- Probably not. 75% of US finance postings ask for someone on-site, but when we read 150 bookkeeper postings by hand, only 10 listed a duty that needs the building.
- If yours lists mail, deposits, cash or the front desk, split those hours off and keep the rest remote.
- If the whole job is being in the room, hire locally.
On-site is the default, not a decision
Of the 107,442 US finance job postings in our fall 2026 report, 75.4% are on-site and only 12.7% are fully remote. The seats we fill look the same:
Most postings copy the last posting. Nobody sat down and decided the bank reconciliation needs a desk in the office.
What 150 postings said, read by hand
In September 2026 we read 150 bookkeeper postings line by line. 84 asked for someone on-site. Only 10 listed a duty that actually needs a person in the room. The most common one was covering the front desk or the phones.
Check your own posting
Open your posting next to this page. Tick every duty it lists.
Duties that need the building
Duties that run from anywhere
If part of the job really is physical
Split it. A local part-time person, or someone already in the office, covers the physical hours, and you pay accountant rates only for accountant work.
Three hours a week of mail and deposits
Posting the whole seat as on-site because of three hours of mail a week shrinks your candidates to your commute radius. That is a big part of why a seat takes 90 days to fill.
Two more things help. Ask your bank about remote deposit for the checks that still arrive by mail. And move vendors to paying you electronically where you can, so there is less mail to open.
When on-site is the right answer
Some seats really are the building: a cash drawer all day, the front desk, a warehouse count every week. If the job is mostly being in the room, we open a local search for someone in your area.
What a remote seat needs from you
- A user in your own QuickBooks or Xero that you create and can switch off in one click. Never your password.
- A second code on top of a password, for everyone who touches your books.
- A weekly call or a shared channel, so your questions still get a person.
How we handle each of these: your data.
Questions owners ask
Will a remote bookkeeper be harder to reach?
Not if you set it up that way. A remote person can be in your Slack, your email and your meetings, like anyone else on the team. What you lose is walking over to their desk. What you gain is a much bigger pool of people to pick from.
What do we do with checks that come by mail?
Whoever opens the mail scans the check and the stub, and deposits it with your bank's mobile or remote deposit. The bookkeeper records it from the scan. Fewer checks every year make this smaller.
Is remote access to our books safe?
It can be safer than a shared office login. Everyone signs in with a second code, works through a user you control, and you can switch that user off in one click. Details on your data.
Our posting already says on-site. Does that rule you out?
Usually not. Tell us the seat and we sort your posting duty by duty.
Tell us the seat. We find your posting and sort it.
Pick the role and leave your work email. We find your posting, then tell you in writing which duties need the building, which ones software does from day one, and what that does to the cost of the seat.
Sources: on-site, hybrid and remote shares from 107,442 US finance postings dated Mar 22 to Oct 3, 2026 (method). The 150-posting audit was read by hand on September 9, 2026. Local part-time rate is a typical figure, not a quote. Key terms: