By Jose De Soto
The conversation usually starts the same way.
A firm owner or managing partner reaches out, and within the first few minutes they tell me they’ve been trying to fill an accounting role for three, four, sometimes six months. They’ve raised the salary. They’ve widened the job description. They’ve tried recruiters. And they’re still sitting with an open seat.
Then they ask me: what are other firms doing?
My answer, more often than not, is Bogotá.
The Accounting Talent Picture in the US
This is a structural shift in the talent market. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects more than 120,000 accounting and auditing job openings every year through the decade. At the same time, accounting degree completions fell 6.6% in the 2023–2024 academic year, according to the AICPA 2025 Trends report. The gap between those two lines is where firm owners are spending their time right now. Growing demand meets a shrinking domestic pipeline, creating the exact pressure felt in every empty seat.
What this means in practice is that higher salaries do not automatically produce more candidates. The firms solving their capacity problems are expanding their search to new geographies.
Latin America Accounting Services: Why Bogotá Stands Out
When I talk to firm owners about building a team in Bogotá, I usually get one of two reactions. Either they’ve been curious but haven’t known where to start, or they have questions about language, quality, and whether someone in Colombia can actually do the accounting work and accurate financial reporting they need done.
Both reactions are fair. Here’s what I tell them.
Bogotá has a well-developed professional class with extensive experience in finance, accounting, and business services. The city’s universities produce graduates in accounting and finance across dozens of programs, and Colombia’s BPO sector, which has a 700,000 labor pool, 43.16% of which are in Bogota (Colombian BPO Association (BPrO)) has created a professional infrastructure where bilingual English-Spanish talent working to international business standards is genuinely common.
The EF English Proficiency Index places Bogotá above Colombia’s national average, with city-level scores in line with professional-class expectations for business English. That matters because the question isn’t whether every Colombian speaks English. The question is whether the accounting professionals a firm would actually hire can communicate clearly, handle client-facing work, and integrate into a US firm’s workflows. In Bogotá, the answer is consistently yes, plus cultural alignment.
The time zone is another factor firms consistently underestimate until they’ve experienced it. Bogotá runs on Eastern Time, which means your Colombia team member is at their desk when you are. No overnight processing. No lag. No scheduling gymnastics to get on a call. Just real-time collaboration during regular business hours. For accounting services, bookkeeping services, and consulting, where review cycles, close deadlines, and client communication are time-sensitive, that alignment is operationally significant.
Nearshoring Accounting Tasks: What the Working Relationship Actually Looks Like
I want to be direct about something, because I think there’s still a perception gap in the US accounting market around what it means to have a team member based in Bogotá.
This is not a transactional arrangement where you send work offshore and hope it comes back right. The firms that build effective global teams treat their Bogotá-based staff the same way they treat anyone else on their team: onboarding them properly, integrating them into practice management tools, including them in team communication, and investing in their development over time.
When that happens, what you get is not a vendor relationship. You get a team member who knows your clients, knows your review preferences, knows your software, and builds institutional knowledge year over year. That continuity is genuinely valuable, particularly for firms that have struggled with turnover in junior and mid-level roles.
The roles that translate well to a Bogotá-based team member include:
- Staff accountant and senior accountant functions
- Accounts payable and accounts receivable
- Bookkeeping and month-end close support
- Tax preparation and return processing
- Payroll processing and administration
- Financial reporting and analysis support
- Auditing
For firms with Spanish-speaking clients, there is an added dimension. A bilingual team member in Bogotá can handle client communication, documentation, and advisory support in both English and Spanish, which is increasingly valuable in markets across Florida, California, Texas, and other major US states and urban centers.
The Timing Question: When CPA Firms Should Onboard Colombia Accounting Professionals for Tax Preparation
The most common mistake I see is firms starting this conversation in November or December, when the pressure of the next tax season is already building. By then, your options narrow and your timeline compresses.
The firms that are in the best position heading into a new year are the ones that made decisions in the middle of the prior year. A team member who starts in July or August has several months to get familiar with your systems, your clients, and your standards before volume picks up. By January, they’ve learned the job and doing it.
Onboarding timelines with a reliable partner typically run two to five weeks from search to start date. That speed matters because it gives firm owners real options, not just a plan B they reach for when they’re already behind.
Furthermore, accounting outsourcing providers, particularly those who are ISO-certified like Cloudstaff, offer tailored solutions covering specific business needs, which may include being responsible for employee benefits administration, maintaining office space, ensuring compliance and data security, operations efficiency, and other employment and staffing administrative functions. The best ones offer more value than cost savings by providing valuable insights to help accounting firms and companies of different industries achieve significant growth.
What I Tell Firms Who Are on the Fence About Hiring Colombia Accounting Staff
If you’ve been thinking about this but haven’t moved forward, I usually ask one question: what would it change for your firm if that open seat was filled by someone capable and committed, working in your time zone, and growing with your practice over the next three to five years?
For most firm owners, the answer is significant. Less pressure on the partners. Better coverage through peak periods. More capacity to take on clients you’d otherwise have to turn away.
Bogotá is not a workaround. For businesses that have built teams there, it has become a core part of how they operate. The conversation usually starts with a vacancy. It tends to end with a team.
About the Author
Jose De Soto is Vice President of Sales, Accounting, North America at Cloudstaff, where he helps accounting firms and growing businesses build high-performance global teams across Bogotá, India, and the Philippines. A bilingual (English/Spanish) sales leader based in Charlotte, North Carolina, Jose brings a practical lens to workforce planning, having spent years working directly with firm owners across North America to solve their most persistent capacity challenges. He holds a B.A. in International Economics from UC San Diego.
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