Updated 9/14/2026
Whether it’s accounting or payroll, we often hear small business owners say they want to be hands-off. We get it. You’re busy. That’s why you’re outsourcing!
However, “hands-off” is almost never fully hands-off. Services often rely on some information or participation from the owner. Let’s talk about what that looks like at CSI.
At CSI Accounting & Payroll, we’ve provided “hands-off” services to small business owners for 60 years. That means we’ve answered thousands of questions about what that means, including:
- When do I need to be most hands-on?
- What is hands-off accounting with CSI? What is it not?
- What is hands-off payroll with CSI? What is it not?
When to Be Most Hands-On
If you can pick any time at all to be hands-on, let it be during onboarding and when we reach out with a question.
That's because we can’t provide any of our services to you if you don’t give us the information and online access we need.
Please note that this is the bare minimum, and it isn’t how you’d get the most value out of our services. Let me explain more in the next section.
Hands-Off Accounting: What It Is & Isn't
For our monthly accounting service, we treat “hands-off” as taking as much work off your plate as possible while providing as much insight into your business as possible.
If you want to completely “set it and forget it,” we may be a more in-depth accounting solution than you’re looking for. Take this quiz to see which accounting solution is ideal for your business!
We’ve seen prospects who want to be fully hands-off and ones who want to be fully hands-on. We aren’t a good fit for either extreme. Let’s discuss what “hands-off” accounting is, and what it isn’t.
What Hands-Off Accounting Is
After accounting onboarding, “hands-off” can just be responding to your accountant’s calls or emails. As long as we maintain access to online accounts and can get any bookkeeping or tax questions answered, we’re all set.
However, if you want to maximize the value of monthly accounting, we highly encourage you to:
- Attend regular meetings and tax strategy meetings.
- Listen to your accountant’s proactive advice.
- Use your accountant as a sounding board for business decisions.
(Essentially, you’ll get out what you put in.)
What Hands-Off Accounting Is Not
As I stated earlier, hands-off doesn’t mean you sign up and walk away. Access to your financial data is required when working with a financial service like monthly accounting.
Hands-off also doesn’t mean that we’ll go beyond our service offerings. That means (if applicable):
- You make your own deposits.
- You enter and pay your own bills.
- You handle your invoicing and collections.
- You handle your job costing.
- You manage your inventory.
- For accrual accounting, you track your payables and receivables in QBO.
Learn more about the things we don’t handle in our monthly accounting service.
Hands-Off Payroll: What It Is & Isn't
Many people assume payroll is a completely hands-off service. However, payroll can vary – a lot – and ensuring your data is accurate can take some work. Let’s discuss what “hands-off” payroll is – and what it isn’t.
What Hands-Off Payroll Is
After payroll onboarding, “hands off” can just be reporting each payroll’s data per employee (or paying an additional fee for data entry), then approving it.
If there’s any data that varies (such as hours worked or commissions), then we need you to share it with us. However, you could automate payroll if it’s just the owner’s salary. No preview is necessary, but you’d have a cutoff date to notify us of any changes to each payroll.
Then, as long as you respond to your payroll specialist’s calls or emails if they have questions, you don’t need to worry about the rest!
What Hands-Off Payroll Is Not
Hands-off payroll doesn’t mean data entry is included. At least, not for free. Because this is labor-intensive for a payroll provider, it’s rare to find this service.
It also doesn’t mean you can skip previewing your payroll (unless you’re able to automate it as described above). We require clients to approve their payroll to avoid mistakes, like continuing to pay a terminated employee because you didn't notify your payroll specialist and weren’t looking at your payroll preview.
If you have complicated payroll, it will never be hands-off. We can’t handle complicated processes that vary by business since we work with hundreds of businesses at the same time. That means we won’t go beyond our service offerings. If applicable:
- You need to calculate your commissions.
- You need to track and report divvied up pooled tips.
- You need to add up timecards or pull hours from your timekeeping system, then enter or upload them into ours. Otherwise, our iSolved timekeeping system automatically enters your hours into our system.
- You need to flag overtime hours. This isn’t as clear as it seems! For example, if you report 85 hours for a biweekly period, we can’t assume it’s five hours of overtime. It could be 10 overtime hours for one week and none for the other. You need to specify.
- You need to report fringe benefits to unions.
- You need to track and calculate per pay deductions from monthly invoicing. A common example is health insurance premiums.
Be as “Hands-Off” as Possible!
Now that you know that you need to be most hands-on for onboarding and when your experts have a question, plus what “hands-off” looks like (and doesn’t look like) for accounting and payroll services, are you ready to check out CSI Accounting & Payroll?
To see if we can be a good fit for your business, click the button below for a free consultation:
Not ready to talk? That’s okay! First, try our pricing calculator to get an idea of what your monthly accounting and per-payroll costs might be:
