability. You interview, you choose, 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 accounting 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.