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If you are considering offshore accounting services, you may have some common questions. We have compiled answers to address some of the general queries related to building & hiring offshore accountants, bookkeepers, and many more.
Asked Questions
It's low wage if compared to USA standards. However, purchasing power in India is fairly high, and the staff members who are working with us are from the middle class and they can lead a decent lifestyle with this salary. The cost of living is much lower in India. For Example a cup of coffee will cost $5 in the USA, which costs $1 in India
We exclusively work with accounting firms and help them hire accountants, tax associates, tax seniors, auditors, admin support staff, managers, and all other positions starting at $11/hour.
Well working remotely whether from ‘Boston or Bangalore’, ‘Miami or Mumbai’, ‘New York or New Delhi’, is all the same, as long as your staff has the right skill set, attitude, and speaks the same language. With Offshore staffing, it’s not just about hiring staff @ $11/hour but as I said it’s one such solution that may start as a stop-gap arrangement but also a potential long-term solution. It can help to build capacity, gain a competitive advantage, and also reduce your workload.
“Again I would recommend you watch the Interview of Phil Whitman, CPA, an Accounting Industry Expert who has advised 100s of CPA firms across North America. Learn why he is so optimistic about Entigrity Offshore Staffing and urges accounting firms to start thinking in this direction. - Watch Video”
If you hire a full-time offshore staff, it starts from $11/hour in the US, $14/hour in CA, and £8/hour in the UK. Senior profiles are difficult to find everywhere in the world. So they cost a Lil bit higher in India as well.
When we started 9 years back, we always wanted to work with every accounting firm. However, after 3-4 years, we realized that every accounting firm is not fit for us. The best way to know is to schedule a call.
Well, we exclusively work with Accounting firms!
Yes, if you specifically want somebody with knowledge of particular software or platform, we could filter and find one out for you. Generally, every person we hire is evaluated in 3 ways regarding his expertise and knowledge:
So, keeping in mind the above points, when we put this filter, the number of people who are going to your universe will reduce.
Yes, we usually hire only those candidates who have relevant experience of US GAAP, IRS, and other regulations. All the staff at Entigrity are trained in US accounting, tax code, and preparation of returns in the US context. Local experience in Indian accounting, tax, or financial industry is not counted. However, we let the clients interview and test each candidate and be assured to have the best person working for them.
Yes, in order to provide the best quality service to our clients it is important to have well-trained staff. We have a state of the art (in house) training facility with dedicated trainers. We have 35 different modules of training which include English communication, Soft skills, American culture, software, and technology used in the American accounting industry, etc. We continuously keep upgrading these training modules according to the latest industry trends.
When you hire a remote staff you will have to identify the requirements at your end. However, just like any local employee, a remote staff can perform most of the tasks related to:
In a nutshell, a remote staff performs most of the tasks that are done in a public accounting firm. Here's the E-Book. Have a look
Entigrity’s offshore staff are available for about a third of the conventional salary paid to local staff. Besides, it does not require infrastructure development at your office due to remote working. There are no-cost recruitment or training cost involved. There is no liability of compliances, Medicare, or other benefits. Also, it is not required to pay bonuses or overtime charges. Hence overall, counting various direct or indirect benefits due to remote staffing, 75% saving on labor cost is just a conservative number.
Offshore staff is an employee who works for your firm under your management but from a location that is physically out of your office. This could be from anywhere, employee’s home, a coffee shop in a neighborhood, a different city, or even from an overseas location. Entigrity’s Remote Staff actually works from our remote offshore offices located in India.
We can divide it into Short term and Long term benefits. Sometimes firms sign up because of their tax season overflow, that's a short-term benefit. However, offshore staffing is a way forward for your long term. It should be the core strategy of your firm, not just a one-time adventure. Like any of your local staff, a remote staff from Entigrity also works under your management and fully reports to you. As they work from remote offshore offices of Entigrity, this
1. Saves your cost and efforts
2. HR hassles, and several other compliance issues
3. The firms that are working with us have a 25% partner-in-time reduction and 18% on-shore staff workload reduction
4. You can focus more on advisory services
View details here (page leading to benefits of remote staffing).
