A virtual accountant is a fractional service billed monthly and shared across clients. A full-time remote accountant is one person working only for you. Below roughly 200 transactions a month, the fractional service is usually the better buy. F5 Hiring Solutions places full-time remote accountants at $375-$1,200 per week, all-inclusive.

Most comparisons of this pair are written by whichever side is selling. The honest answer is that they are not competing products. One sells you a completed output; the other sells you a person's week. Which is correct depends almost entirely on how much accounting work your business actually generates.

This article sets the threshold, and is explicit about where F5 Hiring Solutions is the wrong choice. For a broader survey of providers in this space, see best remote accounting services for small business.

What is a virtual accountant, and how is it different from a full-time remote accountant?

A virtual accountant serves multiple clients and bills a monthly fee tied to transaction volume, delivering a defined output such as a monthly close. A full-time remote accountant is employed to work only for your company, inside your systems, on whatever you direct that week. The first buys output; the second buys capacity.

Four differences matter in practice.

Who else they work for. A virtual accountant carries a book of clients. Your work sits in a queue alongside everyone else's, which is efficient and also means month-end is the busiest possible time to need something urgently.

What you are buying. A fractional service is scoped: categorisation, reconciliation, a monthly financial statement package. Work outside that scope is a change order. A full-time person has no scope beyond their job.

Where the knowledge lives. A fractional provider knows your chart of accounts. A full-time person knows why the chart of accounts is the way it is, which vendor always invoices late, and what last year's odd entry was for. That difference compounds.

How it scales. A fractional service scales with your volume automatically. A full-time hire is a step function: you buy a whole week whether you need it or not.

When is a virtual accountant the better choice?

When your monthly accounting work does not fill a full week. As a rough guide, businesses under roughly 200 monthly transactions with a single entity, one bank account structure, and no inventory rarely generate enough work to occupy a full-time accountant. Paying for a full week of capacity you do not use is not a saving.

Be honest about the arithmetic before hiring anyone full-time.

A business processing 150 transactions a month, invoicing a handful of clients, and closing the books monthly is generating a few days of work per month, not twenty. A fractional service priced to that volume will cost a fraction of any full-time arrangement, remote or local. This is the correct answer for a large share of small businesses, and it is the answer F5 Hiring Solutions gives on discovery calls when the volume is not there.

Two further cases favour the fractional model regardless of volume.

You need credentialed sign-off more than throughput. If what you actually want is a CPA who reviews and signs, that is an advisory relationship, not a staffing one.

Your volume is seasonal and sharp. A business that does most of its activity in one quarter is buying idle capacity for the other three.

Note that virtual accounting providers price as monthly subscriptions scaled to volume and scope. Pricing varies widely by provider and is worth requesting in writing from two or three, since headline tiers frequently exclude payroll, sales tax filings, or catch-up work.

When does a full-time remote accountant become the better choice?

When the work reliably fills a full week, when you need someone in your systems daily rather than at month-end, or when the role has outgrown bookkeeping into forecasting, vendor management, and reporting. The clearest signal is that you are waiting on a queue rather than waiting on information.

Three signals, in the order they usually appear.

You are chasing your provider. Requests that used to take a day now take a week, because you are one of thirty clients closing at the same time.

The work has widened. Payables approvals, collections calls, vendor onboarding, sales tax registrations, budget-versus-actual reporting. Each item individually is small; collectively they are a job, and none of them are in the fractional scope.

You want the person in the system, not in an inbox. Emailed spreadsheets are the enemy of an audit trail. A full-time person works under named credentials inside your accounting system with logging on.

On cost: a US accountant benchmarks to a $83,680 median (BLS OEWS May 2025, SOC 13-2011), about $119,370 fully loaded at the 1.4265x all-worker factor from BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation (Dec 2025). A US bookkeeper benchmarks to a $50,670 median (BLS OEWS May 2025, SOC 43-3031), about $72,281 fully loaded. F5 Hiring Solutions places full-time remote accountants and bookkeeping support at $375-$1,200 per week, all-inclusive, which is $19,500-$62,400 a year.

The all-inclusive rate covers salary, HR, compliance, equipment, and management, with no setup, recruiting, or termination fees, and free replacement within 7-14 days.

How do the four options compare?

