Guide ✦ Accounting firms

What an accounting firm
should delegate first

Practices almost always start with their worst client, because that is the file causing pain. It is the one handover most likely to fail. Here is the order that works.

Book my 30-minute call →
Alfie Quiming
Alfie QuimingAccount manager, Manila
Last reviewed August 2026
Looking for VA work yourself? Apply at staffingsolutions.ph — this guide is written for businesses hiring.

A practice considering offshore support has usually reached the point where the partners are doing coding at nine at night and the juniors who used to absorb it are either expensive, gone, or both.

The instinct at that point is to hand over the file that hurts most — the client with fifteen years of accumulated mess, no documentation and a chart of accounts that only one person understands. It is a reasonable instinct and it is the wrong first move.

Start with your cleanest, highest-volume, most rule-bound work instead. Competence becomes visible in a fortnight, the person builds context on your conventions, and by the time they reach the difficult file they have the standing and the knowledge to handle it.

Before you read on

Who this is for

✓Worth your time if

  • Partners or seniors are doing coding and reconciliation work
  • Compliance work arrives in lumps you cannot staff for
  • You have lost juniors and not replaced them
  • You want capacity without the seasonal hiring problem

✕Probably not if

  • Your client files need remediation first — do that, then hire
  • You want someone to give clients advice
  • You have no documented conventions and will not write any
  • You are looking for a registered agent offshore — that does not exist
The work, in order

What comes off the practice, and when

Ordered by how safely each one travels. The first two are usually live inside a fortnight.

Bank feed coding, across your cleanest files

Rule-bound, immediately checkable in the ledger, and it teaches your chart and your conventions faster than any briefing document.

Accounts payable and receivable

Bill entry, supplier statement reconciliation, invoice raising and debtor follow-up on a fixed cadence. Authorisation stays with you from day one.

Reconciliations and query lists

Bank, credit card, clearing and suspense reconciled and evidenced, with anything unclear on a running client query list rather than guessed.

Month-end packs

Aged reports, asset register updates and a written list of what needs your reviewer's eyes — so review is review, not reconstruction.

Payroll preparation

Only after several clean cycles above. Timesheets, draft pay runs and super reconciliation prepared; you post and declare.

BAS preparation

GST coding reviewed, control accounts reconciled, a complete pack handed to your registered agent.

Tax return preparation

Last, and the biggest capacity unlock. Returns prepared to review stage with full workpapers for your registered agent to review, sign and lodge.

Practice administration

Often worth running in parallel with a second hire — onboarding, ATO correspondence, deadline tracking, billing and WIP.

The registration line

In a practice this matters more than in a single business, because it is your registration on the line rather than a client's.

  • Lodgement and adviceBAS and tax lodgement for a fee, and advice on either, requires Tax Practitioners Board registration. Preparation goes to your registered agent for review and signature.
  • Client-facing adviceAnything answering "should the client…" is your accountant's. A VA answers "here is what happened".
  • Bank authorityNo offshore team member holds payment authorisation on a client account. No exceptions.
  • Signing offYear-end financials, declarations and STP finalisation stay with your registered staff.
Tax Practitioners Board — who must register ↗ATO — Online services for agents ↗CPA Australia — outsourcing considerations ↗
From the handovers we run

The first three months

One person, one portfolio, expanding as competence shows. Not eight clients on day one.

1

Weeks 1–2: two or three clean files, coding only

Small portfolio, tight scope, daily review. You are teaching conventions and finding out what they do not know while it is cheap.

2

Weeks 3–4: add AP and AR on the same files

Same clients, wider scope. The query-list habit — flag it, do not guess it — is what makes everything later safe.

3

Month 2: expand the portfolio, add month-end

Now add files. A full-time person typically reaches eight to fifteen small-to-medium files once fluent, fewer if they are complex.

4

Month 2–3: payroll prep, then BAS prep

Both into a reviewing person. Payroll only after clean cycles, because errors there are visible to your client's staff.

5

Month 3+: the difficult file, then tax prep

By now they know your conventions and have standing with your team. This is when the messy client becomes handleable — not in week one.

The mistake that costs a fortnight

Starting with your worst client

It is the file causing the pain, so it is the file that gets handed over first, and it fails almost every time. A fifteen-year-old ledger with undocumented conventions requires exactly the context a new starter does not yet have — so either they escalate every third transaction and you have gained nothing, or they make reasonable decisions that quietly contradict how six other reports are built. The practice concludes offshore does not work for complex files. What actually happened is that the hardest possible task was chosen as the first one. Give them three clean files for a fortnight, then hand over the difficult one in month three, when they know your chart, your query process and your reviewer's standards.

Keep reading

Related guides

All guides →
Guide

Xero tasks to hand over

The task-level split.

Read it →
Guide

Hand over BAS prep

Preparation into a reviewing agent.

Read it →
Role

Client bookkeeper

What the role covers and costs.

Read it →
Questions

Frequently asked

How many client files can one person handle?
Realistically eight to fifteen small-to-medium files once up to speed, and fewer where files are complex or conventions are undocumented. We would rather under-promise on the call and let you expand than have you disappointed in month two.
How do we give access without sharing client logins?
Never share a login. They are invited into each client's Xero, MYOB or QuickBooks organisation as their own named user on the role you choose, so every action appears in the audit history and access can be revoked per client instantly.
Do they know Australian conventions?
We match for Australian practice experience on these roles — GST coding, super, STP, the shape of an Australian chart of accounts — and verify it with the previous employer rather than accepting the CV. What they will not know is your firm's particular conventions, which is what the documented handover is for.
Should our first hire be a bookkeeper or a practice administrator?
If partners are doing client work at night, a bookkeeper. If they are doing onboarding, ATO correspondence and chasing clients for documents, a practice administrator — it frees fee-earning time across the whole team rather than one person's. Several firms start with the administrator for exactly that reason.
Is there a minimum term?
Three months, then month to month. It's the same runway you'd give a new local hire to learn your systems, your clients and your standards — and the team members who get a fair run are the ones who stay for years. There are no exit penalties at any point, and if the issue is the person rather than the role, the first-week refund and free replacement cover that separately.
How do you handle confidentiality?
The same way you'd treat any remote team member. Every placement signs an NDA and a confidentiality clause before day one, and they work inside your systems — your email, your CRM, your file storage — so you control what they can see and can revoke access instantly. No client data is stored on our side.