Yes. But first, you need to identify the requirements which also includes realizing whether you have enough workload to keep the team occupied. We usually recommend taking a baby step and hiring 1 or 2 staff and if the requirement grows you are free to scale up the team size whenever you want.
We have a good sourcing specialist team and we only hire candidates with a minimum bachelor’s degree and at least 1 year of experience in accounting and Tax(US/UK/CA). We don't hire complete freshers. We also do a reference check of their records.
Replacement is more than easy. 1 out of 10 candidates requires replacement as per our internal survey. So replacement is not something abnormal, you can make a hiring mistake, or it can be some situation changes from the firm or from the employee. The good thing about replacement with Entigrity is every employee has a 3 month notice period. So in these 3 months, they have enough transition time for the new staff. Secondly, you don't have to train them from scratch as you did on your on-shore staff. You will not be charged for the additional 3 months. We internally ask the outgoing staff to transfer duties and processes. However, our standards are high, our 1st Year attrition rate is 6%, 2nd Year attrition rate is 7%, around 85% of our clients have staff who stay beyond 2 years. Our average retention is 5 Years.
As you know Offshore hiring is a long-term process, before reaching any conclusion give it some time and effort to adapt as per your system the same way as you will do if you hire anyone onshore. Whenever accounting firms come to the conclusion without giving it the required time to adjust, they are on the high jump. However, if you don't like to hire. We have a simple 2 months notice period, within this notice period, you can just close the contract. However, if you want a replacement, we can provide you.
There are no long-term commitments. There is only a 2-month notice period which we are required to pay to the employee. There are no hidden/extra charges.
Absolutely Yes. For the past 9 years, Entigrity has staffed 725+ firms accounting and tax professionals for CPA & tax firms here in America having knowledge of QBO/QBD, Xero, Drake, Lacerte, Ultratax, Pro series, CCH Axcess, Bill.com, Jetpack, Gusto, or any other software.
Yes. Soon after the agreement sign-up, we provide the client with resumes of such candidates who match the criteria specified by him. We arrange for the video interviews at the client’s preferred time (and online tests if required). This process is transparent and conducted to let our client choose the best person according to requirements.
No, absolutely Not! Just pay by the hour i.e. No. of Hours you hired X Hourly Rate.
Well with us you can hire Accounting Roles and you can also hire Non-Accounting Roles
ACCOUNTING ROLES |
NON - ACCOUNTING ROLES |
BOOKKEEPER |
BILLING EXECUTIVE |
ACCOUNTANT |
AR/AP ASSISTANT |
TAX PREPARER |
DIGITAL MARKETING ASSISTANT |
SR. TAX ASSOCIATE |
BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATE |
STAFF ACCOUNTANT |
ADMIN SUPPORT STAFF |
ACCOUNT SENIOR |
VIRTUAL/EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT |
TAX SENIOR |
CLIENT SERVICE EXECUTIVE |
AUDIT ASSOCIATE |
CUSTOMER SUPPORT ASSISTANT |
MANAGER |
SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETER |
DATA ANALYTICS ASSISTANT |
VIDEO ARTIST |
FINANCIAL ANALYST |
GRAPHICS DESIGNER |
As per the contract, if the remote staff has availed any leaves, the client will not be charged for the same, unless has specifically granted paid leaves or vacation Also we discourage taking leaves during tax season time unless unavoidable.
Yes, we will provide you, somebody, with full overlap however that would cost extra because these people will work mid-night and we have to provide night allowances to them. It would cost you $1 or $1.5 extra.
Staffing, whether local or offshore will always have little challenges, on leaves, work accomplishments, staff management, training, staff learning and role, productivity, etc. Since the last 3 years, we have seen a significant increase in client satisfaction as we introduce the role of “Account Manager”. Although offshore staff would be directly working with you and would work under your control and management. However, an Account Manager is like your HR offshore for your offshore staff or team. Account Manager endeavor would be to provide you with unbiased advice in the best interest of the firm and make building and managing the Offshore team a successful and happy experience.
Chance of happening such a thing is very unlikely because a person is selected only after personally interviewing and checking eligibility by the client himself. However, in a rare scenario, if you wish not to continue working with staff already working for you, we will replace him/her. This process may take a maximum of 30 days.
Our hourly rates start at $10/hour depending upon a few factors
We have a system of the weekly billing cycle.
