What does outsourced accounting actually include?
At the widest scope, everything a small in-house finance team would do short of signing the return: recording and reconciling transactions, running payroll and its filings, preparing the tax return, closing the year, and producing the reporting leadership makes decisions from.
Most engagements do not start at the widest scope. The common entry points are a monthly bookkeeping engagement, a one-off cleanup of a neglected file, or a single tax return. Services are added as they earn their place. The advantage of buying them from one provider is that they connect: the payroll journal posts to the ledger we keep, the year-end package is built from months we closed ourselves, and the tax return is prepared from books we already know are clean.
How does outsourced accounting compare to the alternatives?
There are three realistic options for a business that has outgrown doing it themselves. None is universally right.
The three ways businesses commonly resource the finance function.
| Factor | Local bookkeeper or CPA firm | In-house hire | Outsourced (Veris) |
| Cost basis | Often hourly, sometimes a monthly retainer | Salary plus payroll taxes, benefits, software, workspace | Fixed monthly fee sized to volume |
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| Scope | Usually bookkeeping and tax; payroll and CFO often referred out | Whatever one person can cover | Bookkeeping, payroll, tax, close and CFO from one team |
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| Elasticity | Limited. Their capacity is their capacity | None. Fixed cost through quiet months | Scales with volume, up and down |
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| Review layer | Varies. Often the same person who did the work | Usually none | US-based manager reviews before release |
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| Cover for absence | Depends on firm size | Your problem to solve | A team, so one absence does not stop the close |
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| Proximity | Local, often in person | In the building | Scheduled contact with a named person |
Which countries and filings does Veris cover?
Three jurisdictions, prepared in-house rather than subcontracted out and marked up.
United States: federal and state returns for individuals and every common entity type, Forms 941, 940 and state unemployment for payroll, W-2 and 1099 preparation, and sales and use tax filing. United Kingdom: Self Assessment (SA100), Corporation Tax (CT600) and VAT returns filed with HMRC, plus Companies House incorporation. Canada: GST/HST return preparation and filing.
Cross-border structures between the three, such as a UK company with a US subsidiary, are routine work rather than an exception.