What is Finance & Accounting?
Finance & AccountingFinance and accounting is the paired business function that records every transaction, reports the numbers under a recognised standard, and turns them into decisions about cash, tax, and capital. Accounting looks backward at history; finance plans the next move ahead.
Key takeaways F&A pairs backward-looking accounting with forward-looking finance under US GAAP or IFRS.
The global FAO market reached USD 54.79 billion in 2025 and heads to USD 85.92 billion by 2031.
Named delivery hubs cluster in the Philippines, India, Romania, and Argentina.
Buyers outsource transactional work first and keep judgement-heavy tasks in-house.
Cost savings of 40 to 60 percent drive most F&A outsourcing decisions.Every dollar a business earns or spends flows through these two ledgers. Accountants log the entry, close the books, and file returns. Finance teams take that clean data and run scenarios on pricing, hiring, and capital structure.
Outsourced F&A shops now handle the bulk of transactional work — accounts payable, receivables, payroll close, tax filing — while retained staff focus on FP&A and treasury.
Providers price per full-time equivalent, per transaction, or per gain-share, with hybrid pricing now standard for larger engagements.
How it worksThe function splits into two lanes. Accounting captures every transaction, closes the period, and produces the trial balance under US GAAP or IFRS. Finance takes that record, forecasts cash, prices deals, and steers capital toward its highest return.
Lane
Focus
Deliverables
Common tools Accounting
Backward view of transactions
General ledger, statements, tax returns
Xero, QuickBooks Online, NetSuite, Sage Intacct Finance
Forward view of value
Budgets, forecasts, capital plans, treasury reports
Excel, Anaplan, Adaptive InsightsThe two lanes run on different clocks but share one language: US GAAP in the United States or IFRS across most of the rest of the world. Both dictate how revenue is recognised, how leases are booked, and how goodwill gets impaired.
The global finance and accounting outsourcing market reached USD 54.79 billion in 2025, on pace to hit USD 85.92 billion by 2031 at a 7.78% CAGR. Everest Group tracked FAO spend growth up to 10% year on year in 2022.
Buyers cite three motivators. Cost dominates for smaller finance functions moving accounts payable and receivables offshore. Standards fluency drives IFRS-heavy multinationals to hubs that already staff qualified accountants.
Speed rounds out the pitch, with public companies chasing shorter quarter-end close cycles pushing work to teams that run 24-hour follow-the-sun coverage.
Providers tie fees to a service level agreement covering close-cycle days, error rate, and days sales outstanding — the F&A equivalent of a CSAT target in customer experience work.
Governance sits over the top. Steering committees meet monthly, service level penalties trigger at breach, and quarterly business reviews test whether the operating rhythm holds.
When the model works, F&A becomes a shared operating fabric between buyer and provider, not a vendor call.
ExamplesGlobal buyers now split F&A work across a small set of proven delivery hubs and pure-play providers. The names below show what typical engagements look like at scale, with published dates for context.
Delivery footprints span three continents, with buyers picking a hub for language, time zone, and standards fluency.
Genpact spun out of General Electric in 2005 and now runs F&A shops in Bengaluru, Bucharest, and Manila for global manufacturers. Its finance-and-accounting service line remains the single largest contributor to group revenue.
Accenture has picked up long-running F&A engagements with Unilever, Marriott, and BP, mixing on-shore analysts with delivery centres in the Philippines and India. The firm operates dedicated FAO centres in Manila and Bengaluru at scale.
Tata Consultancy Services has handled Nielsen's global finance operations since 2007, closing books for the media measurement giant across 100-plus countries. TCS remains one of the top-three FAO providers by revenue.
Buyers use the same outsourcing, offshoring, and nearshoring playbook — the one that reshaped call center, contact center, help desk, and customer support work a decade earlier. Delivery centres in Manila, Bengaluru, and Buenos Aires now form the F&A backbone.