At the time of signup, it can be done online, or else you may print send statements with the corresponding timesheets. To pay online, provide us with bank details so that we can make ACH to your account. On a usual basis, we send weekly bills and debit accordingly. We intimate beforehand about the charges.
We have a very flexible hiring model and this works for all sizes of public accounting firms. According to the requirement of clients that specifies for how long and how many hours per week does he need a staff, there are many options to choose from, such as, Permanent, Temporary, Seasonal, Full-Time, Part-Time, etc. Click here to see the details (leads to the flexible hiring options page)
Yes, Entigrity provides a temporary hiring option. In fact, Entigrity’s hiring models are flexible to suit all the needs of accounting firms of all sizes. Click here to read more (hiring options table).
No there is no minimum commitment period for a particular staff. Although there is a minimum contract of 3 months association (with Entigrity) in case of temporary and 6 months for a permanent hiring option, however, in a very unlikely event of a client not willing to continue work with selected staff, then we replace him at a notice period of maximum 30 days. This does not involve any fees.
Normal shift/work timing for full-time staff is 3 AM to 1 PM irrespective of time zone (inclusive of 30 minutes of meal break and 15 min for coffee break). This allows for 3-4 hours of overlap between your office timings and the staff working for you. Please note that since they start work at 3 AM, so you may assign work in the evening and meanwhile you come to the office in the morning, most of the work is done. However, these timings can be made flexible and matched according to your office hours, but that might cost you extra, as such staff needs to be paid midnight allowances and other facilities.
It takes anywhere between 7 – 30 days to get staff on board and start working for you, this time variance depends on the availability and the skillset required in a candidate as specified by a client.
NO, We proceed with the interviews after signup, here you interview and test the candidate to check for his/her experience and qualifications before finally hiring. This can take at most 30 days. After this time, in an unlikely case if you do not find any suitable candidates you can inform us and ask to cancel the agreement.
Yes. Soon after the agreement signup, we provide the client with resumes of such candidates who match the criteria specified by him. At the client’s preferred time we arrange for the video interviews (and online tests if required). This whole process is transparent and conducted in order to let our client choose the best person according to requirements.
Our internal HR and hiring process is very rigorous so that we qualify as best at the expectation of our clients.
This is how we create our own candidate pool before we share the resumes with potential clients. Apart from that, we have a signed agreement with each candidate which assures long term association with us as well as a pledge to keep office data confidential.
The attrition rate at Entigrity has been below 10%. Our HR policies are robust, ensuring the least gaps. Whenever a new employee joins, he signs a contract for a minimum of 3 years of association. In special circumstances, sometimes we do allow to leave earlier than that. Also, Entigrity is one of the preferred local employers because of the multiple facilities we provide, including cab, medical insurance, meals at the office, regular recreations, and several other benefits to prolong the employer-employee association.
An account manager will be your go-to person. He would be there to help and guide clients in any situation. We would advise any Non-routine or Non-regular or policy matter shall only be dealt with through the Account Manager and shall never be communicated directly to remote staff. He will help you with troubleshooting, pricing revisions, staff training, shift timings, leaves, and bonuses.
Your offshore staff reports directly to you, however you want. We understand that you can’t afford to lose control. In outsourcing, you’ve to follow vendor’s policies but in offshore staffing, you have 100% control as the staff follows your firm’s policies, protocols, and workflow.
If you or any of your colleagues wish to learn more, let’s have a quick chat and discuss future possibilities.
Let me put it this way -
Watch the video of one of our clients, Adam Hale, CPA the founding partner of a 100% virtual accounting firm, and how they have transformed by successfully building a team of offshore staff - Watch Video”
I can be biased here but I would recommend you to read this article of Breakaway Bookkeeping and Advising, an accounting firm in Tualatin, Oregon integrated offshore staffing in their practice and they were so ahead of time that today what they did, sound so much relevant and essential.
Everyone from baby boomers to GenXers encompasses our clientele of 725+ accounting firms spanning across small, mid-size and regional accounting firms. Some of them were ahead of the curve while some just joined us recently. On average, every accounting firm that has hired an offshore staff and worked with us for over a year has seen a 20% to 35% rise in profitability.
