Frequently Asked Questions: Outsourcing

A wide range of accounting and back-office functions can be partially or fully outsourced to a professional provider in Malaysia, covering everything from daily bookkeeping to strategic financial advisory.

Bookkeeping and transactions we manage include:

• Daily ledger postings, journal entries, and bank reconciliations
• Accounts payable and accounts receivable management
• Expense claims, accruals, prepayments, and fixed asset registers

On the reporting and compliance side, outsourcing covers monthly, quarterly, and annual management accounts, MFRS-compliant statutory financial statements, and Malaysian Business Reporting System (MBRS) submissions.

Tax and payroll functions frequently outsourced include corporate tax computation and filing, SST and withholding tax compliance, payroll processing, and statutory contributions such as EPF, SOCSO, and EIS.

For businesses that need more strategic support, outsourcing can extend to virtual CFO services, budgeting, cash flow forecasting, and chart of accounts design. InCorp Malaysia structures these services so you can outsource a single function or your entire finance operation, scaling the scope as your business grows.

Outsourcing your accounting in Malaysia lowers operating costs, removes the burden of hiring and retaining in-house staff, and keeps your business compliant with the Companies Act, LHDN tax rules, and the phased e-Invoicing mandate. It also gives you access to certified professionals and modern cloud accounting software without the overhead of building an internal team.

Cost and resource savings:

• Avoid full-time salaries, EPF, SOCSO, and other statutory benefits
• Replace unpredictable software and training costs with one fixed monthly fee
• Remove the recruitment and retention risk tied to a single in-house hire

Compliance and expertise:

• Accurate, MFRS-compliant financial statements with audit-ready documentation
• Guidance through SST, corporate tax, and e-Invoicing obligations under LHDN
• Support from a full team of qualified accountants rather than one generalist

Scalability and focus:

• Scale support up or down as your business grows or enters new markets
• Free up internal time to focus on revenue-generating work
• Real-time visibility through cloud platforms such as Xero and Bukku

For Malaysian SMEs in particular, this combination of savings, compliance confidence, and expert bandwidth is why outsourcing accounting has become the practical alternative to building an internal finance function from scratch.

For SMEs, the biggest value of outsourcing accounting is risk reduction combined with access to a full team, rather than just cost savings on their own.

Malaysian SMEs face a growing list of statutory obligations, including LHDN tax filings, SSM filing deadlines, SST returns, and the phased rollout of mandatory e-Invoicing. Getting any one of these wrong carries financial penalties, and a single in-house hire is rarely across every update at once. An outsourced accounting team spreads that regulatory awareness across specialists in tax, payroll, and statutory reporting, so compliance doesn’t rest on one person’s knowledge.

On the resourcing side, outsourcing replaces the fixed cost of full-time salaries, EPF, SOCSO, and benefits with a predictable monthly fee, and removes the disruption that comes with an internal accountant resigning or going on leave. It also gives SMEs access to MFRS-compliant reporting, virtual CFO input, and cloud accounting tools that would otherwise require hiring more senior and more expensive in-house talent. As the business grows, the level of support scales with it, without a fresh hiring cycle each time.

We implement strict data protection policies, utilise secure systems, and enter confidentiality agreements to safeguard your information.  

We work with various industry-standard accounting software, including XERO and BUKKU, ensuring the tools align with your needs.  

We deliver tailor-made reports designed to meet your business requirements.  

If you have any additional questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us for expert support. 

The right outsourcing partner is the one that combines certified accounting expertise, strong data security, and genuine familiarity with Malaysian compliance requirements such as LHDN tax rules, SSM filings, SST, and e-Invoicing under the MyInvois system, rather than simply the biggest name in the market.

When evaluating providers, look for:

• A team of certified accountants, not just data-entry staff
• Proven experience with MFRS-compliant reporting, MBRS submissions, and statutory audits
• Up-to-date knowledge of SST, payroll statutory contributions (EPF, SOCSO, EIS), and the phased e-Invoicing rollout
• Cloud accounting capability on platforms such as Xero or Bukku for real-time visibility
• Clear data protection practices backed by confidentiality agreements

InCorp Malaysia is built around exactly this combination: a regional advisory group with corporate secretarial, tax, and accounting specialists under one roof, so your outsourced accounting is handled alongside your compliance and secretarial obligations rather than in isolation. For businesses comparing options, it’s worth requesting a proposal that clearly separates bookkeeping, reporting, tax, and payroll pricing, so you can see exactly what you’re paying for.

Outsourced accounting fees in Malaysia typically range from around RM300 to RM3,000 or more per month for small and medium enterprises, depending mainly on transaction volume, the complexity of your business, and whether you need basic bookkeeping or full financial reporting and advisory support.

As a general guide:

• Low transaction volume (under 50-65 entries per month): roughly RM300 to RM1,000 per month
• Medium volume (up to around 200 transactions per month): roughly RM1,200 to RM1,800 per month
• High volume or more complex businesses: RM2,000 to RM5,000 or more per month

Several factors influence where your business falls within this range, including whether work such as SST filing, payroll, and tax computation is bundled in or billed separately, how digitised your existing records are, and compliance requirements like e-Invoicing readiness under LHDN’s MyInvois system. Businesses that maintain clean digital records, or handle initial data entry themselves, often see lower monthly fees.

Because pricing depends heavily on your specific transaction volume and scope, the most accurate way to know your cost is a short consultation where we review your current setup and quote a fixed monthly fee, so there are no hourly billing surprises.

Bookkeeping is the transactional foundation everything else in your finance function is built on, so outsourcing it well has a direct effect on how accurate and audit-ready your books stay throughout the year.

Handing daily bookkeeping to a specialist team means every sale, purchase, payment, and receipt is entered, classified, and reconciled on a consistent schedule, rather than being batched and rushed before a filing deadline. This matters in Malaysia specifically because SST returns, corporate tax computations, and e-Invoicing submissions under LHDN’s MyInvois system all depend on clean, current transaction data. Errors at the bookkeeping stage tend to surface later as SST discrepancies or reconciliation problems at year-end.

Cost-wise, outsourced bookkeeping replaces a full-time clerk’s salary, EPF, and SOCSO contributions with one fixed monthly fee, while also giving you access to cloud platforms such as Xero or Bukku that most single in-house hires wouldn’t set up on their own. For growing SMEs, this also means the bookkeeping function scales automatically with transaction volume, without you needing to hire, train, or replace staff as the business expands.

For most small and medium businesses in Malaysia, yes, outsourcing works out significantly cheaper than hiring internally, once you account for the full cost of an employee, not just the salary.

A full-time internal accounts staff member typically costs a base salary plus EPF, SOCSO, EIS, annual leave, medical benefits, and training, along with the cost of accounting software licences and the time spent on recruitment if that person leaves. Outsourcing replaces all of this with one predictable monthly fee that already includes access to a full team of qualified professionals rather than a single generalist.

The comparison isn’t only about cost, though. Internal hires bring day-to-day availability and deep familiarity with your business, while outsourcing brings broader expertise, backup coverage when someone is on leave, and built-in awareness of changing LHDN, SST, and e-Invoicing requirements. Many growing businesses in Malaysia use a hybrid model, keeping light internal oversight while outsourcing the bulk of bookkeeping, reporting, and compliance work to a specialist provider such as InCorp Malaysia.