Related terms Bookkeeping: daily transaction recording that feeds the accounting close. Payroll: the workforce-pay function most F&A providers bundle in. Back office: the broader admin function that houses F&A work. Offshore accounting: outsourced F&A delivered from lower-cost geographies. Business process outsourcing: the parent category F&A sits inside. Knowledge process outsourcing: higher-judgement work like FP&A and treasury. Financial services company: the buyer type with the deepest F&A needs. FAQ What is the difference between finance and accounting?Accounting records what has already happened, from every transaction to every close to every filing. Finance uses that clean data to plan cash, price deals, and steer capital. One looks back; the other looks ahead.
Why do companies outsource finance and accounting?Cost sits at the top of the pitch: offshore F&A teams typically run 40 to 60 percent cheaper than onshore equivalents. Access to scarce skills like IFRS reporting and FP&A modelling comes next. Faster close cycles and 24-hour coverage close out the case.
Which countries dominate finance and accounting outsourcing?The Philippines, India, and Poland handle the largest share of Fortune 500 F&A work. Argentina and Colombia have grown quickly as nearshore options for North American buyers. Romania serves European clients from Bucharest and Cluj.
Is outsourced finance and accounting safe from a compliance standpoint?Yes, when the provider carries SOC 1, SOC 2, and ISO 27001 attestations and the contract locks data residency. Buyers still keep tax filing sign-off and audit sponsorship in-house. The provider executes and the client approves.
How much of the finance function should be outsourced?Most buyers outsource high-volume transactional work like accounts payable, receivables, and payroll close. Judgement-heavy work (treasury, tax strategy, board reporting) stays with retained staff. The split usually lands 70 to 30 in favour of outsourcing.
What tools do outsourced F&A providers use?Cloud accounting platforms dominate the stack: Xero and QuickBooks Online for smaller shops, NetSuite and Sage Intacct for multinationals, with Anaplan layered on for FP&A modelling.
Explore more OA terms and guidance at Outsource Accelerator
What is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA)?
Certified Public Accountant (CPA)A certified public accountant (CPA) is a state-licensed accountant bound by the AICPA Code of Professional Conduct to serve the public interest, not just a paying client. You'll find CPAs signing audit reports, filing corporate tax returns, and reviewing internal controls. The badge signals training, exam-tested skill, and enforceable ethics.
Every US state runs its own CPA board, so licensure is state-by-state rather than federal. Candidates pass the four-part Uniform CPA Examination, log at least a year of supervised experience, and earn a bachelor's degree plus 30 extra credit hours (the 150-hour rule) before the state hands them a certificate.
Outside the US, equivalent designations carry the weight — Chartered Accountant in the UK and Commonwealth, CPA Australia across the Asia-Pacific, and the Philippine BOA-licensed CPA that anchors much of Manila's finance-and-accounting outsourcing supply.
Key takeaways CPAs are US state-licensed accountants governed by the AICPA Code of Professional Conduct.
Licensure demands 150 credit hours, the four-part Uniform CPA Exam, and roughly one year of supervised experience.
Only CPAs can sign SEC-registered audit opinions and represent taxpayers before the IRS.
The global finance-and-accounting outsourcing market sat at USD 54.79 billion in 2025, climbing to USD 85.92 billion by 2031.
Offshoring CPA-supervised work to the Philippines routinely trims 60-70% off in-house cost. How it worksA CPA candidate earns the license, then stakes their signature on financial statements, tax filings, or attest work in exchange for professional liability and disciplinary risk. That personal accountability, enforceable by the state board, is what buyers actually pay for.
Here's the standard path from graduate to signing CPA:
Step
What happens
Typical duration 1. Education
150 credit hours, including an accounting concentration
4-5 years 2. Exam
Pass all 4 sections of the Uniform CPA Exam within an 18-month window
6-18 months 3. Experience
Log around one year of supervised work under a licensed CPA
12-24 months 4. Ethics
Complete a state-board ethics exam in most states
1-4 weeks 5. Licensure
State board issues the certificate
4-12 weeks 6. CPE
Maintain 40 hours of continuing professional education per year
OngoingOnce licensed, a CPA can perform four services no unlicensed accountant may: SEC audits, reviews and compilations, IRS representation, and signed attest opinions used by lenders and regulators. Everything else — bookkeeping, payroll, management accounting — is fair game for non-CPAs, which is why outsourced accounting firms staff a CPA-to-junior ratio near 1:6.
