The functions that outsource most successfully are high-volume, rules-based and repeatable: accounts payable and accounts receivable processing, bank and ledger reconciliations, expense processing, payroll data entry, and the preparation work behind month-end and management reporting.
What finance and accounting functions can actually be outsourced?
These are tasks with a defined process, a clear input and output, and a volume that justifies a dedicated team rather than a slice of an internal accountant's week. An Australian business processing hundreds of supplier invoices a month, for example, typically finds far more value in a trained offshore AP team following its chart of accounts and approval workflow than in having a local accountant, paid at Australian rates, keying in invoices between higher-value work.
Reporting preparation outsources well too: pulling together the numbers, formatting the management pack, reconciling intercompany balances, and flagging variances for review. What outsources less well, and should not be attempted, is the judgement layer sitting on top of that reporting: interpreting what the numbers mean for the business, tax positioning, and anything that requires a registered practitioner's sign-off. Our finance and accounting outsourcing page sets out the specific processes we support, and the broader back-office services page covers where finance processing sits alongside other administrative functions that follow the same logic.
What is a BAS, and why does it matter for outsourcing decisions?
A Business Activity Statement (BAS) is the periodic form Australian GST-registered businesses lodge with the Australian Taxation Office to report and pay GST, along with other obligations such as PAYG withholding, depending on the business. It is a recurring compliance obligation with legal consequences if lodged incorrectly or late, which puts it in a different category from routine bookkeeping tasks.
The reason BAS lodgement is worth its own heading in any outsourcing conversation is that it is not just a task an outsourced bookkeeping team can be handed the way accounts payable can. Preparing the numbers that feed into a BAS, reconciling GST-coded transactions, checking input tax credits are correctly classified, is exactly the kind of structured, repeatable work that outsources well. Lodging the BAS itself, as the entity's registered agent, is not.
Who is legally allowed to lodge a BAS on a business's behalf?
Under Australian law, providing a BAS service for a fee generally requires registration with the Tax Practitioners Board (TPB), unless a specific exemption applies. The TPB's BAS agent registration page confirms that anyone providing BAS services for a fee or other reward must be registered as a BAS agent, which carries its own qualification requirements (typically at least a Certificate IV in Financial Services covering bookkeeping or accounting), a minimum number of hours of relevant experience, professional indemnity insurance, and ongoing continuing professional education obligations to maintain registration.
This means BAS lodgement itself sits with the business's own registered BAS agent or tax agent, or with an authorised employee of the business acting in that capacity, not with an outsourced processing team regardless of how capable that team is at the underlying bookkeeping.
What should a finance and accounting outsourcing arrangement look like in practice?
A well-structured arrangement draws the line clearly and in writing: the outsourced team owns transaction processing, reconciliation, and reporting preparation on an agreed cadence, while the business's own accountant or registered BAS/tax agent retains sign-off on anything requiring registration, including the actual BAS lodgement, tax return preparation, and any advice on tax treatment. The outsourced team's output should feed directly into whatever platform or process the registered agent uses to review and lodge, rather than creating a parallel, disconnected set of books that then needs reconciling against the agent's records.
This also affects how GST interacts with the outsourcing arrangement itself. GST-registered Australian businesses buying services from an offshore supplier for business use generally should not be charged GST by that supplier, with standard business-to-business reverse-charge rules applying in specific circumstances. PAYG withholding generally does not apply to payments made to an overseas outsourcing company for its own employees' work, since those workers are not Australian employees of the Australian business, though the ATO's position is fact-specific and depends on whether the arrangement is a genuine services contract rather than a disguised labour-hire arrangement. None of this is tax advice; it is general information, and any business should confirm its specific position with its own accountant or registered tax agent before acting on it.
How does cost compare between in-house and outsourced finance processing?
Australian finance and accounting salaries provide the baseline for comparison: a bookkeeper earns roughly $73,000 and an accountant roughly $83,800 on industry averages, before adding the compulsory superannuation guarantee (11.5%, rising to 12% from 1 July 2025) that sits on top of base salary as a genuine additional employer cost. A data entry or back-office role averages around $37.20 an hour, translating to roughly $70,000 to $75,000 on a full-time basis. These figures are the honest comparison point against an outsourced quote, not a headline "60 to 75% savings" figure quoted in isolation; the real comparison has to account for super, overheads and the volume of work actually being processed.
The practical framing for a finance leader weighing this up is straightforward: transaction-heavy, process-driven work is where outsourcing delivers the clearest cost and capacity benefit, while the registered, judgement-carrying functions, BAS lodgement chief among them, stay exactly where they are today, with the business's own accountant or BAS agent. Our pricing page sets out how finance and accounting engagements are typically structured and costed, and the compare page is useful for weighing an outsourced model against continuing to scale an in-house team.