How a CPA firm hires an offshore accountant

Start with work that has a defined output and a checklist, because it can be reviewed quickly and taught once: monthly bookkeeping, reconciliations, month-end close workpapers, payroll processing, and tax return preparation with the review kept in-house.

Keep the client relationship, the judgement calls and the signature. Firms that try to move the advisory conversation first tend to conclude that offshoring does not work, when what failed was the choice of work.

Hourly suits uneven volume and a first trial: you pay for what you use and can stop. A dedicated full-time person suits a steady book, because the same person learns your clients and your review standard, and the cost per hour is lower.

Published 2026 rates, for orientation. The Fino Partners publishes an hourly card from about $10 an hour for an accounts associate up to $15 for an assistant manager, and monthly rates from about $1,700 to $3,500 by role. MYCPE ONE states full-time offshore staff start at $11 an hour. Madras Accountancy publishes bookkeeping from $12 to $20 an hour and dedicated staff from about $1,400 a month, on its own blog rather than a pricing page. TOA Global and QX Accounting publish no rate at all and quote on a call, so treat any figure attributed to them elsewhere with suspicion.

Two obligations are non-negotiable for a US firm, and both are cheap to meet.

• Anyone paid to prepare or help prepare federal returns needs a valid PTIN.
• Before client tax return information goes to a preparer located outside the United States, the client must sign a Section 7216 consent using the IRS's required wording, before the disclosure happens.
• Consent is per engagement and cannot be an opt-out buried in an engagement letter.
• Agree in writing who owns the workpapers, how data is transferred, and how access is removed when someone leaves the partner's team.
• Decide whether staff work in your systems or theirs. Your systems, with named logins, is easier to audit.

Most failed offshore arrangements fail in the first quarter, for reasons that have nothing to do with the accountant's ability.

• Start with two or three tidy clients, not your worst files.
• Write down your review standard instead of expecting it to be inferred from corrections.
• Set a fixed monthly calendar: when documents arrive, when work is delivered, when you review.
• Agree overlap hours with your working day for questions, and keep a written channel for everything else.
• Track rework for the first quarter. If it is falling, scale. If it is not, the instructions are the problem more often than the person.
• Plan for busy season before February, not during it.

Best for a CPA or accounting firm that wants capacity without recruiting: SF Business Solutions, at $12–$15 an hour or a full-time accountant from $1,500 a month. We work in your systems, under your firm's name, and your firm keeps the client relationship, the review and the signature. Our team is distributed across the US and internationally and includes a licensed CPA. SF Business Solutions publishes this guide.

The honest drawback: we publish no SOC 2 report, so if your firm's security policy requires one, raise it before we start. We are not a CPA firm, so audit work stays with your firm or runs through our professional CPA partner firms.