Sales and Use Tax Compliance Services

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 sales and use tax professionals in India across the whole compliance cycle, from nexus tracking and state registrations to the monthly returns, the ledger reconciliation, and the exemption certificate file.

If a sales and use 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:

• Returns, registrations, and certificates: SALT specialists, with senior specialists for prior-period exposure and state notices
• Review: tax reviewers
• The ledger behind the return: bookkeepers

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 SALT specialist 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 work.

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 sales tax work and want full-time staff inside your workflow. Sales and use tax returns fall due all year round, monthly, quarterly, or annually by state, so this work suits that model well.

A white-label delivery team makes more sense for smaller firms that would rather review finished work than direct it. 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 sales tax seat before you commit. SALT specialist and tax reviewer seats are quoted on request, sized to the number of clients, the states each one is registered in, how often each state has them file, and any back-year cleanup.

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.

For a dedicated hire, Accountably prices the seat, not the return, so a client that files in many states every month doesn't add a fee per filing. White-label work is billed per return for tax work; other work is priced by scope, agreed on your discovery call.

But even with Accountably's fee included, a sales tax hire in India through Accountably still costs your firm less than a comparable 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 sales and use tax compliance is the practice of handing your clients' recurring sales tax work to a team outside your firm instead of hiring in-house specialists. That team tracks where each client has nexus, prepares the registrations and the returns on each state's calendar, and keeps the exemption certificate file current, ready for your review.

Sales tax is collected by the seller at the point of sale and remitted to the state. Use tax is the buyer's side of the same system: when a taxable item is bought and no sales tax was charged, the buyer self-assesses and remits use tax directly. Both are transaction taxes, separate from the state income and franchise returns that multistate tax preparation covers.

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

• Economic nexus monitoring, with each client's sales and transaction counts tracked by state
• Sales tax permit applications and state account setup, once your firm decides to register
• Product and service taxability mapped state by state
• Monthly, quarterly, and annual returns, with prepayments and local jurisdiction schedules
• The tax collected reconciled to the general ledger before each return goes to review
• Exemption and resale certificate collection, validation, and expiry tracking
• Use tax accrual review on purchases
• State notices triaged, with a drafted response for your review
• Prior-period exposure and the schedules behind a voluntary disclosure

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 SALT specialist sits in India and works inside your workflow like any other member of your team.

The main difference is cost. A sales tax hire in India costs your firm less than a comparable US hire, 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 SALT specialist 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, SALT specialists in India working with US firms work in the same tools your team already relies on: QuickBooks and Xero for the ledger and the sales data behind each return, 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 specialist on your firm's software and SOPs, from your sales tax software, such as Avalara, Vertex, TaxJar, Sovos, or CCH SureTax, and your taxability mappings to your filing calendar, the state portals you file through, and your certificate standards.

If there is a specialized system in your firm's environment, 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 ledgers and workflow tools your firm and clients use, such as QuickBooks, Xero, Karbon, or TaxDome
• 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.

Since the 2018 South Dakota v. Wayfair decision, a state can require a business to register and collect sales tax on the strength of its sales into the state alone, with no physical presence there. Each state sets its own economic nexus threshold, in sales and in some states a transaction count, along with its own measurement period, and states keep changing them. Physical presence, such as employees, an office, or inventory stored in the state, still creates nexus on its own.

A marketplace facilitator usually collects and remits the tax on the sales it handles, but a client's direct sales still count toward each state's threshold, and some states still expect the seller to register and file. Your specialist separates marketplace sales from direct sales when testing each threshold.

Your specialist tracks each client's sales and transaction counts by state every month, against each state's current threshold, and tells you when a client is getting close. Your firm makes the nexus call and the registration decision. Once you decide, the team prepares the permit applications for the date the obligation starts, not earlier, and puts the first return on the calendar.

States don't all file on the same cadence. Each assigns a monthly, quarterly, or annual frequency, usually based on the client's liability, and reassigns it as volume changes. Some states add prepayments for larger filers, with an estimated payment due mid-period that the return reconciles later.

Your specialist keeps one calendar covering every active registration, its frequency, and each due date. Returns are prepared from the period's transaction data, with the tax collected reconciled to the general ledger, and reviewed ahead of each deadline, ready for your firm to approve, file, and remit.

Exemption certificates get the same standing attention. In a state audit, an exempt sale without a valid, complete certificate on file is treated as taxable, and the tax, penalties, and interest fall on the seller, not the buyer. Your team collects missing resale and exemption certificates, validates the ones on hand, tracks expirations, and keeps the file in order so an auditor can follow it.

A nexus review often turns up back-year exposure: a state where collection should have started before anyone registered. Left alone, that exposure grows with penalties and interest, and a state sales tax audit is built to find it.

The cleaner path is usually a voluntary disclosure agreement (VDA). The client comes forward before the state finds the exposure, and in exchange the state limits the lookback period and usually waives penalties. The lookback and the terms differ by state.

Your team quantifies the prior-period exposure and prepares the schedules and back filings behind the disclosure. Whether and when to disclose is your firm's advice. If a state audit is already underway, your team assembles the transaction data, certificates, and reconciliations the auditor will ask for, so your firm can respond from a clean file.

Every file goes through preparer, senior, quality and final review before it reaches you:

• The SALT specialist maps taxability, prepares each state return from the period's sales data against your SOPs and filing calendar, and reconciles the tax collected to the ledger.
• A senior reviewer checks the nexus position, the jurisdiction breakdown, the rate and sourcing logic, and exempt sales against the certificates on file.
• A quality reviewer ties the return back to source, confirms the calendar, prepayments, and remittance method, and flags any client approaching a new threshold.
• A final review presents the batch for your approval, with variances and open notices listed in writing.

Your firm keeps the filing signature and the approval to remit, the nexus and taxability calls, the client relationship, and the decision to register, file, or pursue a VDA.

Transaction data and exemption certificates name your clients' customers, so the work runs under SOC 2-aligned controls, with role-based access over a secure VPN, encrypted file exchange, audit logs, and nothing saved to a personal machine. See data security and compliance for the full set of controls.