What is outsourced accounting, and what should you hand over?

Outsourced accounting is paying a person or team outside your company to do your finance work, from recording each transaction to producing the monthly numbers. You keep the decisions and the sign-offs. They do the routine work that eats your evenings.

For a small company in Singapore, that usually means one of three set-ups: a local accounting firm, an offshore bookkeeper or finance assistant working inside your own software, or a mix of both. This piece covers what each part of the work involves, what should stay with you, how the set-ups compare, and when outsourcing goes wrong.

Key takeaways

• Outsourced accounting covers the recording and reporting work: bookkeeping, payables, receivables, reconciliations, payroll and month-end reports.
• Approvals, payments and anything you sign for IRAS or ACRA should stay with you or a licensed local firm.
• IRAS requires companies to keep their records for at least 5 years from the relevant Year of Assessment, as of 2026, so whoever does the work must keep them complete.
• An offshore finance assistant suits steady, repeatable work. A local firm suits tax filing, audit and advice. Many SMEs use both.
• If your records are a mess and nobody owns the process, fix that first. Outsourcing chaos gives you faster chaos.

What outsourced accounting actually covers

Most of the work is not glamorous. It is the same handful of tasks, done every week or every month, and done properly so the numbers can be trusted when you need them.

Task	What it involves	How often
Bookkeeping	Recording every sale, bill and expense in your accounting software, with the receipt attached	Daily or weekly
Accounts payable	Checking supplier bills, matching them to orders and queuing them for your approval	Weekly
Accounts receivable	Sending invoices, tracking who has paid and chasing who has not	Weekly
Bank reconciliation	Matching the bank statement line by line against the books	Weekly or monthly
Payroll	Calculating pay, CPF and claims, and preparing the payment file for you to release	Monthly
Month-end close	Accruals, prepayments, depreciation and a clean trial balance	Monthly
Management reports	Profit and loss, cash flow and the few numbers you actually watch	Monthly
Year-end support	Preparing schedules and documents for your tax agent or auditor	Yearly

A good provider does more than type in figures. They notice that a supplier has billed you twice, that a customer always pays 20 days late, or that a subscription you cancelled is still charging your card. That is where most of the value sits for a small company.

Where GST fits in

If your company is GST-registered, the quarterly return adds work: every invoice has to be coded correctly and the input tax claims backed by valid documents. As of 2026, IRAS requires a business to register for GST when its taxable turnover was more than S$1 million at the end of a calendar year, or is expected to be more than S$1 million in the next 12 months. Crossing that line is often what pushes a founder to stop doing the books alone.

What should stay with you

Handing over the work is not the same as handing over responsibility. IRAS and ACRA still deal with your company, and you still sign.

• Approving payments: your provider prepares the payment run. You or a director release it from the bank.
• Bank access: give view-only access to statements. Keep the ability to move money with people on your payroll.
• Tax filing and audit: these sit best with a Singapore tax agent or audit firm who knows the current rules and can be held to account locally.
• Decisions: pricing, hiring and borrowing stay with you. Good reports make them easier, but they do not make them for you.

Your records are still your responsibility

IRAS requires a company to keep its source documents, accounting records, bank statements and other transaction records for at least 5 years from the relevant Year of Assessment. If records are not kept properly, IRAS can estimate your revenue, disallow expense claims and impose penalties of up to S$5,000. Make sure everything your provider handles lives in your own accounting software and your own cloud folders, not on their laptop.

For the practical side of giving someone access without handing over the keys, read how to share accounts securely with a virtual assistant.

Local firm, offshore assistant or in-house hire?

There is no single right answer. The useful question is which parts of the work each option does well.

Option	Good at	Weak at
Local accounting firm	Tax filing, year-end accounts, audit, advice on Singapore rules	Day-to-day bookkeeping can be slow and priced per transaction or per hour
Offshore finance assistant	Steady weekly work in your own software: entries, reconciliations, invoicing, chasing payments, payroll prep	Should not sign off on tax positions or act as your registered tax agent
In-house hire	Being in the room, handling cash and paper, knowing the business deeply	The highest fixed cost, and one person leaving takes the knowledge with them

A common pattern for a company with a few hundred transactions a month is an offshore assistant doing the weekly work, a local firm doing tax and year-end, and the founder reviewing a one-page report each month. Each part is done by the people best placed to do it.

