Somani Global vs an in-house accountant

The real cost of a hire

A capable in-house accountant in the US costs $70,000 to $120,000 a year with payroll taxes and benefits, plus software, plus management time, plus the gap when they leave. They cover the skills they have, which is rarely bookkeeping, tax, payroll, sales tax and forecasting all at once. Below roughly $5 million of revenue, most businesses do not have forty hours a week of finance work to give them.

What an outsourced team covers

• Monthly bookkeeping with CPA review, from $99 to $999 a month by volume.
• Business tax returns, payroll and 1099 filings, sales tax in every state.
• Virtual CFO: forecasts, board packs, pricing and margin work, from $99 a month as an add-on.
• Coverage every week of the year, with no single point of failure.

Total for a typical $2 million business: under $15,000 a year, against one salary that covers less.

When to hire anyway

When someone needs to be in the building: managing a warehouse's inventory counts, handling cash, dealing with dozens of vendors daily, or running a finance team. At that point we usually stay on as the tax and review layer, and the hire runs the day-to-day. Hiring a controller before that point is the most common expensive mistake we see in growing businesses.

Questions people ask

Other comparisons

• Somani Global vs DIY tax software
• Somani Global vs a local CPA firm
• Somani Global vs a freelance bookkeeper
• Somani Global vs online formation services
• Free calculators and checkers
• Tax filing by state