86% of top U.S. accounting firms now use offshore staff: IPA
- 86% of IPA 100 firms now employ offshore staff, up from 83%.
- Offshore staff average 8.2% of total headcount at those firms.
- All of the 25 largest firms plan to increase offshore use.
- 68% of IPA 100 firms offshore tax returns.
INDIANA, UNITED STATES — Offshore staff have become a standard part of the workforce at America’s largest accounting firms, and almost none of them plan to pull back. Eighty-six percent of IPA 100 firms now employ offshore full-time equivalents, up from 83% last year, and tax work in particular has moved offshore at most of them.
Adoption keeps climbing
Offshore employees make up an average of 8.2% of total headcount at those firms, according to INSIDE Public Accounting. Ninety-seven percent of firms using offshore talent plan to maintain or expand their programs in the coming year, and every one of the 25 largest firms plans to increase its use.
Tax shows how established the practice has become. Sixty-eight percent of IPA 100 firms report offshoring tax returns, and offshore teams now give firms a way to add capacity beyond hiring domestic staff as revenue grows.
Harder questions ahead
The next decisions go beyond whether to use offshore talent. Firms must decide which work belongs offshore, how offshore and domestic teams interact and how global capacity affects training and career development, and they must choose between third-party providers, captive operations or a mix of both.
As more repeatable work moves offshore, firms will also need to decide what stays onshore and how early-career staff build the technical judgment that once came from doing that work themselves.
That makes offshore strategy an operating-model issue rather than a staffing tactic, the publication said, and it is already altering long-held assumptions about leverage, recruiting and how work moves through a firm.
With adoption already at 86%, the competitive divide may come from how firms design and manage a global workforce rather than whether they use one. For accounting firms, that puts the focus on structure, oversight and training as much as on cost.
Firms weighing finance and accounting outsourcing against building a global delivery center of their own can ask providers how they handle training and quality review for tax work. They can compare options on the top BPO companies worldwide list.
Related news
- QX Global launches AI tax service backed by 500+ specialists · 25 Sep
- 1 in 4 firms now offshore their tax prep · 6 Aug
- India accounting leaders say AI won’t kill offshore talent · 29 May
Disclosure: Outsource Accelerator uses AI tools in the backend of its editorial workflow. Every article is reviewed and verified by a human editor before publication.
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