The busy-season cliff
Busy season needs far more hands. Nobody hires a US accountant for four months, so partners absorb it.
All industries
$250/hr partners
For accounting and bookkeeping firms
$250/hr partners
doing bank recs?
Hand it off before busy season hands it to you
Bookkeepers, staff accountants, and tax prep support who already work in QBO, Xero, and Lacerte, proven on a Day One™ work trial before you commit.
Busy season is coming
Built for the role
Staff Accountant
- Reconcile the operating accountTie a month of bank activity to the ledger and list what doesn't match.Submitted
- Work the exception queueCode the 14 transactions the bank rules couldn't.Submitted
- Chase the missing documentsOne client email asking for the three items still open.Submitted
A person on our team reviews
JudgmentOutput qualityTone
Chosen by founders, CEOs, and executive teams at more than 1,000 companies, including
What's actually breaking
You don't have a hiring problem
You have a partner-hours problem
Six things we hear from firm owners before every busy season. If three sound familiar, your next busy season already has a shape.
$250 partners on bank recs
Bank recs, receipt chasing, cleanup. Every hour a partner spends there is realization walking out the door.
The CPA pipeline dried up
The person you used to hire, at the price you used to pay, isn't applying anymore.
Fixed fees, doubled volume
You quoted two years ago. Transactions doubled. The scope was never repriced, and the margin went with it.
One reviewer caps the firm
A single senior reviews everything, so the number of clients you can hold is set by one calendar.
Cleanup you can't price
A new client shows up with 14 months uncategorized. It's unbillable, and it delays the revenue.
The one number
Partner hours
returned per month
Put in your own numbers. Every hour a partner stops spending on recs and cleanup goes back to billable or advisory work.
An estimate from your inputs.
Your hire's actual rate is on their profile before you commit.
Partner hours returned20per month
Billable cap returned$5,000per month
Return on
the hire1.8xbefore a single new client
the hire1.8xbefore a single new client
Why firms move now
If one of these is true, it's time
Firm owners rarely hire because a plan said so.
They hire because one of these landed.
- Pre-season dread is realWhen busy season is close and you already know what it's going to feel like.
- A senior just leftGone to industry for better hours, and the review bottleneck got tighter overnight.
- New clients, no capacityThree monthly clients signed this quarter and nobody free to do the work.
- The advisory pushYou want to launch CAS, and compliance work has to come off your desk first.
- An exit on the horizonYou plan to sell the book in three to five years, and owner-dependency lowers the multiple.
“We’ve hired multiple team members from Assistantly, ranging from EAs to Marketing, and they have always delivered.”
Who firms hire
Seven seats that pay
for themselves
Mid and senior operators, each proven on the real work of the role before you meet them.
| Role | What they own | Why it pays for itself |
|---|---|---|
| BookkeeperCore | Categorization, bank and card recs, AP and AR entry across a book of clients | Returns partner hours at full billable rate |
| Staff Accountant | Month-end close, journal entries, workpapers, reconciliation schedules | Lets one senior review far more volume |
| Tax Prep SupportSeasonal | 1040 and 1120S data entry, document chasing, e-file assembly, extension tracking | Your busy-season capacity answer |
| AP / AR Specialist | Bill.com queues, vendor onboarding, collections follow-up on client accounts | Billable to clients as its own service line |
| Payroll Specialist | Multi-state runs, filings, new-hire setup, quarterly reconciliation | High-repeat work that's easy to define and hand off |
| Cleanup / Onboarding Specialist | Catch-up bookkeeping, historical recategorization, opening balance rebuilds | Turns unbillable drag into a fixed-price onboarding fee |
| Practice Admin | Document chasing, engagement letters, the deadline calendar, Karbon hygiene | Ends the waiting-on-the-client black hole |
Matched to the stack your firm runs
QuickBooks OnlineXeroBill.comGustoKarbonCanopyDextLacerteUltraTaxDrakeRamp+ yours
Where AI stops
AI made categorization cheap
The rest still takes a person
AI already does this
- Bank feed rules and auto-categorization
- Receipt and bill OCR, vendor matching
in Ramp and Bill.com - Draft client emails and close narratives
- Anomaly flags on unusual transactions
Which is why you need an operator
- The exception queue AI can't resolve
- Judgment on coding, accruals, and intercompany
- Chasing the client for the document AI can't read
- The close calendar, so nothing silently slips
Reconciliation, exceptions, and client chasing
are now most of the work.
That's the seat we fill.