Here is an E-Book on 100+ best practices for offshore staffing
We have 100% confidence in our recruitment process. It rarely happens. Even if you don’t like anyone after taking interviews and tests. There is no cost to it. You will be billed only when the staff you hire starts working for you.
The task that can be offshored, so, E-Book Link. So typically when you first start with offshore staffing, you will integrate. We can do the exercise where you require your firm what tasks they can delegate.
We do not endorse whether remote staffing is better or outsourcing. Both of these things have their own benefits. However, we do not recommend outsourcing for accounting and related tasks. Outsourcing can be used for non-core business operations that are not repetitive in nature. If the same is done for the core operations, it may lead to poor quality work delivery, and consequently, can lose credibility in the business group. On the other hand, when your own staff is working at your tasks, you can supervise him/her, leaving a lesser chance of fatal errors. It is not possible when you outsource as there you are just assigned an account manager personally might not know who is working on the assigned task. Your staff also learns on the job and with experience only gets better, which is ultimately great for your firm in the longer run.
No, we are not an outsourcing company. Instead, we are a staffing agency based in the USA, and we provide remote staffing solutions to all sizes of Accounting and Tax firms nationwide.
People usually misunderstand offshore staffing with outsourcing, whereas they are two different things. Outsourcing is good to carry out non-core, or one time services, while it could give inconsistent results in core business operations. On the other hand, having an offshore staff saves from this risk as the work is always carried out in your supervision, which is a rarity in outsourced services.
Not everything you do in response to the crisis will be worth continuing, of course. Some of your ad hoc structures and workflows will probably best be dismantled — but after four, or six, or eight months, the temporary often begins to seem like the permanent, and five or six years later, staff will ask, “Why do we still do it this way?” and no one will remember that it was born out of desperation, and was never meant to be perpetuated. However, Judge your stop-gap measures not just on how they perform now, but on their potential to make your firm better in the long term. Offshore Staffing is one such long-term solution.
Your firm will undoubtedly be implementing a host of temporary measures in the face of the pandemic: new workflows, new management, and reporting structures, new workarounds, new deliverable pathways, and so on. In many cases, these will violate old rules or partner shibboleths, but you’ll accept them in order to keep things moving. Remote work is a great example: Many firms dragged their heels on this before March, and have only grudgingly accepted it now — but, like many of the other expedients you adopt, it is absolutely worth continuing once things return to normal.
We typically don't allow work from home. All our staff work from a secured office. We have our offices in Ahmedabad, Vadodara, and Mumbai. However, during these exceptional situations of pandemics, there were waves in India when the government imposes lockdowns. In that case, with the client’s approval, we give work from home. And we take extra precautions on privacy and data security. Below is the list of security parameters we take for each staff if they have to work from home:-
I always say that most clients want great service and a wonderful experience for a fair price. However, there is no harm in trying and experimenting with few clients. We are successfully working with 600+ accounting firms and that’s more than a testimony. And more than clients it’s what you think is important.
Well they have been more open to offshore hiring for sure but still they have concerns like what would my team think about this? What would my client think? Sometimes we feel that pandemic has still not changed, the stigma around offshore hiring for accounting firms. It's true that the firms that invested in offshore hiring have largely remained immune to the slowdown caused by the pandemic. However, there are a large number of CPAs and Accountants out there who are still skeptical about it. However, feel free to schedule a call to learn more about this.
India is a hub for the global economy, a hotbed of talent, second home to Big 4, second home to fortune 500 companies, tech giants, and the accounting Industry. India is a hub for building global delivery centers. Not just the big 4, but 200+ companies have offshore offices in India. This has led to the build of an ecosystem in India. That's where we hire people and get the training done for them. Even if you hire locally, it could be a bad hire. Here you get a chance to test his capabilities, competencies, and also you get a chance for a replacement here. However, we can provide you a staff which is very capable.
As per our survey 6 out of 10 Failures are because of lack of integration. We have seen many times that firms start with offshore staffing, but either give up on offshore staffing or they lose a good onshore employee on their journey towards building an offshore team.
Both situations are unfortunate and we have come across this often and largely because the onshore team starts feeling insecure as soon as firms start hiring offshore staff. We need to manage it with 4 C’s for a successful onshore and offshore team working towards a common goal that is “Firm’s Betterment & Well Being”
Change
Culture
Collaboration
Communication
And communication is the key, holding the other 3 together. We need to keep both teams on the same page.
