If review takes four hours, you bought production again
I sign off on packages for a living. The test is simple.
Can a partner finish review in about 90 minutes on a file they know, with exceptions already flagged? If the answer is no, the vendor sold you staffing with nicer branding.
What CPA firms actually get when they outsource bookkeeping is the deliverable list. This post is the review pass.
What I open, in order
- Reconciliations. Every account. No "close enough."
- P&L against last month and against what I know of the client.
- Balance sheet. Especially cash, A/R, A/P, and owner activity.
- Aging. Anything stalling that the client will ask about.
- Reasoning log. Why the weird transactions landed where they did.
- Open items. What still needs the client or the partner.
Sample deliverables is that pack. BLS still frames bookkeeping as recording complete records. Complete is the bar. Pretty is not.
What I am not doing in that hour and a half
I am not recategorizing the bank feed. I am not rebuilding the year. I am not writing the client email from scratch because the package is unlabeled.
If the historical years are a mess, stop. That is reconstruction, not a monthly review. Send it down book reconstruction for tax deadlines or reconstruction for tax professionals. Mixing those jobs is how 90 minutes becomes a Saturday.
How you get to 90 minutes
The first month on a new client is slower. Standards get documented. After that, review time should fall. If it does not, the delivery model is wrong.
How to pick a free test client is how you practice this pass on a live file at no cost. For CPA Firms is the engagement overview. How it works is the transfer of production, not of judgment.
Accounting Today has written about making outsourcing work when review stays with the firm. That is the whole point.
Run the pass on one client first
Start a free test client. Review the package the way you review your own staff. Then decide.