ExamplesCPAs show up wherever financial statements need a signature that a bank, tax authority, or SEC filer will accept. Below are named settings where a CPA's stamp is either required or worth paying for.
Big Four audit teams. Deloitte, PwC, EY, and KPMG staff every US audit engagement with US CPAs as engagement partners. In 2024, the PCAOB inspected hundreds of audit files across the four firms and cited CPA-signed workpapers as the accountability anchor.
Manila-based offshore accounting providers. Firms such as MicroSourcing, D&V Philippines, and Booth & Partners pair Philippine BOA-licensed CPAs with US CPAs for cross-border work. The Philippines' IT-BPM sector reached roughly USD 40 billion in 2025 revenue, and finance-and-accounting is one of its fastest-growing verticals.
Corporate tax departments. Fortune 500 tax teams keep in-house CPAs to sign returns filed with the IRS, respond to audits, and prepare the tax provision that flows into the annual 10-K.
Solo and small-firm practice. The AICPA counts tens of thousands of US public accounting firms, most of them 1-5 person shops handling local tax, review, and advisory work.
Related termsCPA work sits inside a wider network of accounting and outsourcing terms. These are the closest ones you'll meet when scoping a finance engagement.
Bookkeeping: the record-keeping layer beneath the CPA's signed reports. Payroll: a recurring task CPAs often supervise but rarely process directly. Offshore accounting: moving CPA-supervised work to lower-cost countries, usually the Philippines or India. Business process outsourcing: the broader delivery model that finance-and-accounting outsourcing sits inside. Knowledge process outsourcing: the higher-judgement tier where CPA-heavy work usually lives. Financial services company: banks, insurers, and asset managers whose audits legally require a CPA. Back office: the operations layer where CPA-supervised bookkeeping and payroll typically run. FAQ What does a CPA do that a regular accountant can't?Only a licensed CPA can sign an audit opinion on SEC-registered financial statements or represent a taxpayer before the IRS. Bookkeeping, tax prep, and management accounting are open to any accountant.
How long does it take to become a CPA?Most candidates take 5-7 years total: a 4-5 year bachelor's covering 150 credit hours, 6-18 months to pass the four-part Uniform CPA Exam, and about a year of supervised experience.
Can I outsource CPA-level work overseas?Yes. Manila-based firms pair Philippine BOA-licensed CPAs with US CPA reviewers so audit workpapers, tax returns, and monthly closes stay compliant. Offshoring typically cuts 60-70% off in-house cost.
Is a CPA the same as a Chartered Accountant?They're the closest analogue but not identical. CPA licenses are US state-issued and follow US GAAP, while Chartered Accountants are licensed under UK, Commonwealth, and Indian bodies and generally work in IFRS.
How much do CPAs charge?Rates vary widely. In-house senior CPAs in the US cost USD 90,000-150,000 fully loaded, and onshore firms bill USD 150-450 per hour. Offshore CPA-supervised delivery lands closer to USD 15-35 per hour.
If you're weighing whether to hire, offshore, or blend a CPA team, browse Outsource Accelerator's outsourcing hubs to compare providers by service, country, and price.
What is Payroll?
PayrollPayroll is the business process of calculating, recording, and distributing employee wages, taxes, and withholdings each pay period. It combines three linked jobs: producing paychecks, keeping a compliant record of every disbursement, and remitting mandatory tax and benefit deductions to the correct authorities. Accurate payroll protects morale, cash flow, and legal standing in equal measure.
For staff, a paycheck arriving on time and correctly calculated is a monthly test of employer credibility. For finance, payroll drives one of the largest recurring outflows on the P&L, so mis-postings distort both profit and cash-position reporting.
