To hire a good Filipino bookkeeper, decide exactly which part of the books you are handing over, test candidates on a real but anonymized reconciliation, confirm they know your accounting software and give access through user roles instead of your own login. Through delegateit a dedicated bookkeeping specialist starts at $2,200 a month.
Most owners who go looking for an offshore bookkeeper are not starting from zero. They have a QuickBooks or Xero file that was clean eighteen months ago, a shoebox of receipts in the cloud and an accountant who sends polite emails every March. The job is less about finding someone who can do bookkeeping in theory and more about finding someone who can walk into that specific mess and leave it tidier every week.
The Philippines has a deep pool of people trained in accounting, and many of them have years of experience working on US client books. That part is real. The hard part is the hiring process, because a resume that says "bookkeeping" covers everything from basic data entry to full month end close.
Decide what bookkeeping means for you
Before you write a single job post, write down what you want done each week and each month. Be blunt about it. Some owners only want transactions categorized and bank accounts reconciled. Others want bills entered and paid on schedule, invoices sent and chased, payroll reports prepared and a monthly profit and loss they can actually read.
Those are different jobs. A bookkeeper who is excellent at reconciliations might have never touched accounts payable workflows, and someone who has run AP for a busy distributor may be rusty on the reconciliation side. Your list decides who you should be interviewing.
A useful way to split it is by rhythm.
- Daily or a few times a week, categorizing bank and card transactions, matching receipts and entering bills
- Weekly, sending invoices, following up on overdue ones and preparing a cash snapshot
- Monthly, reconciling every account, reviewing the balance sheet for oddities and sending you a short close summary
If your list is mostly the first group, a strong generalist with bookkeeping experience might be enough. If it reaches into the monthly work, you want a specialist. We cover the price difference in more detail in our post on what a virtual bookkeeper costs.
Skills to look for
Software experience matters more than most people expect. Ask which platforms the candidate has used on real client files, and for how long. QuickBooks Online and Xero are the common ones for US small businesses. If you run on something less common, a candidate who has learned two platforms well can usually learn a third, but you should know that going in.
Next comes judgment. Bookkeeping is full of small calls. Is this charge a meal or a client gift? Does this deposit belong to last month? A good bookkeeper asks a question when they are unsure and writes the answer down so they never have to ask twice. A weaker one guesses quietly, and you find out at tax time.
Finally, look for clear written English. Your bookkeeper will be writing you notes about missing receipts and odd transactions. If those notes are confusing, you will stop reading them, and then nothing gets fixed.
How to test a bookkeeping candidate
Interviews tell you how someone talks. A test tells you how they work. I would not hire a bookkeeper without a paid test task, and our guide to paid test tasks explains how to set one up fairly.
For bookkeeping, a good test looks something like this. Export one month of bank transactions from a real account, strip out anything sensitive and give the candidate a simplified chart of accounts. Ask them to categorize everything, flag anything they would ask you about and reconcile against a statement balance you provide. Pay them for two or three hours of work.
What you are watching for is less the final number and more the questions. The best candidates come back with a short list of transactions they were not sure about and a sentence on why. That list tells you they will protect your books instead of forcing them to balance.
Questions worth asking in the interview
- Walk me through how you reconcile a credit card that is off by a small amount.
- What do you do when a client has not sent receipts for two weeks?
- Tell me about a file you cleaned up. What was wrong with it?
- How do you keep notes on client specific rules?
Giving access without handing over the keys
Never share your own login with anyone, offshore or local. Every major accounting platform lets you add users with limited roles, and your bank almost certainly offers a view only or bookkeeper level user as well. Use those. If someone leaves, you remove their user and you are done.
For receipts and documents, a shared folder with clear naming rules works fine. For passwords that truly have to be shared, use a business password manager so you can revoke access in one click. There is more detail in our post on giving a virtual assistant access safely.
Payments are where you should be most careful. Many owners let their bookkeeper prepare bills for payment while the owner approves the final release. That one step removes most of the risk and costs you a few minutes a week.
Working with your accountant
Your bookkeeper should not replace your CPA. Think of the bookkeeper as the person who keeps the records accurate all year so that your accountant can spend their expensive hours on tax planning instead of cleanup.
Introduce them to each other early. Ask your accountant what they want delivered at year end and how they want certain things recorded. Then turn that into a short written guide your bookkeeper follows. If you have never written one, our post on writing SOPs your assistant will follow walks through the format.
What it costs
Direct hiring through job boards can look cheaper on paper, and plenty of people do it. You also take on recruiting, payroll, replacement if they leave and the risk of picking wrong.
At delegateit a dedicated specialist, which is where bookkeeping usually sits, starts at $2,200 a month for full time work. If your books are light and you only need a few days of work a week, it is worth asking whether part time makes sense. Our assistant plans start at $900 a month for part time and $1,500 a month for full time, and some clients with simple books start there. See the pricing page for the current plans.
The first month with a new bookkeeper
Week one is access and orientation. Give them read access to everything and ask them to write you a short note on what they see. You will learn a lot about your own books from that note.
Weeks two and three are about catching up. If your file is behind, have them work forward from the oldest unreconciled month, one month at a time, and send you a short summary as each one closes.
By week four you should be in a routine. Agree on the day each month when the books will be closed, what the close summary includes and how you will handle questions. A fifteen minute call every other week is usually enough once things settle.
Common questions about hiring a Filipino bookkeeper
Can a Filipino bookkeeper work on US books?
Yes. Many bookkeepers in the Philippines have worked on US client files in QuickBooks Online and Xero for years. You still need to explain your own rules, like how you treat owner draws or which expenses go to which class.
Will they handle my taxes?
No. Keep tax filing and tax advice with a licensed US accountant. A bookkeeper keeps clean records so your accountant can do that work faster.
Is it safe to give an offshore bookkeeper access to my bank?
It can be, as long as you use separate user logins with limited permissions and keep final payment approval with yourself. Avoid sharing your own credentials with anyone.
How long until a new bookkeeper is fully up to speed?
For a reasonably tidy file, expect three to four weeks. A file that is months behind will take longer because the catch up work comes first.