The outsourced-accounting buyer's guide for US CPA firms.
You're getting two cold emails a week. Each one promises "premium offshore accounting at half the cost." Most of them deliver a faceless ticket queue and a Monday morning that's still your problem.
This guide is what to ask before you sign — written for managing partners by people who've sat on both sides of the table.
The five questions worth asking before any RFP
- Who actually reviews the work? Get a name. Get a credential. Get a sample workpaper they've reviewed.
- What's the engagement model? Per-return, monthly retainer, hours-bucket, or hybrid. Ask why they chose theirs.
- What's your security posture? SOC 2 means something. ISO 27001 means something else. Know what each one rules out.
- What software do you actually run in? Yours, or theirs? Switching costs are the hidden line item.
- Can I run a paid pilot before signing a year? If the answer is no, walk.
Pricing models — fixed-fee, retainer, per-return, hybrid
A pure hourly model gives the partner an incentive to slow down. A per-return model gives the partner an incentive to cut corners. The cleanest engagements we've seen pair a monthly retainer for ongoing work (close, AP, controller) with a fixed fee per return for tax season — and a two-week paid pilot before either kicks in.
Beware any partner who refuses to quote a number on the first call. They're either guessing, or they're charging by what they think you can afford.
Security: what SOC 2 means and what it doesn't
SOC 2 Type II covers the operational security of the firm — access controls, change management, incident response. It does not cover:
- Whether your data lives in a country you're comfortable with
- Whether the firm's staff use personal laptops or a managed VDI
- Whether the firm has a real BCP/DR plan (vs. a PDF in a shared drive)
Ask for the most recent bridge letter. Ask which controls were exceptions. Ask who signed it.
Reviewer credentials — CPA, CA, and what to verify
US CPA-track is the gold standard for tax return review. Indian CA (Chartered Accountant) is often equivalent on technical depth — and frequently cheaper than a US CPA. The mistake is treating "qualified accountant" as a binary checkbox. Ask for:
- License number
- Year of qualification
- Specific areas of practice (1120 vs. 1041 vs. 990)
- A redacted sample of work they've reviewed in the last 6 weeks
Software fluency: the demo questions that surface the truth
When a vendor demos UltraTax, ask them to:
- Open the depreciation schedule for an asset placed in service mid-year with §179 election.
- Show you the M-1 reconciliation with a book/tax difference for prepaid insurance.
- Roll forward a partner's basis schedule.
If the demo person fumbles any of these, the offshore staff will too.
Red flags worth walking away from
- "We can start Monday." (No real onboarding, no real review.)
- "We don't share staff bios." (You're getting a black box.)
- "Pricing depends on the engagement." (Code for: they'll size based on what you can pay.)
- A 12-month minimum with auto-renew and no out clauses.
- A signed NDA that won't let you reference them even neutrally.
The two-week paid pilot — why it matters, what to look for
The best engagements we've seen all start the same way: a fixed-fee, two-week pilot on a single real workpaper or return. You pay for it. They deliver. You see exactly how they work, on your software, with your data. If it's good, you scale. If it's not, you've spent a week's worth of partner time and walked away knowing.
A vendor who won't run a paid pilot is telling you something important.
Closing: the partner you want to find
You're not looking for the cheapest. You're looking for the team that thinks like reviewers. The one whose draft return you can sign without a 200-line email of follow-up questions. The one whose pod stays the same year over year. The one who'd rather lose your business than ship work they're not proud of.
Those firms exist. They're rarer than the marketing suggests, and they're worth the search.
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