Looks like a normal cleaning bill. Real vendor, right amount, and the work actually got done. The only thing that's different is where the money goes now.
If your bookkeeper just processes it, your money lands in someone else's account. It's one of six invoices in our screening test that a good AP person refuses to pay, and every candidate works that test before you ever see their name.
Send me the test and the answer keyIt's free and you don't have to get on a call. I'll send it the same day.
On file since 2021: 340 E 9th St, Santa Ana, CA. Same bank for five years.
Full time specialists working your hours, contracted through us. We handle the recruiting, the payroll, and the replacing.
Somewhere between ten and two hundred people, where AP has outgrown the office manager but doesn't quite justify a full time hire at $60,000.
Where what's holding you back is how fast you can hire, not how many clients you can win. You keep the client and the margin. We're just the bench you didn't have to build.
Eleven invoices, a chart of accounts, the vendor master, open purchase orders with receiving records, and a page of AP policies. We load the batch with more exceptions than a normal day's mail, on purpose. Anyone can code a clean invoice. What tells you someone has actually done this job is what they refuse to process, and whether they can explain why.
The take home is only half of it. After that comes a live session where they have to defend their own answers, handle two invoices they've never seen, and work through a judgment call that doesn't have a clean answer. That's the part nobody can prepare for, and it's the part that matters most.
Same experience, same hours, same work. The difference is what you pay for it, and everything you don't have to pay on top.
Salary figure is the national average for an AP clerk across Robert Half's 2026 guide, Salary.com and Glassdoor, which put base pay between $43,000 and $52,000. Your number is higher in California or the Northeast. Loaded cost assumes a 25 to 30 percent burden, which is on the conservative side.
You're handing part of your finance function to somebody you've never met, hired by somebody you just found. Here's what you get to hold us to.
If your specialist leaves or isn't working out, we find you another one at no cost. Month two or month twenty, doesn't matter. It's in the agreement, not just on this page.
No annual contract, no termination fee, no minimum term. If this stops being worth it, you give us thirty days and we're done.
If we can't find somebody who clears the test for your role, we'll tell you and you owe us nothing. We don't fill a seat with a B player to close a deal.
These aren't general virtual assistant pools. We recruit out of finance and shared services teams in the Philippines, people who've processed AP and closed books for US companies, on US systems, on a US calendar.
What you need done, which systems you run, what hours you need covered. Usually a fifteen minute call, sometimes just an email.
Three years minimum of hands on AP or bookkeeping, in at least one major US accounting system. Not "virtual assistant, some bookkeeping experience."
Four stages, in that order. Everyone who reaches your shortlist has been through all of it, and I run the screening myself.
We send a shortlist with their test scores attached. You talk to them, you decide. We don't assign anybody you haven't met.
We handle the contract, payroll, and international payment. You get check ins at day three, day fourteen, day thirty, then monthly. If something's off, I'd rather hear it early.
Most of what goes wrong with outsourced AP happens because somebody got more access than the job actually needed. We keep the scope tight on purpose.
Background check on every candidate. Criminal and identity verification, run before anyone is placed. No exceptions and no extra charge to you.
Confidentiality agreement signed. Covering your financial records, vendor data, and anything else they see.
Encrypted device and VPN. Full disk encryption, current OS, multi factor authentication, VPN where you require it.
Contracted through us. We're the employer of record, so classification and compliance sit on our side, not yours.
No payment authority. They get the payment run ready. You approve it and you're the one who releases it.
No banking credentials. No account access, no signature authority, no way to move money.
No changing vendor details alone. If a remit-to or bank detail changes, it comes to you and gets verified somewhere other than the invoice that asked for it.
No accounting advice. They process and prepare. Your books, your filings, your payments, your call.
Access runs entirely on credentials you issue and can shut off whenever you want. We never hold a login you didn't create, and we'll work inside whatever permission level your system supports.
I spent seven years in corporate finance and asset management before I started this. Reviewing AP coding, chasing down variances nobody could explain, and closing books where one miscoded invoice meant a wrong number sitting in front of an owner.
The test came out of that job. Every exception in it is something I've had to catch, argue with somebody about, or clean up after the fact. That's why it tests what it tests, and it's why I'd rather hand you the test than tell you our candidates are well vetted.
You deal with me directly. I run the screening, I sit in on every live session, and I'm the one who picks up the phone if something goes sideways in month four. There's no account manager layer here and there won't be one while I can still do the work properly myself.
Some firms will place somebody for a flat fee and hand you the relationship. It's a real option and honestly it costs less in dollars. What you take on is payroll, international payments, contractor classification, and running the search yourself when that person leaves in a year. We carry all four. If you'd rather own it directly, just ask, we do one-time placements too and we price them accordingly.
That's the right question, which is why I'd rather you grade the test yourself than take my word for it. Email me and I'll send the invoices and the answer key. If the bar looks too low, you'll know in ten minutes and neither of us wasted a call.
Yours. We staff against your business hours and your close calendar, not whatever time zone they happen to live in.
No, and it's written into the agreement. They prepare payment runs and flag anything that looks off. Approving and releasing stays with you. If a vendor asks to change banking details, it comes to you and gets verified through a channel that isn't the invoice.
We replace them and you don't pay extra for it. Not just during some probation window, for as long as you're working with us. Month to month, thirty days notice on either side.
No. We don't take client relationships and we don't do the accounting. We supply the person. You keep the client, the scope, and the margin.
That's how most of it should go. Start with one seat, see whether the work actually comes off your plate, then add. Firms tend to grow into two or three once the first one is running.
Email me and I'll send the invoices and the answer key the same day. No call, no pitch, nothing to sign. If the bar looks right we can talk about what you actually need. If it doesn't, you're out ten minutes and you've got a screening tool you can use on your own hires.