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Galway practices are winning more clients, meeting tighter deadlines, and cutting costs by up to 60%. The secret is outsourcing accounting production to India. Here is everything you need to know.
Galway is one of Ireland’s most exciting business cities. Home to global medtech leaders, ICT companies, and a thriving university-driven innovation ecosystem, the city has built a reputation as a place where ambitious businesses come to grow. NUI Galway’s strong talent pipeline and the region’s quality of life continue to attract investment from multinationals and Irish founders alike.
But inside Galway’s accounting practices, a very different conversation is happening. Partners who should be talking about growth are instead talking about how to find the next qualified accountant, how to manage the workload until someone starts in September, and how to explain to a new client that the firm cannot take them on right now because it simply does not have the capacity.
Sound familiar? You are not alone. Across Galway and the wider West of Ireland, accounting practices of every size are feeling the squeeze of a talent market that is tight, expensive, and showing no sign of improving on its own.
The good news is that a growing number of Galway accounting practices have found a better answer than waiting for the next CV to land. They are outsourcing their accounting production work to India, freeing their in-house team for the client-facing, high-value work that actually grows the practice. And they are doing it at a fraction of what a new Irish hire would cost.
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This blog explains what outsourced accounting services mean specifically for Galway practices, why India works so well as a partner for Irish firms, and how Lekhawekha makes the whole process straightforward, secure, and genuinely impactful.Â
Galway in Numbers 2026 Galway hosts one third of Ireland’s medical device employees and is home to some of the world’s most successful ICT companies. The city’s SME sector is one of the most dynamic in Ireland, with demand for professional accounting services growing steadily year on year. At the same time, 74% of Irish and UK accounting firms cannot take on additional clients due to staff shortages. (Advancetrack 2026 Accounting Talent Index). The accounting practices that are finding a way around this are outsourcing. |
Galway is not Dublin. That statement might seem obvious, but it matters a great deal when you are trying to recruit accounting staff. The city punches well above its weight economically, but its talent pool is genuinely smaller, and competition for that talent is intense.
Galway’s strong medtech cluster, which employs around one third of Ireland’s medical device workforce, and its growing ICT base create consistent demand for finance and accounting professionals at every level. These employers offer structured career development, generous packages, and the security of a large multinational brand. For smaller accounting practices competing for the same talent pool, it is a genuinely difficult environment.
NUI Galway and ATU Galway produce a steady stream of accounting and finance graduates each year. But a significant proportion of those graduates head to Dublin or abroad after qualifying, drawn by higher salaries and the concentration of Big Four and mid-tier firm offices in the capital. Galway practices often find themselves training people who leave before their investment in that person has had a chance to pay back.
Salaries for accounting professionals in Galway have risen sharply in recent years as local employers compete with Dublin-level packages from multinationals with Galway offices. A qualified accountant in Galway now typically costs €55,000 to €70,000 in salary alone, with total employment costs, including employer PRSI at 11.25%, pension contributions, and overheads, pushing that figure well above €75,000 per year for a single hire.
Galway’s client base has become more sophisticated. Medtech companies, tech startups, agri-food businesses, tourism operators, and professional services firms all have increasingly complex accounting needs, from R&D tax credit workpapers and Corporation Tax at 12.5% to VAT compliance, PAYE Modernisation, and the new MyFutureFund auto-enrolment obligations that came into effect from January 2026. More complexity means more staff hours needed just to stand still.
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The Broader Picture 94% of accounting firm leaders globally say talent and recruitment challenges will significantly limit their capacity for growth. (Advancetrack 2026). In Galway, where the talent pool is smaller and competition from large employers is intense, that pressure is felt even more acutely than in the national average. |
There is sometimes a misconception that outsourcing accounting means handing your clients over to someone else. It does not. Outsourcing accounting production means engaging a professional team in India to do the preparation work, while your Galway-based partners and managers retain full control over review, sign-off, and client relationships.
Think of it as adding a highly skilled, cost-effective production team that works alongside your existing staff, not instead of them.
Here is how the day-to-day workflow looks in practice:
The outsourcing partner handles production. Your Galway team handles the parts that require local knowledge, professional judgement, and client trust. It is a genuinely complementary arrangement, and it is exactly the model that the Big Four and many leading Irish mid-tier firms have been operating for years.
