Business Entity Selection Support for CPA Firms

Accountably is a staffing and recruiting agency that helps US CPA, EA, and accounting firms hire talent from India across tax, accounting, payroll, and finance. Accountably offers offshore staffing services, placing full-time offshore employees from India who work inside your firm's workflow, on your software and SOPs.

Accountably places tax professionals in India across the work behind an entity selection engagement, from assembling the client's current position to the side-by-side comparison of each structure, the state treatment, and the written summary your partner advises from.

If a tax role can be performed remotely, Accountably can fill it with A-players from India.

Here are some examples of the roles we can fill:

• The comparison: tax preparers, with senior preparers for the multi-year view and the written summary
• Basis, distributions, and the entity returns behind them: business tax preparers
• State treatment of each structure: SALT specialists
• Senior and quality review: tax reviewers

Accountably's staffing model is fully managed: we handle the employment contract, payroll, tax compliance, benefits administration, and salary disbursement for every hire, so you get the talent without the administrative overhead.

This matters most for firms that don't have an established entity or employer of record (EOR) infrastructure in India.

You direct the day-to-day work; Accountably handles everything on the back-end.

Our staffing model also includes onboarding support, equipment coordination if needed, and ongoing HR support for as long as the engagement runs.

Dedicated hires and build-operate-transfer teams go through the same vetting and shortlisting process; a white-label team is staffed and run by its assigned manager.

The core difference between dedicated offshore talent and a white-label delivery team is who directs the work. With dedicated offshore talent, your preparer works inside your workflow and you direct the work like any member of your team; with a white-label delivery team, Accountably's manager runs the team, with its own reviewers, and you review the finished comparison.

Recruiting differs between the models. Dedicated hires go through the same recruiting process as build-operate-transfer teams, while a white-label team is staffed and run by its assigned manager.

Dedicated offshore talent is the right fit if you have round-the-year tax and advisory work and want full-time staff inside your workflow.

A white-label delivery team makes more sense for smaller or seasonal firms that would rather review finished work. Firms serious about long-term offshore control can also choose build-operate-transfer.

If you're not sure which fits your situation, mention it on the discovery call, and the team will walk you through all three options.

Accountably quotes every seat before you commit. Tax seats start from about $14 an hour, which comes to roughly $2,400 to $2,500 a month for a full-time seat. Entity comparison work usually needs a senior seat, such as a senior tax preparer who builds the comparison and the multi-year view, and senior seats are quoted on request.

The rate can vary by role and seniority, so you will get the specific figures on your discovery call, where we will walk you through the total cost for the role you need to fill.

But even with Accountably's fee included, a tax hire in India through Accountably can still save your firm up to 46% compared to an equivalent US hire.

For firms that don't have an existing international payroll setup or in-country legal infrastructure, the staffing model removes that work entirely. Accountably handles the employment contract, payroll processing, tax compliance, and benefits administration for your hires.

You direct the work. Accountably owns the employment relationship.

Also, with Accountably you pay nothing until you hire. The search, sourcing, shortlisting, and your interview stages all happen before any fee is due. If Accountably does not place someone, you owe nothing. A dedicated hire has a 60-day minimum commitment.

The 45-day replacement guarantee is included. If a placement does not work out within 45 days, Accountably finds a replacement at no additional charge.

Outsourced entity selection support is the practice of handing the analysis behind your clients' entity decisions to a team outside your firm instead of building every comparison in-house. That team compares LLC, S-corp, C-corp, and partnership outcomes on the client's own numbers, so your partner gives the recommendation from a written comparison.

The structure a client picks decides how its profit is taxed, and the answer moves as profit, owner pay, the states it operates in, and plans for a sale change. That is why the comparison is built from the client's actual position rather than a rule of thumb.

For a CPA or accounting firm, the work usually covers:

• The client's current position, assembled from the prior-year return and the books
• A sole proprietor or single-member LLC baseline
• An S-corp scenario with a modelled reasonable-compensation split
• A C-corp scenario that includes the second layer of tax on dividends
• A partnership or multi-member LLC scenario with allocations
• Self-employment and payroll tax, the qualified business income deduction, and distribution and basis effects under each structure
• State treatment, including pass-through entity tax elections where the state offers one
• A multi-year view with growth, reinvestment, and exit scenarios, and the cost and timing of a change from the current structure
• A written comparison with every assumption stated, so your partner can change one and see the effect

Outsourced means the work is done by a team outside your firm. Offshore means that team is in another country. With Accountably it is both: your preparer sits in India and works inside your workflow like any other member of your team.

