The accounting talent shortage in the US isn’t getting better.
It’s getting worse.
The AICPA reported 300,000 accountants left the profession between 2019 and 2021. They didn’t come back.
College accounting enrollment dropped 17% in that same period.
Fewer people want to become accountants. The ones already doing it are leaving.
And you’re stuck in the middle, trying to run a firm or manage a finance department with half the staff you actually need.
Here’s what most firm owners don’t realize.
Filipino accounting professionals aren’t just a stopgap solution while you wait for the US market to recover.
They might even be better trained.
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Why Philippine Accountants Are Different From Other Options
First: The Philippines produces roughly 60,000 to 80,000 accounting graduates every year. Not bookkeepers. Full accounting degrees.
They study International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) as their base framework, which means they already understand the conceptual foundation that underlies US GAAP.
Many take the Philippine CPA exam, which has a pass rate around 20-25%. It’s brutal.
Four parts. Comprehensive. Theory and practical application.
The people who pass that exam are serious about accounting.
Second: the professional culture.
In the Philippines, working for a foreign client (especially US/UK/AU) is seen as a career upgrade, not a fallback option.
Your job posting for a staff accountant role at $2,000-$3,000/month USD? That’s competitive with or above what Philippine CPAs earn at local Big Four firms in Manila.
And your remote role offers something those local firms don’t: better work-life balance, no brutal commute, and exposure to international clients and standards.
This flips the entire dynamic.
Instead of begging people to work for you, you’re the attractive employer.
Third: the language and communication advantage.
English is one of two official languages in the Philippines. It’s the language of instruction in schools starting in elementary.
When you hire a Filipino accounting professional, you’re not dealing with awkward translations or miscommunication about technical concepts.
They write emails that sound natural. They can explain variance analysis to a client. They use the same accounting terminology you do.
Tasks Filipino Accountants Can Handle for US Firms
Most US firm owners think of Filipino remote workers as “back office only.”
Data entry. Bank reconciliations. Maybe bookkeeping if they’re feeling adventurous.
That’s leaving 80% of the value on the table.
Here’s what you can actually hire Filipino accounting professionals to do:
Full-cycle bookkeeping and month-end close.
Not just transaction coding. The entire process from bank feeds through financial statement preparation.
Many Filipino accountants have worked at BPO firms servicing US clients.
They know QuickBooks Online, Xero, and NetSuite better than your local staff.
They’ve done month-end close for 15 different clients. They’ve seen the patterns. They know what breaks and how to fix it.
Tax preparation and research.
Yes, tax prep.
Before you say “but they’re not licensed in the US” – neither are most of your staff accountants who actually prepare the returns.
Your licensed CPA reviews and signs. That part doesn’t change.
But the heavy lifting? The organizer review, data entry into Lacerte or ProSeries, basis calculations, depreciation schedules?
Filipino accountants crush this work.
And they’re thorough. Sometimes painfully so.
Financial analysis and reporting.
This is where things get interesting.
You can hire Filipino accountants who build dashboards, analyze trends, prepare board decks, and write the narrative sections of financial reports.
The stereotype is that outsourcing only works for repetitive tasks.
That’s wrong.
Audit support and technical accounting.
If you run an audit practice or have technical accounting needs, you can hire Filipino CPAs who understand consolidations, revenue recognition, lease accounting, and all the ASC topics that make staff accountants’ eyes glaze over.
The limitation isn’t their capability.
It’s whether you’re willing to train them on your specific methodology and give them the context they need to be effective.
Most firms never get that far because they assume the capability isn’t there.
It is.
Structuring Your Team When You Have US and Philippine Accountants
Here’s where most firms screw this up.
They hire Filipino remote workers and treat them like they’re on a different planet.
“You do the data entry, we’ll do the real work.”
That approach fails. Every time. Here’s what you can do differently
Handoff points matter more than who does what.
Think about a typical audit engagement.
Somebody has to request documents from the client.
Somebody has to organize them.
Somebody has to draft findings.
Somebody has to review everything and meet with the client.
You don’t need everyone in the same room to do this. You need clear handoffs.
“When this workpaper is done, tag Sarah in the review notes.”
“When Sarah approves it, move it to the final binder and update the status tracker.”
Most firms don’t have this level of process clarity even with their local teams. Remote work just exposes the gaps.
Overlap hours create real collaboration.
Most Filipino accounting professionals are willing to work some overlap with US business hours (morning in the US = evening in the Philippines).
Even 3-4 hours of overlap lets you do things like:
- Quick Zoom calls to clarify a workpaper question.
- Real-time Slack discussions about a tricky journal entry.
- Shared screen sessions to walk through a new client setup.
The firms that lean into this overlap time treat their Filipino team members like actual team members, not invisible back-office robots.
Documentation becomes your competitive advantage.
When you have team members in different time zones, you can’t rely on “just ask me if you have questions.”
You have to document processes.
Counterintuitively, this makes your entire firm better.
Most firms run on tribal knowledge. One person knows how to do the thing, and if they leave, you’re screwed.
When you document processes for your Filipino team, you’re also documenting them for new US hires, cross-training, and business continuity.
The firms that resist this? They’re the ones who complain that “outsourcing doesn’t work.”
It works fine. Their processes just suck.
What the next five years look like for firms that figure this out
The accounting talent shortage isn’t going away.
Enrollment is still dropping. Existing accountants are still leaving.
AI will handle some of the work, sure.
But most of what accountants do requires judgment, context, and client communication.
That’s not getting automated anytime soon.
Which means the firms that can scale without being limited by local hiring are going to pull away from everyone else.
You’ll see 15-person firms doing the work of 40-person firms because half their team is in the Philippines working for 30% of US cost.
They’ll be more profitable.
They’ll have better work-life balance.
They’ll be able to take on larger clients because they can staff appropriately.
Right now, if you’re a CPA firm with a strong Philippine team, you’re unusual.
In five years, it’ll be table stakes.
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