Should Accounting Firms Offshore Work or Hire Locally?

A lot of accounting firms only start thinking about offshoring when the team’s already maxed out. Suddenly, there’s a mountain of compliance work, deadlines are piling up, and your senior staff spend more time shuffling paperwork than actually talking to clients.

So, hiring someone locally seems like the quick fix. That is, until you hit the wall of high salaries, hard-to-find candidates, and the long hiring process. Offshoring starts to sound like the easy solution, but even that has its own set of pressures around workflow, privacy, and keeping clients happy.

Which way should an accounting firm go?

“The real question isn’t offshore vs. local. It’s what and how,” says Will Millington, Director and Co-Founder of Rezonate Recruitment. The best workforce model depends on the work you need done, how your firm operates and where you want the person in that role to grow. 

Let’s break it down, so you can figure out what’s right for your firm.

Why Firms Are Looking to Offshore in the First Place

Chartered Accountants ANZ shared survey results with Jobs and Skills Australia showing that many accounting roles are in short supply. And it’s not just the big cities—the shortage is happening in regional areas too.

That matches what firms are experiencing on the ground. Will says one of the biggest drivers is simply “talent scarcity: good candidates are hard to find and even harder to keep, especially at the compliance/bookkeeping end.” Then there is the commercial reality. “Compliance work margins are tight, making local headcount harder to justify,” he says.

If your firm handles a lot of repeatable work, bringing in an offshore team can really help.

The most common question we get in offshoring discussions is “what happens to the local team once repetitive work moves elsewhere?” If you approach this right, offshoring lets your experienced accountants shift gears. They can spend more time with clients, work on advisory projects, mentor junior staff, and focus on work that actually adds more value. As Will puts it, the opportunity is “real cost efficiency, reinvested into higher-value local roles, not just margin.”

If you’re debating whether to hire locally, Rezonate’s 2026/27 Accounting & Business Support Salary Guide can give you some solid salary benchmarks before you make a decision.

Where Offshore Accounting Support Makes Sense

Offshoring works best when the job has a clear, defined scope. This includes bookkeeping, data entry, bank reconciliations, BAS preparation, workpapers, standardised tax return preparation and back-office administration. In these areas, strong systems, solid documentation, and clear review points really help. You can pass the work back and forth between team members no matter where they are.

Will describes the sweet spot as “process-driven, repeatable tasks with clear SOPs.” The truth is, offshoring won’t magically fix a broken or muddled process. If the steps for a task only live in someone’s head, change all the time, or need constant back-and-forth, shifting it offshore just brings those issues into the spotlight. But if you’ve got a solid workflow, it’s way more likely your offshore accountant can jump in and genuinely work as part of the team.

Professional and privacy obligations also matter here. The Tax Practitioners Board is clear: if you’re a registered tax practitioner, you’re still responsible for the quality of any outsourced or offshore tax agent services handled in your name. You have to supervise and control how this work happens. Plus, before sharing client info with anyone outside your firm, you must get your client’s permission in all relevant outsourcing setups.

Privacy deserves just as much focus. According to the OAIC, if the Australian Privacy Principles apply to you, you need to make sure any overseas recipients handle personal information to those same standards.

Really, successful offshoring is all about the right people, tight systems, and strong governance. Without all three, things fall apart fast.

Where Local Hiring Carries More Value

Some kinds of work really need you nearby with face-to-face connections. Take client-facing advisory. Nothing beats being in the room for that. Same goes for tough calls on Australian tax law, wrangling with the ATO, signing off on big decisions, onboarding new clients, or tackling projects where the goals are still taking shape.

Local hires add something you can’t just put in a spreadsheet. Will puts it this way: You get “deep, current knowledge of Australian tax law and ATO practice,” and it’s just easier to talk with “lower communication friction: time zone, nuance, and being able to walk over to someone’s desk.”

Plus, there’s the bigger picture to think about. “Local hires grow into your future managers and partners,” Will says, while institutional knowledge stays within the business. That really matters when you’re bringing someone on who you expect will own client relationships, lead teams, or step up when it’s time for succession.

With those local hires, salary is just one piece of the bigger picture. You’re building up your firm’s future, laying the tracks for what it becomes over the next five or ten years.

Rezonate’s Accounting Recruitment service supports you on these longer-term hires across Public Practice, from Graduate and Intermediate Accountants through to Managers, Directors and Partners.

The Answer May Be a Mix of Both

A lot of firms end up with a mix of offshore and local talent.

You might have offshore accountants handling regular compliance tasks, while a local Senior Accountant takes care of client relationships and reviews. When your firm is growing fast, an offshore bookkeeping team can help you keep up, even as you’re still searching for local Managers. If there’s a leadership gap, hiring someone locally can solve that, and the offshore team can free up their time so they can actually lead.

Before the team at Rezonate advises firms, Will says they always ask a few straightforward questions: “Is this role process-driven or judgement-driven? Does it need direct client contact? How mature are your workflows and SOPs? Who owns review and sign-off? Is this a permanent gap or a seasonal one?” Once you answer those, the right path usually stands out.

Choosing the Right Model for Your Firm

When your team is swamped with routine tasks, dealing with seasonal work spikes, or stretched thin for compliance jobs that follow set rules, offshoring can actually make life a lot easier.

But if the job needs real Australian expertise, daily back-and-forth with clients, leadership growth, or future planning, you’ll get much more by hiring locally.

The smartest teams know how to use both.

Rezonate supports accounting firms on both fronts with local permanent recruitment as well as offshore staffing solutions through a partnership with Profitmaster Global Outsourcing. That means the conversation can start with the problem your firm is trying to solve, rather than trying to fit every vacancy through the same hiring model.

“Get that mix right, and you’re not choosing sides,” Will says. “You’re building a smarter team.”

If your firm is stretched for capacity, having trouble filling a role, or just curious about combining local talent with offshore help, talk to Rezonate to help you find a structure that fits the way you work.