Offshore Staffing or Outsourcing: Which Should Your Firm Choose?

The labels vary by provider, so focus on who directs the work and how you pay.

• Offshore staffing (a dedicated accountant): one or more people assigned only to your firm. You assign tasks, set priorities and review their work. Usually billed per month for a full-time person, or by the hour. It fits a firm with a full week of steady work and someone to direct it.
• Team as a service: a dedicated person or team, but the provider handles hiring, equipment, payroll and replacement if someone leaves. You direct the work day to day. It fits a firm that wants continuity without becoming an employer offshore.
• Outsourcing, or white-label work: the provider takes a defined job, for example monthly bookkeeping for 20 of your clients, and delivers it finished under your firm's name. You review the output, not the process. It fits a firm whose volume rises and falls, or that has a reviewer but no manager to spare.

Three questions settle most decisions.

• Is the work steady? A dedicated person pays off when there is a full week of work every week. Seasonal or lumpy work fits hourly or per-job outsourcing better.
• Do you have someone to manage them? Staffing needs a person in your firm who assigns work and answers questions. Outsourcing needs a reviewer, not a manager.
• How much control do you need over the method? If you want work done your way in your templates, staffing gives you that. If you care about the finished result, outsourcing is simpler.

If staffing is the right model, hire the way you would hire locally, with a few extra checks.

• Write down the work: which clients, which software, which tasks, and what done looks like.
• Interview the actual person who will do the work, not only the provider's sales team.
• Give a short paid test on real but low-risk work, such as one month of one client's books.
• Set up access: each person gets their own login to QuickBooks Online, Xero or your tax software, never a shared password.
• For tax work, collect Section 7216 consent before sending any return information offshore, and confirm the preparer has a PTIN.
• Review everything for the first two or three months, then move to sampling.

Whichever model you choose, the AICPA's guidance is that the firm remains ultimately responsible for work delivered to its clients, and must direct, supervise and review outsourced work as if a firm member did it. You also need either the client's consent to share confidential information with the provider, or a contract that keeps the information confidential.

SF Business Solutions publishes this guide and is the first of the five options below. Every fact about another provider comes from that provider's own website, checked in September 2026 and linked under Sources, and each option carries one honest drawback, ours included.

• Best overall for a CPA firm that wants to start with outsourcing and add a dedicated person later: SF Business Solutions, without changing provider. White-label bookkeeping, tax-season help and full-time accountants, all quoted per firm on volume and the roles you need, in QuickBooks Online and Xero, with a licensed CPA on the team. Drawback: no published rate, no published SOC 2 report and three published reviews so far.
• Madras Accountancy publishes both models up front: $12 to $20 an hour, dedicated staff from $1,400 a month and $150 to $500 per client per month. The rates are ranges until your work is scoped.
• The Fino Partners publishes $1,800 a month for a junior bookkeeper up to $3,500 for a financial controller, based on 160 hours. There is no hourly option for a firm that is not ready for a full seat.
• MYCPE ONE describes hourly pricing billed weekly for smaller engagements and a fixed monthly fee plus actual salaries for its managed model. It does not publish rates.
• TOA Global supplies offshore accounting staff to US firms from offices in Manila, Clark, Tarlac and Cebu in the Philippines, for firms building a dedicated team of 20 or more. It publishes no pricing; you book a call to get a number.