The scope of services that can be professionally outsourced covers essentially the full production function of a Galway accounting practice:
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Service Area | What Your Outsourcing Team Handles |
Year-End Statutory Accounts | FRS 102 and FRS 105 financial statements, notes to accounts, directors’ report support, CRO-ready files |
Corporation Tax Workpapers | CT1 computation schedules, capital allowances, R&D tax credit workpapers (enhanced to 35% from Budget 2026) |
Bookkeeping and Ledger Work | Transaction coding, bank reconciliations, AP/AR management, general ledger journals, petty cash |
VAT Compliance Support | Bi-monthly VAT return workpapers, reconciliation schedules, Intrastat, VIES, RCT subcontractor filings |
Payroll Processing | PAYE Modernisation, MyFutureFund auto-enrolment, P30 reconciliations, ERR reporting, payslip prep |
Management Accounts | Monthly P&L, balance sheet, cash flow statements, debtors and creditors ageing, KPI packs |
Income Tax Workpapers | Form 11 preparation for sole traders, partnerships, and proprietary directors |
Audit Support | Audit file preparation, analytical review schedules, working paper organisation |
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All services are delivered on your existing platforms. Whether you use Xero, QuickBooks, Sage, Big Red Cloud, TAS, or Surf Accounts, your outsourcing team works within your systems. No migration, no disruption, no change to how your clients experience working with you.
Here is a realistic cost comparison built on current Galway and West of Ireland salary data:
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Cost Element | In-House Hire (Galway) | Lekhawekha Outsourcing |
Base salary (qualified accountant) | €55,000 to €70,000 p.a. | €14,000 to €22,000 p.a. equivalent |
Employer PRSI (11.25%) | €6,188 to €7,875 | Not applicable |
Pension contribution (5%) | €2,750 to €3,500 | Not applicable |
Annual leave cover (22 days paid) | Work pauses during leave | Continuous output maintained |
Sick leave and absence risk | Unpredictable direct cost | Zero impact on delivery |
CPD, training and software licences | €2,000 to €3,500 p.a. | Included in service fee |
Recruitment (agency fee if used) | €8,250 to €14,000 one-off | Zero |
TOTAL ANNUAL COST (one qualified role) | €74,000 to €99,000 | €14,000 to €22,000 |
Estimated annual saving per role | See note below | €52,000 to €77,000 (55 to 70%) |
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Those figures represent one role. Galway practices that outsource the equivalent of two qualified roles are freeing between €100,000 and €150,000 per year in cost. For most practices, that money is the difference between a comfortable year and a genuinely profitable one. It is also the capital that could fund a new service line, a better technology stack, or simply allow the partners to stop working at weekends.
When Irish accounting firms explore outsourcing, the question is always where, not whether. And for a Galway practice in 2026, India is consistently the answer that makes the most sense. Here is why.
India produces approximately 100,000 Chartered Accountants every single year. Many are trained in IFRS and UK and Irish GAAP, with specific experience working for UK and Irish accounting firms. This is not a small, niche workforce. It is the world’s largest professional accounting talent pool, built and refined over decades of serving English-speaking markets.
Qualified accounting professionals in India cost €8 to €15 per hour on a fully loaded basis. Compare that to €34 to €50 per hour for a qualified accountant in Galway, including all employer costs. That gap is rooted in fundamental economic differences between the two countries, and it is not going to close anytime soon. It is a structural advantage that Galway practices can rely on for the long term.
India runs 4.5 to 5.5 hours ahead of Irish Standard Time. That means work you send at 5pm in Galway is in production overnight and sitting in your review queue when you arrive at the office in the morning. In practice, this effectively doubles your firm’s productive capacity without extending your working day or adding a single desk to your office.
Leading Indian outsourcing firms are proficient across all the major platforms used by Irish practices. Xero, QuickBooks, Sage, Big Red Cloud, TAS, and Surf Accounts are all standard tools for a well-run outsourcing operation. There is no retraining budget, no onboarding delay, and no disruption to the way your practice already works.
EY, KPMG, Deloitte, PwC, RSM, BDO, and Grant Thornton all operate large India-based accounting teams. EY itself has a significant presence in Galway through which it serves clients across Connacht and the northwest. Outsourcing to India is not an experimental idea. It is the established operating model of the most sophisticated accounting practices in the world. Galway practices can now access exactly the same model through Lekhawekha.