Yes, staff directly work under your control and management. They will be working on your processes. It is “your staff working from Entigrity’s Office”.
Each and every offshore staff that works for you have prior work experience in US accounting and tax and have a minimum bachelor’s degree in accounting.
Of course, with Entigrity offshore staffing, you can hire tax staff starting at $10/hour, you can hire them part-time, and permanent.
As we have worked with 600+ accounting firms here is a link to many of those success story videos. Feel free to reach out to any of them.
Yes, they are. Why don’t you go and visit our India office? Well just check our youtube channel and see how much fun they have while they work for you. Low-cost arbitrage is the reason you hire staff offshore from India because the cost of living is cheap and that’s where you save a lot of money.
Typically it does not happen, however, we want to be flexible because when we hire someone we take the commitment that you need to work on this shift timing, when they say okay, then only he gets signed up. Staff can accomplish your shift timing on occasion situations or deadlines as any staff would do. However, changing permanently would not be the right thing.
There are multiple ways and our account manager will be the right person to help you and give you guidance on this. However, you treat them as your own staff, make them feel comfortable about this relationship, and provide them with the right confidence.
Yes, to provide the best quality service to our clients it is important to have well-trained staff. We have a state-of-the-art (in-house) training facility with dedicated trainers. We have 35 different training modules, including English communication, Soft skills, American culture, software, the technology used in the American accounting industry, etc. We continuously keep upgrading these training modules according to the latest industry trends.
Staff completes timesheets daily to indicate the completion of their tasks and the time taken to attempt them. Entigrity has its online timesheet as a standard, which employees generally fill in, and send to their respective employers. However, if a firm has its own timesheet format, and wants its employees to make entries into that, we approve it. By reviewing these timesheets, you can transparently monitor the performance and output of your staff.
Yes, English is a very widely spoken language in India. In fact, it is the second most widely used language of a large number of Indian professionals. The English language never plays a barrier in communication as we only hire employees who are fluent in English. However, the accent of Indians is quite neutral, yet a lot different than that of Americans. So, it is advisable to speak at a little slower rate and give staff a chance to get used to how you communicate with them for lucid understanding.
Our remote staff works from our secure remote offshore offices in India. Our 2 offices are in the city of Ahmedabad, and 1 in the city of Mumbai. We follow a strict no work-from-home policy for the safekeeping of client data and information.
No, there is no extra fee for setup. At the time of signup and requirement statement, you can tell us the list of software (including versions) you use at work. We would have it installed at our workstations accordingly. At your end, you might need to set a remote sharing ID and password, which your remote employee will use to logging in and logging out of your system in order to work. If you need any help in setup, our IT team will help you promptly.
Every employee is provided with a Twin-Screen computer with the latest operating system, software, and high-speed internet connection for general tasks. The workstations also include a web camera and a microphone for video conferencing. Apart from that, every employee has a separate US contact number where you can speak using your telephone/mobile phones. We also provide them with email addresses. If you need any other means of communication, you may specify that to us, and we can try to arrange it. However, the internet at every computer is under limited usage and does not allow personal email access, social networking, and other websites so that sensitive data shared with employees is always safe and secure inside our premises.
There are a number of convenient methods to communicate with your remote staff.
Telephone: Every employee has a dedicated USA telephone number to connect with.
Email: You can send emails for instructions, and ask for daily reporting on email.
Video conference: Every employee’s workstation comprises a webcam, microphone, and necessary software for speaking over video; you can choose any application such as Skype, Google Hangouts, etc. for live video call as well as chat over instant text messaging software.
Yes, you can provide your remote staff an email ID on your firm’s domain. Generally, each staff is assigned his/her own email through Entigrity’s own domain, yet there are a lot of clients who wish to have their staff use email IDs personalized according to their firm’s needs. We allow it after risk assessment.
There are three methods that remote staff can use to access documents/information/data at the client’s end:
You can use any of the three methods to let your staff access a particular file (document/information/data) and give you back the completed work.
At Entigrity we don’t allow work from home. We can never risk a client’s information at the cost of flexibility. Before you partner with anyone for offshore staffing please check their WFH policy and IT Policy.