For compliance officers, the stakes are simple: late or wrong tax remittances trigger penalties, back-interest, and audit exposure. That's why growing firms move payroll to specialist teams or outsourcing partners with dedicated software, service level agreements, and audit trails.
Key takeaways Payroll runs on a fixed cycle (weekly, biweekly, semimonthly, or monthly), and every cycle repeats the same six steps.
Gross pay minus statutory and voluntary deductions equals net pay; those deductions must be remitted to tax, insurance, and retirement authorities on their own schedules.
Outsourced payroll in the Philippines or India runs 60-75% below onshore rates while holding the same accuracy standard.
Errors compound. A wrong withholding this month becomes a year-end tax reconciliation problem, an audit flag, and sometimes a lawsuit. How it worksPayroll runs on a repeating cycle that turns hours worked and salaries owed into net paychecks and tax remittances. Each cycle follows six steps: set the schedule, calculate gross pay, apply deductions, compute net pay, distribute funds, then remit deductions to authorities.
Step
Task
Common owner 1. Schedule
Fix the pay cycle — weekly, biweekly, semimonthly, or monthly
HR + Finance 2. Gross pay
Multiply hours by rate, then add salary, commissions, and overtime
Payroll clerk 3. Deductions
Identify federal, state, insurance, and retirement withholdings
Payroll specialist 4. Net pay
Gross minus deductions equals net disbursement
Payroll specialist 5. Distribute
Pay by direct deposit, check, or wallet; issue payslips
AP or Payroll 6. Remit
Send withholdings to IRS, SSS, PhilHealth, HMRC, or equivalent
Payroll or TaxTwo side jobs bracket the six steps. Before hiring, employers register for an employer identification number (EIN) with the tax authority. After hiring, US employers must report new hires within 20 days so state child-support agencies can locate wage earners.
Small teams still run payroll in a spreadsheet, but most firms above 20 headcount move to dedicated software or an outsourced provider — the volume of statutory deductions and multi-state rules quickly outgrows manual work.
Multi-country payroll adds another layer: currency conversion, employer-of-record structuring, and country-specific mandatory benefits like the 13th-month pay in the Philippines or the CPF in Singapore. Global providers absorb this complexity behind a single portal.
Cycle frequency matters more than most executives think. A biweekly cycle produces 26 pay runs per year; monthly is 12. Each extra run adds bank fees, reconciliation effort, and error surface, which is why finance teams often lobby to consolidate from weekly to biweekly.
ExamplesPayroll delivery ranges from single-owner spreadsheets to Fortune-100 shared service centers processing millions of paychecks each month. The right setup depends on headcount, geographic spread, and regulatory complexity — a 12-person studio needs different tooling than a 40,000-agent BPO.
ADP processes payroll for roughly one in six US private-sector workers, running tens of millions of paychecks each cycle from its Roseland, New Jersey headquarters.
Deel and Rippling, both scaled since 2018-2019, absorbed the remote-hiring wave and now handle payroll in 150+ countries by acting as employer of record in each jurisdiction. A US startup can hire a Manila designer without opening a Philippine entity.
Google has run offshore payroll operations from the Philippines since 2016, folding it into a wider back office setup that also covers HR administration and vendor invoicing.
A mid-market SaaS firm with 200 staff typically outsources payroll to a Philippine BPO at $8-15 per employee per month, versus $45-80 in-house, while keeping the CFO's final-approval workflow onshore.
Related termsPayroll sits at the intersection of finance, HR, and back-office operations. Any team scaling headcount will touch bookkeeping, offshoring, and outsourcing terms alongside it, because a decision on where and how to run payroll ripples into vendor selection and contract structure.
