Hire Offshore Accountants for Chicago Businesses

Month-end close & journal entries

• • Run a standardized close checklist covering revenue, expenses, accruals, and deferrals
• • Post recurring journal entries for payroll, depreciation, amortization, and prepaid schedules
• • Close each period within 5–10 business days and document variances against the prior period

Financial statements & reporting

• • Produce monthly P&L, balance sheet, and cash flow statements following GAAP conventions
• • Build management reporting packs in Google Sheets, Excel, or Fathom for ownership review
• • Flag margin compression, expense anomalies, and unusual account activity with written commentary

Accruals & reconciliation

• • Reconcile every bank, credit card, and merchant account to the statement monthly
• • Reconcile balance sheet accounts including AR, AP, fixed assets, and intercompany
• • Build accrual schedules for unbilled revenue, earned commissions, and vendor obligations

Tax prep & 1099 coordination

• • Prepare year-end workpapers for your CPA including trial balance, adjusting entries, and supporting schedules
• • Run 1099 vendor review, W-9 collection, and filing coordination through Bill.com or Track1099
• • Maintain sales tax schedules and hand off returns to specialists or Avalara for filing

Budgeting & forecasting support

• • Build annual budgets by department tied to headcount and revenue assumptions
• • Run rolling 13-week cash flow forecasts and update them weekly against actuals
• • Support scenario modeling for hiring plans, pricing changes, and capital decisions

Do your accountants work in GAAP or IFRS?

Default is US GAAP, which is what almost every US small and mid-market client needs. Our accountants are trained on GAAP revenue recognition, accrual accounting, and the standard US financial statement conventions your CPA and your investors expect. For clients with international parent companies, subsidiaries, or investor reporting in IFRS we can match an accountant with IFRS experience, or run dual reporting where the local books are IFRS and the US consolidation is GAAP. Tell us upfront during intake so we shortlist the right candidates.

How does your accountant coordinate with our US CPA for tax prep?

Your offshore accountant is a staff accountant, not a CPA — they do not sign returns or give tax advice. What they do is prepare the workpapers your CPA needs: a clean trial balance, supporting schedules for fixed assets and prepaid expenses, 1099 vendor files, and adjusting journal entry documentation. Most US CPAs love this arrangement because it cuts their prep time in half. Your accountant communicates directly with your CPA during tax season, answers questions on the books, and posts any adjusting entries the CPA requests after return finalization.

How do you handle security of our financial data — are you SOC 2 compliant?

Remoteria itself is not yet SOC 2 certified, but our operational controls map to SOC 2 Type I requirements and we are happy to walk your security team through them. Every accountant signs an NDA, works from a dedicated machine with full disk encryption, and accesses your accounting systems through named user accounts with MFA enforced. We never store your financial data on personal devices, use cloud-only document sharing through Google Drive or your own system, and revoke every credential within 24 hours of engagement end. For clients with strict compliance needs we can route work through your own sanctioned infrastructure.

Who owns the working papers and schedules — you or us?

You own everything. Every working paper, reconciliation schedule, close checklist, journal entry support file, and management report lives in your own Google Drive, Dropbox, or SharePoint from day one. If the engagement ends or you replace the accountant, nothing walks out the door — the next person picks up from the same files. Your CPA and auditors get direct access to whatever they need, and you never get held hostage over your own books.

What is the difference between hiring an accountant and a bookkeeper through you?

A bookkeeper handles transaction-level work: categorizing expenses, matching receipts, reconciling bank feeds, and running accounts payable and receivable. An accountant owns the close: journal entries, accruals, financial statement preparation, and coordination with tax and audit. Accountants are more senior, hold accounting degrees, and can supervise a bookkeeper. Most clients with under $2M in revenue start with a bookkeeper, and clients over $5M in revenue or with investor reporting needs hire an accountant. Some clients hire both — a bookkeeper for daily work and an accountant for monthly close and reporting.

How does timezone work between Chicago and an offshore virtual assistant?

Your offshore hire typically overlaps your morning, from roughly 9am CT to 3pm CT. That covers the bulk of your inbox, vendor calls, and team stand-ups. Anything async — reports, research, data cleanup — runs overnight and is waiting when you get in.

Do you work with Chicago trading firms, logistics companies, and manufacturers?

Yes. Most Chicago clients are in trading and fintech in the Loop, logistics operators around O'Hare, industrial distributors in the suburbs, and SaaS startups in Fulton Market. We match roles to specific workflows like trade ops, dispatch support, and AP/AR for mid-market businesses.

How fast can a Chicago business get an offshore hire started?

Chicago owners tend to want tight timelines and clear deliverables, and we run on that pace. Book a 15-minute call, send us the role, and we shortlist 3 vetted candidates in 5 business days. Most Chicago clients interview on day 6 and onboard by day 10.

How does offshore hiring compare to Chicago's local talent market?

Chicago talent is cheaper than NYC or SF but the prop trading and consulting ecosystem keeps the operational floor higher than people expect. A mid-level analyst in the Loop closes at $75,000–$95,000 base, and trading support roles near LaSalle now routinely cross $110,000. Offshore hiring delivers a comparable analyst or operations skill profile in 5 business days at roughly 35 percent of loaded Chicago cost. The bigger value for Midwestern owners is retention — offshore hires do not get poached into Citadel or Jump Trading every 18 months the way local Loop talent does.

Do Chicago businesses have any special requirements for offshore hires?

Offshore contractors are not US tax residents, so Chicago businesses do not withhold federal or Illinois state income tax, do not pay Illinois unemployment insurance, and do not file W-2s for these workers. The standard form is a W-8BEN collected at engagement (not a W-9, which applies only to US persons) governed by an independent contractor agreement. Illinois workers' compensation requirements do not apply to non-US workers performing services entirely outside the state. Most Chicago clients route payments through us, so they never deal with international wires or Cook County payroll filings directly.