What an offshore finance assistant needs from you

A clear task list, access to your software and someone who answers questions. Plan on about an hour a week from you in the first month. People who skip that first month are usually the ones who later say outsourcing did not work. Our page on bookkeeping virtual assistants sets out how that handover runs.

Signs you are ready, and signs you are not

Outsourcing accounting works when the work is repeatable and someone on your side owns the result. It goes badly when either is missing.

You are probably ready if

• You or your operations lead spend more than 3 hours a week on invoices and the bank.
• Month-end numbers arrive weeks late, or not at all, so decisions are made on gut feel.
• Customers are paying late and nobody has time to chase them.
• You already use cloud accounting software, or are willing to move to it.

You are probably not ready if

• Receipts live in a shoebox and the books are a year behind. Get a one-off clean-up first, or the new person spends months untangling instead of keeping up.
• Nobody in the company will answer their questions within a day or two.
• You process only a handful of transactions a month. An hour of your own time may cost less than the set-up.
• You expect them to make judgement calls you have never written down, such as which expenses are claimable.

If you are close to year-end, our year-end bookkeeping checklist for Singapore shows what should be in order before anyone takes the books over.

How to set it up in your first month

1. Write the task list: every recurring finance task, how often it happens and who does it today. This list becomes the job description.
2. Move everything into one system: your accounting software, one receipts inbox and one shared folder, all owned by the company.
3. Set access levels: edit access in the accounting software, view-only access to bank statements, and no ability to release payments.
4. Agree a calendar: which day bills are queued, which day payroll is prepared, and the date month-end reports land with you.
5. Run a trial month: check every reconciliation and the first report line by line. After that, spot checks are usually enough.

Payroll is the task most owners hand over last, because mistakes there are the most visible. If that is your next step, read what payroll outsourcing involves first.

What outsourced accounting costs you to run

Local firms usually price by the number of transactions or by the hour, with tax filing and year-end accounts quoted separately. An offshore assistant is usually priced as a monthly fee for set hours. Neither price tells you much until you compare it with what the work costs you now.

A fair way to compare: count the hours you and your team spend on finance tasks in a normal month, put a value on those hours, then add the cost of late invoices you never chased and the payments you made twice. Set that against the quote for the same task list. If you would like help scoping that list, book a call and we will go through it with you.

The goal is not the cheapest bookkeeper. It is books you trust, on time, every month, without you doing them.

Frequently asked questions

What is outsourced accounting in simple terms?

It is paying a person or firm outside your company to keep your books, handle payables and receivables, run payroll and produce monthly reports, while you keep the approvals and decisions.

Is outsourced accounting the same as hiring an accountant?

Not quite. An outsourced provider does the recording and reporting work, often alongside a separate local firm that handles tax filing and audit. An accountant you hire in-house does the work as your employee.

Can an offshore assistant file my company's taxes in Singapore?

Keep tax filing with a Singapore tax agent or accounting firm. An offshore assistant can prepare the schedules and documents they need, which usually makes the filing faster and cheaper.

How long do I need to keep accounting records in Singapore?

IRAS requires companies to keep their records for at least 5 years from the relevant Year of Assessment, as of 2026. Keep them in systems your company owns, whoever does the work.

When should a small business outsource its accounting?

When finance tasks take several hours of an owner's week, reports arrive late, and the work is repeatable enough to write down. If the books are badly behind, do a clean-up first.

Sources

• IRAS, record keeping requirements for companies (read 26 October 2026)
• IRAS, do I need to register for GST (read 26 October 2026)

If your books take more of your week than they should, start by writing down the task list above. When you want a second pair of eyes on it, book a call or see how our services work.