Accounting Outsourcing Savings Calculator
See what your firm saves by moving bookkeeping, tax prep, and accounting work to a dedicated offshore team at $8–35/hr. Build your team below — the numbers update instantly.
Estimates only, for planning purposes. Based on 52 weeks/year and Acculink's published $8–35/hr offshore rate; your in-house figures are the fully-loaded hourly costs you enter. Actual pricing depends on scope and role mix.
Accounting Outsourcing Cost Calculator for CPA Firms
This calculator estimates the accounting outsourcing cost for your firm by comparing what you currently pay in-house, fully loaded, against the offshore rate for the same roles. Enter the positions you'd outsource, their hours, and your in-house hourly cost, and the tool returns projected CPA firm outsourcing savings in dollars and hours reclaimed each month.
It's built for CPA and accounting firm owners and managers evaluating the real cost to outsource accounting work — bookkeeping, tax preparation, payroll, or month-end close — rather than relying on a rule of thumb. Offshore bookkeeping cost and staffing needs vary by firm, so the calculator is built to be adjusted: change the rate, headcount, or role mix and the savings recalculate instantly.
How to Use This Calculator
- Add the roles you want to outsource. Select from positions such as bookkeeper, tax preparer, or payroll clerk, or add a custom role if your need is more specific.
- Set the hours and headcount for each role. Enter how many hours per week or month the work takes and how many people currently handle it, so the calculator scales the comparison to your actual workload.
- Adjust your fully-loaded in-house $/hr. The default reflects a typical blended cost of salary, benefits, payroll taxes, and overhead — overwrite it with your firm's real number for a more accurate result.
- Read your savings and hours reclaimed. The calculator shows the monthly and annual dollar difference between in-house and offshore staffing, plus the hours your current team frees up for higher-value client work.
How Outsourcing Cuts Your Costs
The savings come from the gap between two hourly numbers. Dedicated offshore CPAs, EAs, and bookkeepers run $8–35/hr depending on role and experience, billed only for hours worked. A US-based in-house hire at the same skill level costs far more than their offer letter suggests once you add benefits, employer payroll taxes, office overhead, software seats, and the cost of replacing staff who leave during busy season. The calculator's "fully-loaded in-house $/hr" field is meant to capture that full number, not just base pay — which is why the gap it produces is usually wider than firms expect.
What CPA Firms Outsource
The Hidden Cost of In-House Staff
Base salary is only the starting point. The comparison most firms actually need looks like this:
- Benefits and payroll taxes — typically add another 25–35% on top of salary once you include health insurance, retirement matching, and employer-side FICA and unemployment tax.
- Recruiting and onboarding — job postings, interview time, and the weeks of ramp-up before a new hire is fully productive.
- Turnover during busy season — losing a preparer or bookkeeper in February or March, then backfilling and retraining mid-deadline.
- Idle capacity off-season — a hire sized for tax-season workload sits partly idle the rest of the year, while you still carry full-time cost.
- Software seats and equipment — licenses, a workstation, and IT support for every additional in-house employee.
Add those together and the fully-loaded in-house hourly cost is almost always well above the base salary figure firms first use when comparing it to an offshore rate.