The proof
Watch the reconciliation before you commit
Day One™ is a work trial in the real conditions of the role, two hours or less, scored against a rubric built for that role by a person on our team.
- You see exactly how they performed
- The client never keeps, uses, or ships the work
- No algorithm decides who you meet
Day One™ · Bank reconciliation
Operating account · Month-end
| Balance per bank statement | $84,212.40 |
|---|---|
| Deposits in transit | + $6,450.00 |
| Outstanding checks | − $3,918.75 |
| Duplicate vendor charge, flagged | + $1,240.00 |
| Adjusted bank balance | $87,983.65 |
| Balance per books | $87,983.65 |
| Difference | $0.00 |
R
Reviewer noteFound the duplicate charge without being asked, coded all 14 exceptions, and the client email asked for exactly what was missing. Strong fit.
Ready now
Meet finance talent
before you commit
Joy M.
Senior Bookkeeper, Cebu
10 years experienceProven on the role
The proof
Joy reconciled a month of transactions and flagged a $1,240 duplicate charge on the first pass. Her close notes read like a checklist anyone could follow.
Zone of genius
Full profile, intro video, and rate
Diego A.
Staff Accountant, Monterrey
7 years experienceProven on the role
The proof
Diego mapped a messy chart of accounts to a clean structure without losing history. He documented every merge so the CPA could sign off fast.
Zone of genius
Full profile, intro video, and rate
Lea S.
Finance Lead, Cebu
8 years experienceProven on the role
The proof
Lea cleaned up aging receivables and drafted three collection emails, one per tone. Two of the sample clients would have paid that week.
Zone of genius
Full profile, intro video, and rate
See full profiles, free
Example profiles. Names shortened for privacy.
Hire now to beat the stress
Ready before
the “busy season” arrives
You don't have time for a bad hire when the busy season hits. Here's how hiring goes now:
- Week 0Strategy call
Twenty minutes on your firm, your stack, and the seats you need. Free.
- <72 hoursYour finalists
Proven on a Day One™ work trial and matched to how you run the firm.
- Week 1The hire
Contract, payroll, and benefits handled in their country. Access set up in your stack.
- Week 2Fresh Eyes™
A structured review that surfaces a weak match early, while there's still time.
- The busy seasonYou're covered
Recs, exceptions, and document chasing are off the partners' desks.
Senior, technical, and multi-hat roles take longer, and we scope the timeline with you before we promise one.
What finance clients say
“She jumped in to solve 2 problems before I even anticipated she would be ready to do them independently.”
“I hired a bookkeeping unicorn through Assistantly....going into week #3 tomorrow,
and she is PURE GOLD!”
“She is the kind of person who never settles for ‘good enough’ and is always looking for ways to improve.”
Free strategy call
Twenty minutes on your firm's capacity
Tell us a little about the firm. We'll come to the call with the seats we'd fill first and the timeline to have them ready.
- No commitment until you choose who to hire
- Pricing shown before you interview
- A real person on our team, from the first call
Questions firm owners ask first
Will the quality hold up for our clients?
You decide on the work, not the interview. Every finalist completes a Day One™ work trial in the real conditions of the role, scored against a rubric by a person on our team. You see how they performed. The client never keeps, uses, or ships that work.
Do they already know our software?
We match on the stack you run, from QuickBooks Online and Xero to Lacerte, UltraTax, Drake, and Karbon. Access is set up with you in week one.
Can I hire just for busy season?
Placements begin with a three-month commitment, which covers most of a busy season. After busy season, the same hire can move to extensions, cleanup, and month-end work.
Who signs off on the work?
Your firm does. Review, sign-off, and anything that requires a license stay with your partners and seniors. Your hire prepares the work so review goes faster.
How do you handle client data?
You decide what your hire can access, and permissions are set up with you before anyone logs on. Bring your firm's data security requirements to the strategy call and we'll walk through them.
Do they work our hours?
Yes. Our talent in the Philippines, Latin America, and Kenya is matched on the hours your firm needs, including the long days of busy season.
What does it cost?
Their own rate plus real benefits, shown on every finalist's profile before you interview. Most full-time roles land between $2,500 and $3,000 a month. See how pricing works.
What if the hire isn't the right fit?
Every hire shares a Fresh Eyes™ review at two weeks, so a weak match surfaces early. If a hire ever stops being the right fit, we find you a new one.
Cover the season before it starts
Tell us the seats, and we'll show you who has already done the work.
There's no commitment until you choose who to hire.