Outsourced Accounting & Controller
Audit-ready books. Investor-ready reporting. Every single month.
You don't just need someone to categorize transactions. You need a multi-tier finance team: bookkeeper, senior accountant, and controller, producing clean data that's always ready for an audit, an investor, or a growth decision.
15th
Books closed every month
100%
Clean audit track record
3-Tier
Bookkeeper + Sr. Accountant + Controller
Core to every Northstar engagement. Included in Accounting Foundation and all higher tiers. Every engagement includes CFO quality oversight. See all engagement levels →
Your books are behind. Your reports are late. And every decision is a guess.
Your office manager wasn't hired to run a monthly close or produce management reporting. QuickBooks is a mess, transactions are uncategorized, and your P&L shows up six weeks late. If an auditor, investor, or potential acquirer looked at your books today, you wouldn't be ready. You're making real decisions about hiring, pricing, and growth on financial data that's late, incomplete, or missing entirely.
What your accounting team looks like with Northstar.
We deploy a multi-tier accounting pod where each level does what they do best: your bookkeeper handles daily transactions, your senior accountant manages reconciliations and the monthly close, and your controller reviews every deliverable and translates the numbers into decisions. Built-in quality control at every step.
Every deliverable passes through three layers of review before it reaches you. That's why auditors ask if they can refer us to their other clients: they've never seen books this clean. Your financials are always audit-ready, investor-ready, and decision-ready.
Monthly close by the 15th
Books closed, reviewed at three levels, and finalized by the 15th with a clean P&L, balance sheet, and cash flow statement.
Management reporting in plain English
A monthly report from your controller highlighting what changed, why it changed, and what to watch, written for owners, not accountants.
AP/AR management
Full AP/AR workflow so bills get paid on time, invoices go out on schedule, and aging reports are reviewed weekly by your senior accountant.
Bank and credit card reconciliation
Every account reconciled monthly by your bookkeeper, then verified by your senior accountant. No mystery transactions or uncategorized expenses.
Budget vs. actual tracking
Annual budget built collaboratively and tracked against actuals monthly so you see variances in real time, not at year-end.
Controller review and quality assurance
Your controller reviews every reconciliation, every journal entry, and every report before delivery, ensuring audit-ready accuracy.
Payroll coordination
Seamless coordination with your payroll provider so entries are booked correctly, taxes reconciled, and labor costs accurately reflected by department or location.
System optimization (QBO, Xero, NetSuite)
Chart of accounts cleanup, integration configuration, and workflow optimization so your accounting system works the way your business actually operates.
Not all outsourced accounting is the same.
Freelance Bookkeeper
One person, no oversight, no backup. They categorize transactions and send a P&L when they get around to it. No controller review, no management reporting, and no one catching errors before they compound.
In-House Accounting Team
Two to three hires you need to recruit, train, and manage. Dedicated attention, but also turnover risk, single points of failure, and the overhead of being your own HR department for finance.
Northstar Accounting Pod
A dedicated bookkeeper, senior accountant, and controller working as a team with three levels of review on every deliverable. Higher output, built-in continuity, and no single point of failure.
Is this right for your business?
This is built for you if:
$1M-$50M annual revenue
Books behind, messy, or unreliable
Need a monthly close that actually happens on time
Want management reporting, not just tax-time financials
Multi-entity or multi-location consolidated reporting
Need audit-ready or investor-ready books now
This might not be the right fit if:
Need strategic financial leadership too. Your engagement naturally expands to include CFO sessions as you grow
See Engagement LevelsNeed one-time project support (valuation, deal modeling) without ongoing accounting
See Transaction SupportHow the engagement works.
Step 01
Assessment
We review your books, systems, and processes, then build a tailored scope of work and identify what needs to be cleaned up.
Step 02
Cleanup and onboarding
We catch up your books, rebuild the chart of accounts if needed, and establish the three-tier workflows that drive the monthly close.
Step 03
First clean close
Your first full monthly close: books closed by the 15th, reconciliations verified, controller-reviewed management report delivered.
Step 04
Ongoing operations
Your pod handles accounting month after month with consistent deliverables, standing review calls, and always audit-ready books.
What this looks like in practice.
The Situation
A $5M professional services firm had books four months behind, no bank reconciliations since Q1, and no management reporting. An investor had requested financial statements and the owner couldn't produce anything credible.
What We Did
We deployed a three-tier pod that caught up four months of transactions, cleaned up the chart of accounts, and built a management reporting package breaking down margin by service line and client. Controller review was implemented on every deliverable from day one.
The Result
Books were caught up in six weeks and the monthly close now happens by the 15th. The investor received audit-ready financials within 90 days. Reporting revealed two service lines at negative margin, leading to pricing restructuring that improved overall margin by 8 points.
When I had my own in-house accounting team, I always looked over their shoulders to make sure they were doing their job. With Northstar, that's never a question anymore. I'm getting so much better visibility and insight into the business. I would never work anywhere else.
Sam Seltzer
CEO, AutoMotion
Your accounting team is the foundation everything else is built on.
Clean books aren't the end goal. They're the starting point. Because your bookkeeper, controller, CFO, and tax strategist are all on the same team, your data flows seamlessly into strategy, tax planning, and executive decisions. No handoffs between firms. No gaps between functions.
Related Services
Fractional CFO
Your CFO builds strategy on top of the financials your accounting pod produces. Same team, same data, same systems.
Learn MoreTax Strategy
Your tax strategist sees your books in real time because they're on the same pod. No year-end scramble.
Learn MoreTransaction Support
When it's time to sell, raise capital, or restructure, your financials are already clean, current, and investor-ready.
Learn MoreIndustry-Specific Expertise
Common questions about outsourced accounting.
Most engagements fall between $3,000 and $8,000 per month depending on transaction volume and entity complexity. You get a fixed monthly fee after the assessment with no hourly billing surprises.
Most cleanups take four to eight weeks. We scope the catch-up work during the assessment and give you a clear timeline before we start.
A bookkeeper categorizes transactions. Northstar deploys a three-tier team where every deliverable passes through bookkeeper, senior accountant, and controller review. You get audit-ready accuracy, management reporting, and built-in quality control that a single person simply can't provide.
Let's get your books audit-ready.
Every engagement starts with an assessment. We review your books, identify the gaps, and tell you exactly what it takes to get your accounting running at the level your business deserves.
Schedule an Accounting ConsultationOr call us directly: 888.999.0280