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The Challenge in Your Practice | How Outsourcing from India Solves It |
Cannot take on new clients because the team is full | Add a qualified production team in 2 to 4 weeks. No Irish hire needed. |
Galway salary costs are eating into practice margins | Replace €74,000 to €99,000 all-in cost with €14,000 to €22,000 outsourced equivalent |
Partner time consumed by compliance production work | Partners focus on clients, advisory, and growth. India team handles the production. |
A key person left and recruitment is taking months | Outsourcing team covers immediately. No gap in client delivery, no fire-fighting. |
Year-end backlog growing every busy season | Scale production volume for October to January without adding permanent headcount |
Newer staff making errors because workload is too heavy | Structured quality control process on every file. Fewer errors, not more. |
Want to offer advisory but no capacity to develop it | Free your qualified Galway staff for exactly the advisory work clients will pay more for |
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Every Galway practice we speak to asks the same first question: what about our clients’ data? It is the right question to ask, and the honest answer is that data security and GDPR compliance are completely manageable with the right partner in place.
Under GDPR Article 28, when you engage a third party to process personal data on your behalf, you need a Data Processing Agreement (DPA) in place before any data is shared. A professional outsourcing partner will provide this as a standard part of their engagement setup, establishing clear legal responsibilities for how your client data is handled, stored, and protected.
Client files should never travel via standard email. All data exchange should happen through encrypted portals with multi-factor authentication. Look for outsourcing partners who hold ISO 27001 certification, which is the internationally recognised standard for information security management and demonstrates that their security practices are independently audited.
The cleanest model for Galway practices is one where your outsourcing team works via remote access to your own systems, whether that is your cloud accounting platform or your firm’s own server environment. In this model, client data never actually leaves Ireland. Your outsourcing team works inside your systems, not theirs.
All Lekhawekha staff are bound by non-disclosure agreements and formal confidentiality policies before they see a single piece of client data. Access is granted on a strictly need-to-know basis, and we operate a dedicated team model, meaning the same people handle your accounts throughout the engagement, not a rotating pool of shared workers.
GDPR Checklist Before You Start Before you share any client data with an outsourcing partner, confirm: (1) A GDPR Article 28 compliant Data Processing Agreement is signed. (2) The partner holds ISO 27001 certification or an equivalent security framework. (3) All data exchange uses encrypted channels with MFA. (4) Staff are bound by NDAs and have documented GDPR training. (5) The remote access model keeps data on your systems, not theirs. (6) You have references from UK or Irish accounting practices currently using their services. |
Most client engagement letters already include a general sub-contracting clause, which is all that is legally required. You do not need to name specific sub-contractors. In practice, most Galway practices find that clients care about quality, turnaround time, and communication, not about where production work is prepared. Many large Irish firms have been outsourcing to India for years without any client friction.
With the right partner, yes absolutely. Lekhawekha's team has specific training in FRS 102, FRS 105, Corporation Tax, PAYE Modernisation, Revenue VAT, CRO filings, MyFutureFund auto-enrolment, and ERR. We understand the Irish compliance calendar and the way Irish practices work, not just generic international standards.
With preparation in place, 2 to 4 weeks from first contact to first completed files is realistic for a standard bookkeeping or year-end accounts engagement. The free trial can begin within days of your initial conversation.
This is exactly what the trial is for. You evaluate quality before committing. Once you are live, our service-level agreement includes defined revision rights and turnaround times for any queries or corrections. In our experience, the structured review process most practices put in place actually catches more errors than a pressured in-house team working to a tight deadline.
Absolutely. Most Galway practices that work with us start with a small cohort of straightforward client files and progressively expand the scope over 3 to 6 months. There is no minimum volume commitment and no lock-in. You scale at the pace that makes sense for your practice.
At Lekhawekha, we work exclusively with UK and Irish accounting practices. That focus matters. We are not a generalist outsourcing company that happens to do some accounting on the side. We are accounting professionals who have built our service model around the specific requirements of Irish practices and Irish clients.
Here is what Galway practices tell us matters most when they choose us:
Ready to talk about what outsourcing could do for your practice? Visit lekhawekha.com and explore what we do for accounting practices across Ireland. Book your free 30-minute consultation today and tell us about your practice. We will walk you through how the model works, answer every question you have about compliance and data security, and give you a clear, honest quote. No pressure, no sales pitch. Just a straightforward conversation about whether this makes sense for your firm. |
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