We are ISO 27001:2013 certified organization for data security and confidentiality. ISO 27001 is Information Security Management Standard. Also, we are GDPR compliant and also approved by the IRS for continuing education. And you are more than welcome to visit our offices in India or easier way, you can take a video tour
Theoretically Yes, however, your risk needs to be measured in relative terms i.e. Offshore staffing is a cost-effective and easy solution to local staffing challenges, so now you need to analyze if offshore staffing increasing risk? Let’s see through below comparison
Particulars |
Offshore Staffing |
Local Staffing |
Is your staff working completely paperless? |
Yes |
No |
Strict Protocols being followed like
|
Yes |
No (Usually not there) |
Breach of Data Security |
Possible |
Possible |
Stronger Agreement to Counter/Back up/Protect |
Yes |
No |
Confidence Because of the track record of Entigrity having worked with 725+ accounting firms vs Local Staff Track Record. |
Highly Secure |
Experience Based |
Relative analyses actually show how your risk with Offshore staffing is relatively lower compared to local staffing.
Well let me tell you, we are a US company and we provide you our contract of protecting your data, privacy & confidentiality in writing. So in case that happens, you have stronger recourse against us (although this has never happened in the history of 9 years of our business)
It can’t happen because mobile phones aren’t allowed in the work area, they have to be kept in a locker before entering the workplace. Also, all entries and exits are key cards enabled and the entire facility is under CCTV camera surveillance that is monitored 24x7
The IT setup is very simple, safe, and secure. Your data isn’t going to move at all. We’ll set up remote login and your offshore staff will log in to your workstation to do the work and log off when done. No back and forth data transfer are involved, so technically your data never leaves your office.
I know direct control and reporting are of utmost importance and that’s why Entigrity provides you with staff that works dedicatedly with you. Let’s say you hire staff part-time for 20 hours/week. Your staff will work only for you during the designated hours and will report directly to you and follow your firm’s policies and protocols. He is your employee by all means. He just works from our secured facilities in India.
We provide feature phones, and in case of two-step authentication required, we provide smartphones but only on approval of the client. However, in any case, personal phones are not allowed.
To begin with, the whole office is paperless. We do not allow pen-paper-any stationery, digital computer printers, personal mobile phones, portable storage devices into the work area. The USB ports are disabled for data transfers. No staff has access to personal emails, social media, or any such means that can facilitate transferring sensitive data. The emails, folder systems, and internal servers at the office are continuously monitored by the in-house IT department for inconsistency. There are no printers connected to our internal network, hence, we eliminate the chances of taking data out of the office by any means either electronic or printed. It is like your own office where the data never leaves the premises.
Before we hire someone, we carry out background checks and go through the references of previous employers about the person’s conduct at the past organization if any. While joining the organization, every employee has to sign an undertaking that states that he/she will respect the privacy of the client data being handled. Additionally, he is legally bound to do so, and there could be legal actions against an employee if inconsistencies are discovered from his/her end. So far, none of our employees have disappointed us in this regard.
Yes, our entire premises are covered under security cameras both from exterior and interiors. In fact, every cabin inside the office has 2 cameras fixed for better visibility of the happenings and monitoring against any untoward incidents. These cameras are operational on a 24X7 basis.
Of course! We would be more than glad to be your hosts and welcome you with our hospitality. We believe it is always better to see to believe. By visiting us, you not just see the whole infrastructure and security setup, but also get to know how things actually work at our office. Few of our clients have visited us in the past, and have had happy memories. You can view our online reviews for references.
ISO 27001:2013 is an internationally recognized Information Security Standard published by the International Organization for Standardization. This certification is awarded to the exclusive organizations that comply with the information security guidelines of ISO and strictly abide by it at all times. Entigrity is one such organization with this certification.
At the time of signing up the contract, we provide our commitment to safekeeping client data in a written undertaking. We take every measure to honor it. In case, we fail (we haven’t yet so far) at some level or a violation still occurs, a client is entitled to proceed legally. However, there has never been such an incident where a client found a breach in data security, which in itself speaks volumes about the level of commitment we show towards the protection of confidentiality that we are trusted with.
One of our team members will get in touch with you in 24 hours.