Yes, it’s true even accountants can find themselves some remote work and start traveling the world as a digital nomad. Of course, it’s fair to say that not every accountant with a remote job is going to want to wander the world, but they could if they wanted to.
If you want to find remote work as an accountant there are opportunities in outsourced finance and in-house accounting. Once you know what you want to do then it’s a question of working your way through the job boards and companies known to offer remote work and we have a list to help you do just that.
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Let’s Tackle US Accounting Remote Jobs First
It’s fair to say the US leads the world when it comes to remote work and accounting is no exception. American accountants are going to find it somewhat easier to find a remote job than say an accountant in Germany or New Zealand. However, that doesn’t mean that it will be a walk in the park either.
Job Boards Which Offer US Accounting Jobs
Accountingfly.com
Accountingfly.com specializes in “cloud accounting jobs” as well as “remote accounting jobs” which sounds great, in theory, but what’s the carryout like? Well, when we conducted our sample test – there were definitely jobs being advertised on the site but sadly, not all that many. There are, perhaps, 5 vacancies a week being listed on Accountingly.com. That means it’s worth checking but you ought not to depend on it for your main job search.
Angel List
Angel list does offer remote accounting work but it’s one of those really annoying job boards that demand you sign up before it shows you anything of interest. Once you do part with your details, you can find a list of accounting work in tech companies with a particular focus on startups – some of which can be done remotely.
Accountant List
This job board is supposed to focus on remote work. It’s not as polished as some of the other accounting job sites and it’s not exactly inundated with opportunities either. However, on the bright side – you know that every job you see on there will have some remote component to it. Accountant List is definitely worth a look.
Indeed
It’s not the greatest looking job board but Indeed has a lot of work advertised on it. However, we’re not convinced that there’s a huge amount of viable remote work there. You’ll need to hunt around carefully to find the opportunities that you seek. Given the volumes of vacancies, you may need to narrow down your search criteria considerably to make it worth the effort or you can use our link above to save some time.
Flexjobs
Flexjobs is one of those job boards we love to hate. They want you to sign up and pay them money to explore your opportunities, though they will show you a hint of what lays behind the paywall, all the real details require money. However, assuming their vacancies are unique to Flexjobs this may not be a bad thing. A small fee ($14.95 a month) will put off a ton of tire-kickers and that ought to mean less competition for each role. Just don’t forget to cancel your sub after you find work.
Remote.co
It’s a remote work job board for sure but in our experience – Remote.co just doesn’t have the traction to draw in large numbers of vacancies. Which is a shame because it’s quite well-designed and far less annoying than some of the other sites. However, they do seem to attract about 4-5 jobs a week in the remote accounting purview and it’s hard to ignore the possibility that they could find the right opportunity for you.
Remote Accounting Jobs
This was built by a digital nomad to promote remote accounting work. However, it’s a curated list rather than a job board and that means you’re relying on the curator to do their job. It certainly can’t hurt to subscribe to Remote Accounting Jobs – it’s another source of data in your job hunt but don’t make it your only source.
Skip The Drive
Skip The Drive is a remote work board that also offers accounting work among the many other professions it covers. One thing we didn’t like about Skip The Drive is that you can’t tell how old a vacancy is at a glance. We know they want to drive clicks and engagement but having to open every post is a bit tedious. Having said that, there’s enough remote accounting work there for it to be a very useful source of work.
We Work Remotely
We Work Remotely is one of the bigger remote work job sites but… it doesn’t specialize in accounting and finance and it shows in the paucity of postings there. The site seems to average 1 remote accounting position a week. That’s not nothing, but it does suggest that you only need to check it once a week at the most.
Upwork
Yes, the Internet’s second-biggest freelancing job board (after freelancer.com), Upwork, does offer freelance, contract, and even remote working accounting opportunities. We can’t imagine any Western-qualified accountant taking them though, these are the scraps that you find under the barrel rather than at the bottom of it. The only reason to take work from here would be if you wound up broke in Cambodia and had to raise money to get home. Don’t bother searching it otherwise.
ZipRecruiter
ZipRecruiter reverts to a local search based on geography, so unsurprisingly there are no remote accounting jobs in Hanoi, Vietnam advertised on there when we ran our search. That doesn’t mean there are no remote accounting jobs at all and it’s possible that even from overseas a VPN might have solved our problem. As is, all we can say is that we’ve heard the do offer remote accounting work but cannot comment on the quality or quantity of such work.
Opportunities In The Rest Of The World
OK, it’s clear that we’re not going to be able to tackle the entire world when it comes to remote accounting opportunities but let’s take a look at a small handful of other countries and their job boards.
The United Kingdom (UK) Remote Work Sites
The UK has a small market for remote working accountants. It’s not as big as that in the United States and your best bet might be to work with a recruitment consultancy to find work in the UK – they often get offered jobs that don’t appear on job sites.
However, you can check out the following boards:
- News Now. We checked and found a few remote accounting jobs there. In fact, it performed better than some of the specialist remote work sites.
- co.uk. The same as Indeed above, in the US section, but focused on the UK.
- One of the bigger recruiting sites in the UK. It’s not a specialist accountancy board but they do have remote work for accountants.
- Cone Accounting. This company specializes in the use of remote workers to manage their accountancy practice. They may not have an immediate vacancy but it’s worth checking them out.
Canada
Our Canadian chums can often find work on the US-focused board but there are Canadian specialist boards too. These include:
- Indeed Canada. Yes, it’s those lovely folks from Indeed again and they’re set to dominate the accounting world when it comes to remote work.
- Simply Hired. This site looks so similar to some of the others that we’ve seen that it must be part of a group or it’s using the same site template as another group. However, there are remote accounting jobs on it and that’s what counts.
- This appears to be Simply Hired in another color scheme, to be honest, but we didn’t check too deeply – it’s possible they have jobs that the other site misses (or maybe not).
- Live CA – Scroll all the way down to the bottom of the landing page to get a feel of what working for this company which does hire remote accountants might be like. If you feel inspired, why not send them your resume?
- Connect CPA – A job board with a tiny number of remote work listings for Canadian accountants but worth checking all the same.
- Xen Accounting – A virtual chartered accountant’s service which does allow for remote working.
Australia
And yes, even Down Under they can find some accounting jobs for remote workers:
- Indeed Australia. Yup, global domination it is for Indeed. We’re impressed with how many vacancies they have in Australia though.
- This seems to be the biggest job board for Australia only, we weren’t very impressed with the volumes of remote opportunities though.
Conclusion
There are plenty of opportunities for accountants to work remotely. This is doubly so if you’re an American accountant.
The lists above ought to be some help in finding the right job for you. However, don’t forget that this is the beginning of the process. You need to apply and interview well in order to land the remote work of your dreams. Good luck with it.