An Indian CPA-style firm prepares overseas accounts and tax returns for clients abroad, working to foreign deadlines and time zones. Seasons are sharp, software is exacting and the team is hired for qualifications that others also want.
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Share your requirementsA CPA firm here serves clients abroad, often small businesses and individuals, by preparing books, tax returns and reviews through a team in India working on cloud ledgers and foreign tax software. Staff include a partner or principal who may sit overseas, review managers, senior preparers, junior preparers and bookkeepers, and a small admin team. Work peaks hard around the client country's filing deadlines, with extended hours and night shifts to overlap with clients. The remainder of the year is lighter. Staff chase international credentials, and a candidate who has passed an exam or two is hired away by bigger firms. Review happens in layers, sometimes with a reviewer in another time zone. See also HR for professional services.
These are the places the people side of this kind of business tends to give way. The rest of this page works through them.
HR here has to work for each of these groups, not only the office. The set-up below is written with all of them in mind.
GullyHR runs talent acquisition for permanent roles in CPA firms. For each role we agree the job description with you, find and screen candidates against it, and support the offer through to joining. Tell us the role and the number of people, and we start there.
We recruit permanent employees. We do not supply contract or temporary staff.
Every business interviews, but few have a written process that works the same way for every role and every interviewer. GullyHR designs yours, from the role brief to the offer, trains your managers to run it, and can run it for you on the roles you hand us.
We agree what the role must deliver, the must-have and nice-to-have skills, and how each will be scored.
Screening call, assessment, interview rounds and decision points, sized to the role and the number of people you hire.
Structured questions for each role family and a rating guide, so two interviewers judge the same answer the same way.
A short briefing for your managers on what to ask, what to avoid and how to give a clear yes or no.
Who approves, how the offer is made, and how candidates are kept informed from first call to joining.
Teams work overlapping hours with clients abroad for weeks, and the quiet months afterwards do not repay the strain.
Staff study for international qualifications while carrying files, and the firm either gives no support or promises it and forgets.
Reviewers face piles of returns in the last days, and mistakes in a tired review reach the client.
A preparer who passes an exam is offered a larger firm title and pay, so the practice trains people for others.
Night work sits uneasily with family life, and staff, especially women, drop out or move to day roles without a plan.
Emails, chat and portals carry different notes, and what the client wanted gets lost between the overseas contact and the preparer.
Only two people know how to handle the odd return or the old ledger, and their leave stops work.
Extra hands are hired for the rush with a quick induction, and their learning disappears in March.
Start with the topics that matter most here: HR Strategy and Workforce Planning; Learning and Development; Retention and Attrition Management. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for professional services, not in general.
How many people, in which roles, by when — and what they will cost.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
Who leaves, when, why — and which of them mattered.
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
Requisition to joining, the same way every time.
A first day that is the same for the fifth joiner as the first.
Records, attendance, leave and the day-to-day HR that must simply work.
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
Communication, recognition and the conditions people actually work in.
Two routes — one for complaints, one for conduct — kept separate.
Policies a manager can apply, and obligations with owners and dates.
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
Resignation to relieving letter, in a defined order.
Records that survive people, and approvals that do not queue.
A short monthly pack management actually reads.
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
The pieces a CPA firms business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
Map filing deadlines, staffing, shift hours and leave blocks months ahead.
Map filing deadlines, staffing, shift hours and leave blocks months ahead. Set it through HR policy packages rules on extended hours and rest.
Study leave, exam fee help and a bond, if any, in plain terms, tied to a rise on passing.
Study leave, exam fee help and a bond, if any, in plain terms, tied to a rise on passing. Document it through the HR documentation process.
Checklists, a first-level review by seniors and a final review by managers, with agreed cut-off dates before the deadline.
Checklists, a first-level review by seniors and a final review by managers, with agreed cut-off dates before the deadline.
Transport, rest days, rotation and how a shift worker can move to days.
Transport, rest days, rotation and how a shift worker can move to days. The attendance, shift and leave process holds the rules.
A single note per client for preferences and past issues that the next preparer reads first.
A single note per client for preferences and past issues that the next preparer reads first.
Keep a list of good temps, offer them next-year slots and use the employee onboarding process for a faster start.
Keep a list of good temps, offer them next-year slots and use the employee onboarding process for a faster start.
Before changing anything, find out what is true today. These checks take an afternoon and tell you which of the topics above to start with.
Share your requirementsConfirm with a qualified professional. What applies to you depends on your business, your state and your arrangements, and it changes. This page describes practice. It does not state a legal position.
The services below fit this kind of business best. Each starts by recording where you stand, and every later report compares against that. We do not promise outcomes.
Rotations, rest and leave blocks for night and extended-hour seasons.
Exam support and review-skill training tied to the career path.
Pay steps linked to credentials and review responsibility.
A quick, repeatable start for seasonal and new staff.
Start with a free conversation, or see the paid HR Diagnostic.
Understand the business, its workforce, current processes and HR challenges.
Find the missing, weak, inconsistent or person-dependent processes.
Create the structure, processes, policies, SOPs, dashboards and systems needed.
Help HR and department managers actually adopt the new system.
Digitise repetitive and approval-based workflows where it is worth doing.
Track hiring, attendance, employee cost, performance, training and attrition.
Strengthen the people-management system continuously, not once.
From the GullyHR blog: one on HR in professional services, and one on each of the topics this page points to.
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A founder's guide to hiring freshers and running a first-year programme: campus or open drives, a screening round, a training plan by quarter, mentors and checkpoints.
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Link a raise or a new role to the pass, agree help terms beforehand and show the next stage. Waiting until a resignation is the costly path.
Keep rotations predictable, give rest days after heavy runs, provide safe transport and let people move to day work after a set period.
Some firms do. If you use one, keep it modest, clear and in writing, and check enforceability with a qualified professional.
Set earlier internal cut-offs, use checklists and have seniors do a first review. Late piles are a planning problem, not a reviewer problem.
Hire early, train with a short module, keep a list of strong ones and invite them back with a clear start date.
Season planning, shift terms, credential support and review structure are typical starting points. We begin by hearing how last season went. Scope, timing and fees are agreed in writing.
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