Model What you get Typical cost basis Best for
Virtual accountant service A scoped monthly output: reconciliations, adjusting entries, financial statements. Shared across the provider's clients. Monthly subscription scaled to transaction volume and scope; varies by provider Businesses whose accounting work does not fill a full week
Virtual bookkeeper Transaction recording, reconciliation, payables and receivables. No statement preparation or adjusting entries. Monthly subscription or hourly; varies by provider Clean, low-complexity books where a CPA handles year-end
Part-time local hire A person on your payroll for a set number of hours, on site or nearby. Hourly wage plus employer taxes and benefits Work needing physical presence, such as cheque handling or mail
Full-time remote accountant (F5 Hiring Solutions) One person working only for your company, full-time, in your accounting system, employed and managed by F5. $375-$1,200 per week, all-inclusive; $19,500-$62,400 a year Continuous work that fills a week, where continuity and system access matter
Who should NOT use F5 Businesses needing a few hours of accounting a month, credentialed US sign-off on returns, or seasonal capacity that flexes month to month. A fractional virtual accounting service or a CPA firm is the correct purchase Use a virtual accounting provider instead; F5 does not sell fractional services

What neither option gives you

Neither a virtual accountant nor a full-time remote accountant provides credentialed US tax filing, audit sign-off, or fiduciary advice unless that specific person holds the credential and the engagement covers it. Signature authority and attestation stay with a US CPA or enrolled agent regardless of who does the bookkeeping.

Get three things in writing before signing with either model.

Who signs the return. Many providers prepare tax-ready books and stop there. If you assumed filing was included, that assumption surfaces in April.

Who owns the file. If you leave, do you receive the complete accounting file and supporting workpapers, and in what format?

Who has access to what. Segregation of duties is easy to break when adding capacity. One person should not both enter a vendor and release its payment, whether they sit in your office or in another country.

F5 Honest Limitations

No fractional or part-time option. F5 places full-time professionals only. If your volume does not justify a full week, F5 is the wrong provider and a virtual accounting service is the right one.

No credentialed US filing or audit capability. F5 does not supply CPAs who can sign returns or issue audit opinions. Those relationships stay with your firm.

India and Philippines only. F5 does not place accounting staff from Latin America or Eastern Europe.

No self-serve portal. F5 runs a concierge model. Candidate profiles are not browsable; a discovery call comes first.

Bottom Line

Pick the model by volume, not by price per hour. Under roughly 200 monthly transactions with simple structure, a virtual accounting service is cheaper and faster to start, and that is the honest recommendation for most small businesses.

Once the work fills a full week, once you need daily presence in your systems, or once the role has widened past bookkeeping, a full-time remote accountant costs less than the equivalent US hire and keeps the institutional knowledge in one place. F5 Hiring Solutions places full-time remote accountants at $375-$1,200 per week, all-inclusive, with a shortlist in 7-14 business days.

For a wider provider survey, see best remote accounting services for small business. For the hiring process itself, see how to hire a remote bookkeeper for a small business.

To work out whether your volume justifies a full-time hire, schedule a 15-minute call.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a virtual accountant for a small business?

A virtual accountant is an accounting professional who works remotely and serves several clients at once, usually billed as a monthly subscription tied to transaction volume. You buy a completed output such as a monthly close, not a person's time. Most small businesses under roughly 200 transactions a month are well served by this model.

Is a virtual accountant cheaper than a full-time remote accountant?

At low volume, yes. A fractional monthly service charges for the work performed, so a business with light activity pays a fraction of a salary. A full-time remote accountant through F5 Hiring Solutions costs $375-$1,200 per week, all-inclusive, or $19,500-$62,400 a year, which only makes sense once the work fills a full week.

At what point should a small business hire a full-time accountant instead?

When the work reliably fills a full week, when you need someone inside your systems daily rather than at month-end, or when the role has grown beyond bookkeeping into forecasting, vendor management, and reporting. Volume is the usual trigger, but the real test is whether you are waiting on a queue.

What is the difference between a virtual bookkeeper and a virtual accountant?

A virtual bookkeeper records transactions, reconciles accounts, and manages payables and receivables. A virtual accountant does that plus financial statement preparation, adjusting entries, and tax-ready reporting. The US wage benchmarks differ accordingly: bookkeeping clerks have a $50,670 median and accountants and auditors $83,680 (BLS OEWS May 2025).

Can a virtual accountant file my business tax return?

Only if that specific person is a credentialed preparer, such as a CPA or enrolled agent, and their engagement covers filing. Many virtual accounting services prepare tax-ready books and hand off to a separate filer. Confirm in writing who signs the return before assuming it is included.

Does F5 Hiring Solutions offer a virtual accountant service?

No. F5 places full-time remote professionals who work only for your company; it does not sell a fractional monthly accounting service. A business that needs a few hours of accounting a month should use a virtual accounting provider instead, and F5 will say so on a discovery call.

Can a full-time remote accountant work inside my accounting software?

Yes. Full-time remote accountants work under their own named credentials in QuickBooks, Xero, Sage Intacct, or NetSuite, through your access controls with logging enabled. Working in your system rather than exchanging spreadsheets is what preserves the audit trail.

What does a full-time remote accountant cost compared to a US hire?

F5 Hiring Solutions bills $375-$1,200 per week, all-inclusive, or $19,500-$62,400 a year. A US accountant benchmarks to a $83,680 median (BLS OEWS May 2025, SOC 13-2011), about $119,370 fully loaded at the 1.4265x ECEC multiplier (BLS ECEC, Dec 2025).