Bookkeeping, workpapers, BAS and tax return preparation, payroll and practice administration, handled by a dedicated team member in the Philippines who works only for your firm, in your practice software and your hours.
Offshored provides dedicated offshore bookkeepers, accountants and practice administrators to Australian accounting firms from A$2,100 per month. Each team member works only for your firm, in your practice software and your hours, and is employed in the Philippines by Australian Pathways OPC, a registered Philippine company. You keep the client relationship and the sign off; your offshore team does the processing in between.
Accounting is the industry that offshores most heavily in Australia, and for a simple reason: a large share of the work in a suburban or mid tier practice is repeatable, system driven and measurable. Bank reconciliations, BAS preparation, workpapers, payroll runs and year end compliance files all follow a process. Those are the jobs a Filipino accounting graduate can learn quickly, and they are the jobs that stop your senior staff from doing advisory work. This page sets out the roles that work offshore for accounting firms, the software and hand offs involved, the Tax Practitioners Board and APES 305 obligations to have in place first, and a worked cost example. Prices are Offshored’s published 2026 bands; the cost guide shows what sits behind them.
These are the roles Australian practices ask Offshored for most often. Each is a full-time, dedicated person who works to your checklists inside your practice software, not a shared processing pool, and every band includes salary, statutory contributions, HMO, payroll and HR with no recruitment or placement fee.
Most firms start with one bookkeeper or one accountant, then add an administrator once the first hire has settled. Typical time to hire is one to two weeks. Firms that run accounts payable and receivable for clients staff that as its own role.
The offshore accountant prepares the file: reconciles the ledger, builds the workpapers, drafts the financial statements and the return, and raises a query list. The Australian reviewer clears the queries, reviews the file and lodges. Advice, sign off, lodgement and the client relationship stay with your registered tax or BAS agents, as the Tax Practitioners Board expects. Firms that offshore well write this hand off down as a checklist for each job type, so the offshore team knows what finished means before the first job is assigned.
Offshore accounting staff work inside your systems, not a parallel set. Offshored recruits for the platforms Australian firms actually use, and most candidates arrive with two or more of these already on their CV: Xero, MYOB, QuickBooks Online, Xero Tax and Practice Manager, CCH iFirm and Access HandiSoft for ledger and compliance; Karbon, FYI, SuiteFiles and SharePoint for workflow and documents; Dext and Hubdoc for data capture; Class, BGL Simple Fund 360, BGL CAS 360, NowInfinity and ASIC Connect for SMSF and corporate compliance; Xero Payroll, MYOB, KeyPay and Employment Hero for payroll. Software licences stay with your firm, so an extra user seat is usually the only cost outside the monthly fee.
Offshoring is legal for Australian accounting firms, but registered agents and professional body members carry specific obligations when client work is done overseas. These are the ones to have in place before your first offshore hire starts.
The data security answer on our FAQ and our Terms of Service set out the same commitments in full.
| Role | Monthly fee, all inclusive |
|---|---|
| Practice administrator, client service coordinator | A$1,900 to A$2,400 |
| Offshore bookkeeper, payroll administrator, accounts payable and receivable officer | A$2,100 to A$2,800 |
| Offshore accountant | A$2,400 to A$3,400 |
| Financial controller | A$3,000 to A$4,800 |
One monthly fee covers recruitment, salary, 13th month pay, SSS, PhilHealth and Pag-IBIG contributions, HMO health cover, payroll, tax withholding and day to day HR, plus office space and equipment for office based staff. There are no placement, setup or exit fees, no lock-in contract, and you pay month to month with 30 days’ notice. The pricing page has every band and a calculator; the 2026 cost guide compares an offshore hire with a Sydney salary once superannuation, leave, payroll tax and recruitment are counted.
The 2026 offshore staff cost guide compares a Sydney bookkeeper hired locally with an offshore bookkeeper at Offshored’s published band. The local hire costs A$107,950 to A$117,388 in year one once superannuation at 12 per cent, NSW payroll tax, paid leave, recruitment and a desk are added to an A$85,000 salary, and A$95,200 to A$100,388 in each year after that. The offshore bookkeeper costs A$25,200 to A$33,600 a year, every year, with recruitment, leave, statutory contributions and equipment inside the monthly fee.
Apply that to a four partner firm that adds one offshore bookkeeper and one offshore accountant. Recruitment takes one to two weeks for each: a scoping call, a shortlist of screened candidates with Xero and Australian compliance experience, interviews with the partners, a Memorandum of Understanding. The combined monthly fee is A$4,500 to A$6,200, or A$54,000 to A$74,400 a year, for two full time team members working Australian hours. The same two seats hired in Sydney would cost more than that for one person.
Within a quarter the bookkeeping clients are reconciled daily rather than monthly, year end files arrive at the reviewer with workpapers complete, and the partners’ time moves to advisory work. Use the calculator on the pricing page to run the numbers for your own roles and salary bands. This is an illustration of a typical setup, not a client case study.
Yes. The Tax Practitioners Board permits outsourcing and offshoring provided the agent obtains client permission for the overseas disclosure, keeps registered practitioners in the review and lodgement process, and maintains confidentiality and adequate professional indemnity insurance.
Yes. TPB Code item 6 requires you to tell clients to whom and where their information will be disclosed, including overseas, and APES 305 requires members of the professional bodies to disclose the provider, its location and the nature and extent of the outsourced services in the engagement document.
At Offshored an offshore accountant costs A$2,400 to A$3,400 per month and an offshore bookkeeper A$2,100 to A$2,800 per month, including salary, 13th month pay, SSS, PhilHealth, Pag-IBIG, HMO, payroll and HR, with no recruitment or placement fee and no lock-in contract, and Offshored replaces the person at its own cost if they leave.
The usual model is that your offshore team member prepares the return, BAS or activity statement in your practice software and your registered agent reviews and lodges it. Credentials for Online services for agents are never shared. Where your practice policy allows it, a team member can be set up as their own authorised user, and the practice remains responsible for monitoring that access.
Your team member works inside your practice software at the permission level you set, through a VPN or your own remote login, and nothing is stored by Offshored. Every candidate is pre-screened and police checked (NBI clearance) before you meet them, the employment contract with Australian Pathways OPC includes a confidentiality clause and an intellectual property clause, USB ports and personal cloud drives are blocked on company supplied devices, and every client login is removed on their last day.
We shortlist for the software you run and for Australian compliance experience; Xero, MYOB, QuickBooks Online, Xero Practice Manager, Karbon, FYI, Dext, Class and BGL are the common requests, and you interview the shortlisted candidates yourself. Recruitment typically takes one to two weeks. Where a candidate is strong on the ledger but new to your particular workflow tool we say so and you decide whether a week of training is worth it.
More questions? The full FAQ covers legality, superannuation, time zones, working hours, qualifications and performance management. Related pages: offshore staff for real estate agencies, offshore staff for mortgage brokers and financial advisers, the finance roles we staff and the full industry list.
Pick a time and William Smith, Offshored's co-founder, phones you. We scope the role, give you the monthly cost band and tell you honestly whether offshore staff will work for your business. No lock-in, no obligation.
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