The main difference is cost. A tax hire in India can save your firm up to 46% compared to a US-based equivalent, due to the lower cost of living in India compared to the US.

With dedicated offshore talent, your firm manages the day-to-day work. Your preparer reports to your managers, follows your workflows and processes, and works as part of your team, just like any other remote employee.

Accountably doesn't direct their daily work or assign client files. You have complete control over their responsibilities and schedules. Think of Accountably as the hiring and administrative partner, not a management layer.

If you'd rather review finished work than direct it, a white-label delivery team comes with Accountably's own manager and reviewers.

Yes, tax preparers in India working with US firms work in the same tools your team already relies on: UltraTax CS, CCH Axcess, Lacerte, Drake Tax, and ProConnect Tax for the client's returns, QuickBooks and Xero for the books the numbers come from, and Karbon and TaxDome for workflow and client documents.

During vetting, Accountably screens explicitly for your stack rather than assuming tool familiarity and runs the assessments you already use.

Onboarding then ramps your preparer on your firm's software and SOPs, from your comparison template and the structures you model to how your firm sets a compensation split.

If the comparison lives in a dedicated planning tool, we identify transferable skill paths and flag any ramp time upfront so you can make an informed decision.

Accountably puts every candidate through a rigorous screening process before presentation.

Every candidate goes through Accountably's vetting process, which includes:

• Skills assessment: technical evaluation specific to the role requirements
• Experience validation: Accountably verifies work history
• Software experience: we check every candidate's experience in the tax software your firm works in, such as UltraTax CS, CCH Axcess, or Lacerte
• Cultural fit: Accountably screens for alignment with US business practices, work style, and your specific firm culture
• Motivation check: Accountably rules out candidates who are just looking for short-term contracts or salary bumps
• Background checks: we run background checks, and every hire works under an NDA

You only see candidates who meet all these criteria. Experienced hires start with onboarding on your software and SOPs. Newer hires first complete our 6-week US tax and accounting program.

No. Entity selection is legal and tax advice, and it stays with the firm whose name is on it. Your preparer builds the comparison across the structures on the client's own numbers; your partner decides what to recommend and why.

Your firm also keeps every tax position, including the reasonable-compensation figure and the timing of any conversion, along with the legal and non-tax considerations and the client conversation. Forming the entity and the legal advice around it are outside your preparer's work.

The election stays with your firm too. If a client goes ahead with an S-corp election on Form 2553, your firm files it.

Sign-off on the comparison before it leaves your firm stays with your partner. Your preparer works inside your firm and your systems, and whether they ever meet a client is your call.

The comparison settles which structure suits the client's numbers. The work before and after it sits on its own pages:

• Tax planning support: the projections and scenarios your planners build for the same clients, once the structure is set
• S-corp tax preparation: where an S election lands each year, with the 1120-S, the K-1s, shareholder basis, and the reasonable-compensation documentation
• Partnership returns: the 1065, allocations, and capital accounts for multi-member LLCs
• C-corp returns: the 1120 for the clients that stay corporate

Every file goes through preparer, senior, quality and final review before it reaches you. The baseline gets the closest check, because every difference in the table is measured from it:

• Preparer: your preparer builds each structure from the client's actual position and logs every assumption.
• Senior review: a senior reviewer checks the inputs against the return, tests the compensation split, and reviews the state treatment.
• Quality review: a separate pass recomputes the baseline independently and checks each structure's difference back to it.
• Final review: a final read confirms the comparison is ready for your partner, with the assumption log attached and any judgment call flagged.

Your firm keeps the final judgment on which structure fits the client, and the sign-off before anything reaches a client.

Yes. An entity comparison holds a client's full profit picture and ownership. Your firm sets the access. We ask for preparer-level access only, with no e-file or bank release rights. Your hire is background-verified, works under SOC 2-aligned controls and an NDA, and connects over a secure VPN.

Files move by encrypted exchange, audit logs record activity, and a zero local storage policy keeps client files off personal machines.

See data security and compliance for the full set of controls.