Bookkeeping: daily recording of financial transactions that feeds payroll journal entries. Business Process Outsourcing: the umbrella model most third-party payroll providers operate under. Back Office: the internal operations function that houses payroll, HR, and finance admin. Outsourcing: the broader practice of contracting a business function to an external provider. Offshore Accounting: a common bundle where payroll is delivered alongside AP, AR, and bookkeeping. Service Level Agreement: the contract clause that fixes payroll accuracy and cycle-time commitments. Offshoring: moving payroll delivery to a distant, lower-cost country like the Philippines or India. Nearshoring: moving payroll to a closer country like Mexico or Colombia to keep time-zone overlap. FAQ What are the steps in the payroll process?Six steps repeat each cycle: set the pay schedule, calculate gross pay, identify deductions, compute net pay, distribute paychecks, and remit withholdings. Registration and new-hire reporting sit outside the recurring cycle but must happen once per employer and once per hire.
How much does outsourced payroll cost?Philippine and Indian payroll providers charge $6-15 per employee per month for standard multi-country delivery. US in-house payroll runs $45-80 per employee once software, salary, and error-correction time are added, per OA's outsourced payroll breakdown.
What is the difference between gross pay and net pay?Gross pay is total earnings before any deductions — salary, wages, commissions, and overtime combined. Net pay is what actually hits the employee's bank account after tax, insurance, and retirement withholdings come out. The gap is often 25-35% in the US.
Can small businesses outsource payroll?Yes. Firms as small as five employees outsource to keep the founder off IRS or HMRC deadlines. Providers price per-headcount, so entry cost stays low, and outsourcing payroll removes the largest recurring compliance risk in early-stage operations.
What happens if payroll deductions are wrong?Under-withholding leaves the employer owing the balance plus penalty and interest to the tax authority. Over-withholding creates a refund reconciliation at year-end and hurts staff morale mid-year. Both errors compound if the same wrong parameter runs across 26 pay cycles unnoticed.
Ready to route payroll to a specialist team? Compare vetted providers on the OA platform.
What is What is business process outsourcing??
What is business process outsourcing?Business process outsourcing (BPO) is hiring a third-party provider to run a defined business function like customer support, payroll, or IT helpdesk. The provider takes ownership of the people, process, and technology, and bills per seat, transaction, or fixed fee.
BPO is a subset of outsourcing that focuses on repeatable, high-volume work. When those functions move to a lower-cost country, the setup is called offshoring.
Common categories include customer support, finance and accounting, HR, IT helpdesk, and other back-office work — plus higher-value knowledge processes like analytics or research.
Key takeaways BPO shifts a defined function to an external provider under a written contract.
Pricing models fall into per-FTE, per-transaction, outcome-based, or hybrid buckets.
The Philippines and India lead global BPO delivery through 2025.
Cost drives many deals, but access to talent and 24/7 coverage matter just as much.
A service level agreement sets the quality bar and remedies for the relationship. How it worksBPO works by transferring a defined process to a specialized vendor under a written contract. You keep strategic control; the provider owns staffing, tools, and daily execution.
Pricing usually follows one of four models — per-seat, per-transaction, outcome-based, or a hybrid mix.
Companies choose BPO for three reasons: lower cost, access to specialized talent, and the ability to convert fixed headcount into variable operating expense. Most enterprise buyers combine two or three of these goals in the same contract.
Most engagements start with discovery. The client documents the process, sets KPIs, and defines escalation paths. The provider then hires, trains, and shadows before going live — typically 6 to 12 weeks.
The pricing model shapes risk. Per-seat fees favor steady work; outcome-based fees push accountability onto the provider. Most contracts also include a service level agreement that ties bonuses or penalties to defined performance targets.
Model
How you pay
Best for Per FTE (seat)
Fixed monthly rate per agent
Steady-volume work like inbound support Per transaction
Set fee per call, ticket, or invoice
Variable-volume back-office tasks Outcome-based
Tied to a KPI like CSAT or collections
Mature processes with clean metrics Hybrid
Base FTE rate plus variable bonus
Long-term partnershipsContracts usually run 2 to 5 years with annual price adjustments. Buyers should build off-boarding clauses upfront so the process can move back in-house or to another vendor if performance slips.
