If you are an Indian bookkeeping, accounting or tax professional, you can now be a part of a 56 Billion USD accounting & finance outsourcing market, and you probably don’t even know what an incredible opportunity it is for a professional like you!
Big 4 has been doing this for the last 30 years. Almost all top outsourcing companies have built many billion dollar businesses by offshoring accounting and finance work. It is not a new thing.
So what is new now?
80% of the finance and accounting jobs in the US are with SMEs and startup companies. But the big 4 as well as large accounting and finance offshoring companies work only for the top 5% of businesses – the large corporations and MNCs.
The business models of KPOs are not profitable when it comes to smaller companies and are not geared towards the SME sector. This is a huge gap in the market we are now going to take advantage of.
SME companies cannot come to India and open large Global Capacity Centers
(Btw, if you learn US accounting, it is super easy to get a well-paid job at Big 4 or at such a GCC)
Anyway, because of this, SMEs till 2020 were unable to benefit from offshoring or outsource any of the work at all!
This created a situation that large companies had a massive cost advantage over small businesses! Even large accounting firms had lower input costs compared to small local CPA firms. Just like a company would have if they outsourced manufacturing to China versus manufacturing products in the US where it is 10x more costly to run a factory.
Large businesses benefited tremendously from the offshoring, their costs came down and profit grew, but SMEs remained left out from the entire outsourcing boom.
Still, life was going on.
Then came the pandemic in 2020. It forced all the SMEs to learn to work with remote workers. Everyone had to work remotely if they wanted business continuity. Going to office was effectively banned everywhere in the USA for almost 2 years.
At that time, many of the SMEs were worried about expenses, wanted to save costs and started hiring people remotely in countries like India and the Philippines to save money!
It was a great move.
If you are going to work remotely anyway, why not hire someone in much cheaper geographies than in the USA?
Not everyone did this, but those who did benefited tremendously. Since then the gospel of remote work has been spreading.
Some of the businesses were happy that they could get back to office after the pandemic was over. Others were very happy because they figured out how to hire and work with remote talent which was a game changer for them!
If you can hire people 5x or 10x cheaper, how much faster can you grow your business? How much more profit can you make?
Turns out it’s a lot.
Also it makes you easily trump your competition if they are not using remote talent. In a competitive landscape, every business advantage matters. But reducing your major input costs can be an absolute game changer!
Figuring out remote work for a small or medium business in the US and being able to hire productive people from India is like figuring out a magic trick. It can massively grow their topline as well as bottomline.
Hiring an accountant or bookkeeper can be a significant cost of a business. While it is critical, if it can be outsourced for 10x lower cost, business owners would be very happy to do so!
Same goes for other associated work like business compliances and tax filing.
I’m not a CPA – can I do US accounting, bookkeeping and financial work?
Here are the top 15 tasks that Indian bookkeepers and accounting professionals can do without having any further additional qualifications:
- Bookkeeping and accounting work using accounting softwares like Quickbooks, Zoho and Xero
- Prepare financial plans, projections, and budgets for startups and SMEs
- Create and administer financial MISes for startups, SMEs and professionals
- Continuous and periodic reporting to investors
- Run payroll
- Run accounts receivable/payable process for mid-sized companies (startups will want an all-in-one solution so you can’t do this separately)
- File SEC compliances for corporations
- File federal and state taxes for individuals, corporations and partnerships (must be filed in client’s name)
- File state taxes for individuals, corporations and partnerships
- File annual reports and state franchise taxes for corporations
- File annual reports and annual flat taxes for partnerships
- Do sales tax registrations
- Revive forfeited businesses by paying penalties and compliant with state regulations
- Make corrections and rectification to previously made filings of individuals and corporations
- Financial advisory work for international and domestic corporations and partnerships
Forget CPA, you don’t even need to be an Indian Chartered Accountant to do this!
Those who want to further increase their credibility can optionally obtain a PTIN (Preparers’ Tax Identification Number) based on their Indian passport, which will enable them to file up to 10 US federal tax returns in their own name.
The point is not about filing 10 federal tax returns, because clients will be able to file all returns in their own name – it is simply a signal to potential clients.
It takes 15 minutes to obtain this (cost: 30 dollars, annual renewal approx. 20 dollars).
We have helped some Indian accounting and bookkeeping professionals to obtain a PTIN.
Somebody said that obtaining CPA qualification or becoming an “enrolled agent” in the US is necessary for working with US clients – is it true?
Look, an “Enrolled Agent” or a CPA must be engaged for audits, attestation and representation before federal and state tax authorities, which is less than 10% of the total work.
Since it is not cost-effective nor legally necessary to engage a CPA for all the above 15 categories of work that I mentioned above, clients do not really mind if you don’t have a CPA qualification, as long as you know how to do the work.
Are you interested in working with US clients remotely on the side?
It is possible to achieve in the next 3-6 months.
We have helped hundreds of Indian bookkeepers, finance professionals and accountants to start working with US clients.
The US is also facing a very big accountant shortage (short of 3 lakh accountants), and US clients are likely to be more open to engaging remote accountants and bookkeepers is the only viable solution to fill this gap.
An avalanche of work is ready for us, provided we are ready.
Also, having US work experience is a huge advantage if you want to secure Indian jobs at MNCs or Big Four that pay the best Indian salaries.
Whichever way you look at it, there is nothing to lose, and massive gains in your career, if you learn US accounting and bookkeeping work and start working with US clients remotely.
For many decades, such offshoring was happening – large corporations established their global capacity centres or offshored work to the Big Four’s Indian offices.
Of course, if you work in these organisations from India, you work at an Indian salary. The middleman/Indian employer takes the lion’s shares of the client’s fee.
For the first time ever, post pandemic, there is an opportunity to work directly with your own clients without a middleman.
Of course, you need to learn skills to do the work. You also need to build a track record and perform outreach, otherwise you will not be able to secure assignments, even if you know how to do the work!
How to obtain a PTIN if you are an Indian bookkeeper
You will need to have a valid passport and furnish the passport number if you are using the online application portal. If you are not a US resident you will not have a US Social Security Number (SSN). In that case you will need to first obtain an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN).
PTIN can also be filed physically using form W-12. An additional form, you will also have to submit is form 8946. This form is for foreign persons who do not possess SSN.
Indian accountants can file both, federal and state taxes for individuals and businesses entities without CPA qualification.
While the state taxes are categorised as Franchise tax, state income tax, sales tax and annual flat tax for business entities, these taxes can be filed directly via e-filing portals on the state revenue department websites.
Federal filing consists mainly of income taxes collected by the IRS from individuals and C-corporations.
Accountants who are not CPAs can also assist individuals and c-corporations for their filings by Procuring PTIN (Preparers tax identification number) from IRS to be eligible for this work. There are no restrictions on nationality or residency requirements for obtaining a PTIN.
Once this is obtained, accountants can file forms 1040, 1040NR, 1040 1065 for individuals and forms 1120, 1120s for corporations alone with their various supplements.