South helps growing companies find, hire, and pay top Latin American talent. Build high-performing teams in 21 days or less.
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An Accounting Associate handles the day-to-day transactional work that keeps a finance team running: posting journal entries, processing AP and AR, reconciling bank and credit card accounts, supporting month-end close, and helping prep audit schedules. The role sits one rung above a bookkeeper and one below a Staff Accountant. They own the data entry and reconciliations, then hand clean books to the Accountant or Controller for review and reporting.
Hiring an Accounting Associate in Latin America is significantly cheaper than hiring stateside. Glassdoor and Indeed put the U.S. average at $4,800 per month compared with an average Latin American salary of $2,200 per month, creating potential savings of up to 54%. The savings come from cost-of-living differences, not from compromising on talent. Most South candidates have U.S. GAAP exposure, English fluency, and four-year accounting degrees.
Yes, and it is now standard practice. South handles compliance, contracts, and payments through local entities so the worker is properly classified in their country and the U.S. company has zero payroll exposure. LatAm time zones overlap with all four U.S. zones, so an Associate in Bogota or Buenos Aires works the same hours as your in-house finance team without the visa, relocation, or 1099 misclassification risks of hiring elsewhere.
Accuracy, GAAP fundamentals, and tool fluency are the three pillars. Look for a four-year accounting or finance degree, two-plus years of bookkeeping or AP/AR experience, and proven reconciliation chops. Strong candidates can explain accrual vs. cash basis without hesitation, walk through a month-end close checklist, and spot a duplicate invoice in a vendor aging. Soft skills matter too: written English clear enough to email a U.S. controller, and the discipline to flag variances early.
Expect proficiency in QuickBooks Online, Xero, or NetSuite (whichever stack you run), plus advanced Excel or Google Sheets (XLOOKUP, pivot tables, SUMIFS). Bonus points for Bill.com, Ramp, Brex, Expensify, Stripe, and Gusto exposure. If you run on a real ERP like NetSuite or Sage Intacct, prioritize candidates who have closed a month inside that system, not just touched it.
A Bookkeeper records transactions and reconciles accounts, full stop. An Accounting Associate does all of that plus assists with month-end close, accrual entries, audit prep, and basic financial analysis. Think of the Associate as a Bookkeeper with an accounting degree and a path to Staff Accountant. If your books are simple cash-basis, a Bookkeeper is enough. If you are accrual, multi-entity, or pre-audit, hire the Associate.
South maintains a pre-vetted bench of LatAm finance talent, screens for U.S. GAAP fluency and English level, and runs the contracting and monthly payments end-to-end. You interview a shortlist of three to five candidates within about a week, pick one, and they start. No hidden markups, no full-time platform fees, and you can scale up or down as your close cadence changes. Schedule a free call here to get started!
The region has the perfect mix of everything you want in remote employees: English skills, shared time zones, hard-working, and depth of talent. They are already accustomed to working remotely for top US startups and Fortune 500 companies.
Absolutely! The US and Latin America have basically the same time zones. No Latin American city is more than two hours ahead of EST.
Every hire is sourced based on your exact needs. They will arrive ready to support your business right away. They can do basically any tasks done remotely, but we recommend starting them as support so your team has more bandwidth for high-value strategic tasks.
All types of roles - customer service, executive assistant, sales, accounting, email marketing, lead generation, content writers, operations, social media marketing, and more!
You can pay directly through us (most popular) or we can connect you with one of our payroll partners.
You don't have to deal with any American labor laws / taxes when hiring full-time remote contractors. They aren't US-based, so no visas or sponsorships to deal with either.
We recommend market pay which varies for each role. See our salary guide and success stories for some ideas.
Then, we have two different models:
Staffing (most popular) - We charge a small monthly fee for each employee's monthly salary to make the process hassle-free. The fee covers sourcing, recruiting, admin, payroll, compliance, ongoing support, and a free replacement if necessary at any point. There are no cancellation fees or minimum commitments. You only pay if you make a hire.
Headhunting - A one-time simple fee once we've found the perfect candidate. This comes with a 120-day replacement guarantee.
For both options, you only pay something if we find you someone great that you want to hire.
Yes, we only recruit for full-time and we strongly recommend full-time hiring if you can. Stability (full-time & long-term) is highly sought after abroad. The top caliber candidates are only looking for full-time work.
You're also going to spend time training and getting them up to speed on your processes. It would be a waste to do that over and over again with new people all the time.
We recommend training new hires on one thing at a time.
For example, once they get up to speed on lead generation, you can add the next role writing blog posts or whatever you'd like. You can definitely overlap roles until you have enough work for multiple people.
The cost of living is much less in Latin American countries. Many of our employees are able to own homes, raise families, provide for their parents, and have in-home help of their own with their salaries.
If you aren't happy with your hire in the first 120 days, we will work with you to conduct a second round of search for the same role for free.
Just email us at Hello@HireInSouth.com and we will get back to you with an answer as soon as possible.