The upside is clear: cost reduction of 30-60%, faster staffing, and 24/7 coverage using follow-the-sun teams. The trade-off is management overhead, cultural distance, and dependency on a single provider for critical work.
Provider selection now weighs security posture and data residency more than a decade ago.
GDPR, HIPAA, and PCI-DSS obligations flow from the client to the provider. Contracts spell out audit rights, penalty clauses, and breach reporting windows.
Location choice matters. Providers in the Philippines and India deliver English-language support at 40-70% below onshore rates, while nearshoring to Mexico or Colombia buys time-zone alignment. Onshoring stays domestic but costs the most.
ExamplesBPO delivery clusters into three archetypes — call center hubs, knowledge process shops, and nearshore bilingual centers. Global BPO revenue reached USD 347.95 billion in 2024 with a projected 10.05% CAGR through 2035, per Precedence Research.
Buyers often start in the Philippines. English fluency, Filipino traits and values, and Western-facing culture reduce onboarding friction. It remains the top outsourcing destination for voice work heading into 2025.
Philippines call centers. The Philippines IT-BPM sector booked around USD 40 billion in 2024 with about 1.9 million employees, targeting 2.5 million by 2028.
Concentrix, Teleperformance, and TDCX all run major Manila and Cebu call center campuses. See the Top 40 BPO companies in the Philippines and this guide to call centers for hire.
India knowledge process outsourcing. Knowledge process outsourcing firms in Bengaluru and Gurgaon handle equity research, legal review, and analytics for Wall Street. WNS, Genpact, and EXL all posted multi-billion-dollar revenues in 2024.
Latin America customer support. Colombia, Mexico, and Costa Rica attract US fintechs and SaaS platforms wanting Spanish-English bilingual agents. Rankings on Clutch show Bogotá firms among the fastest-growing between 2022 and 2024.
Global finance and IT support. Accenture, IBM, and Cognizant deliver ERP support, cloud operations, and finance-and-accounting from delivery hubs in Poland, Ireland, and India. Their contracts often span 5 to 10 years and blend BPO with technology services.
Enterprise BPO deals are becoming more outcome-linked. Rather than paying per seat, buyers in 2024 increasingly pay for defined KPIs like first-call resolution or completed orders, which pushes performance risk back to the provider.
Related terms Offshoring: the practice of moving business functions to distant, lower-cost countries. Nearshoring: outsourcing to a country in a similar time zone, often for language or cultural fit. Onshoring: keeping outsourced work inside the client's home country. Knowledge Process Outsourcing: outsourcing of higher-value analytical or specialist work such as research or legal review. Call Center: a facility built to handle inbound or outbound customer calls at scale. Back-Office: the non-customer-facing operations that support day-to-day business functions. Service Level Agreement: the contract clause that defines performance targets and remedies for a BPO deal. FAQ What is BPO in simple terms?BPO is when a company hires another business to run a specific function like customer service or payroll. The client sets the outcomes; the provider handles the day-to-day work.
What is the difference between BPO and outsourcing?Outsourcing is the umbrella term for contracting any external provider. BPO is the subset that covers full business functions like call centers, HR, or accounting, usually delivered offshore at scale.
Is BPO only about cost savings?No. Cost is the entry point, but most mature buyers cite access to specialized talent, 24/7 coverage, and scalability as the bigger long-term wins. Cost-only deals tend to churn within 18 months.
Which countries dominate BPO?The Philippines leads voice and English-language customer support. India dominates IT and knowledge process work. Mexico, Colombia, and Costa Rica anchor Latin America's nearshore market for US clients.
What functions do companies outsource most often?Customer support, IT helpdesk, finance and accounting, HR administration, and content moderation lead the pack. Higher-value work like data analytics and legal review is growing fastest.
How do I choose a BPO provider?Match the provider's specialization to your function, check industry references, and shortlist candidates using the Ultimate Guide to Outsourcing.
Explore vetted providers at Outsource Accelerator's BPO Directory
Independent
