How much does an outsourced accounts payable clerk cost?
Bills coded and approved, payments lined up for you to release.
A dedicated, full-time accounts payable clerk from Neon Link costs $2,995 a month, month to month, or $2,895 a month on the 6-month plan, with no setup fee and no charge per invoice. Working remotely from the Philippines or India on your US business hours, they capture and code vendor bills, route approvals in Bill.com, Ramp or your own tool, line up payment runs against cash on hand for you to release, and keep W-9s, 1099s and vendor records current in QuickBooks Online or Xero. It fits businesses and accounting firms with enough bills to fill a full-time week; at low invoice volume, an AP automation tool or a few hours of a bookkeeper's time costs less.
Rates come from our live rate card. Page updated .
See 3 candidate profiles for your role
Tell us the role. Within 48 hours our team emails you 3 anonymized profiles from people who applied for this kind of work with us: their experience, their region and the software they use.
What your Linker handles
- Capture vendor bills from email and Dext or Hubdoc, and code each one to the right account, class and vendor in QuickBooks Online or Xero
- Route every bill for approval in Bill.com, Ramp or your own tool, by the approval limits you set
- Line up payment runs against cash on hand and due dates for you to release; your Linker never releases a payment you have not approved
- Catch duplicate bills and payments, unfamiliar vendors and any vendor asking to change bank details, and raise them with you in writing before money moves
- Keep W-9s and vendor records current, and prepare 1099-NEC and 1099-MISC at year end
- Review the AP aging on your schedule, so every old bill carries a reason and a next step
- Reconcile the bank and card accounts your payments run through every month, and run down anything that does not tie
- Send a short weekly note on bills waiting for approval, payments lined up and anything that needs your decision
We screen for QuickBooks Online or Xero, plus the AP tools that feed them, such as Bill.com, Ramp, Dext or Hubdoc, and NetSuite, Sage Intacct or QuickBooks Desktop where you run them. If a finalist has not used yours, you'll know before they start.
How the work is measured
What your Linker is measured on. The targets are set with you in the first week, from your volumes and your hours, and written into your statement of work.
- Bills entered and routed for approval on the schedule you set, so nothing waits on data entry
- Payment runs ready for your release on your payment calendar
- Duplicates, unfamiliar vendors and bank detail changes flagged before money moves
- The AP aging reviewed on your schedule, with every old bill carrying a reason and a next step
What a team costs
| Team | Month to month | 6-month plan |
|---|---|---|
| 1 Linker | $2,995 | $2,895 |
| 2 Linkers | $5,990 | $5,790 |
| 3 Linkers | $8,985 | $8,685 |
| 4 Linkers | $11,980 | $11,580 |
| 5 Linkers | $14,975 | $14,475 |
| 6 Linkers | $17,970 | $17,370 |
Per month. 40 hours a week per Linker. No setup fee. Prices from our live rate card.
How we vet your Linker
Our recruiting team in the Philippines runs a strict screening and review of every applicant, using a process built by our founder, Dan Betthauser, from twenty years running outsourced operations across the Philippines, Costa Rica and the United States. Every Linker goes through:
- A screen of the application against your role: the work, the software and the experience you need
- A recorded spoken English sample, reviewed by our team
- A practical skills test for your work, scored in our own system
- A live video interview with our recruiting team
- An ID check and a background check: NBI clearance in the Philippines, police clearance in India and Pakistan
- A workspace check before day one: a quiet, private room, wired internet, a backup connection and a plan for power outages
- A signed confidentiality agreement before they see any of your data
- Your own interview with the finalist: nobody starts until you say yes
How it starts
- Step 1Tell us the work: a 15 or 30 minute call with our team, or the sixty second scope on the homepage.
- Step 2Get a written quote at the published rate, held for 30 days.
- Step 3We recruit and screen for your work and your software, and you interview the finalist before they start.
- Step 4Your Linker works your queue on your hours. A Neon Link manager runs the account and answers when you need them.
- Step 5If the fit is wrong in the first 60 days, we swap them at no cost.
A good fit, and not a fit
- Businesses where the owner or controller still codes bills and builds the payment run at night
- Accounting firms running AP for several clients in Bill.com or Ramp that need one more pair of hands
- Finance teams that want someone watching for duplicate payments and bank change requests every day
- Low invoice volume. If your bills take a few hours a week, an AP automation tool or a part-time bookkeeper costs less than a full-time person
- Approving bills or releasing payments. Your Linker lines up the run and you release it
- Large ERP AP departments where three-way purchase order matching is the core of the job. We screen for small and midsize business AP in QuickBooks Online or Xero
Open roles behind this page
We recruit for this work now. These are the live postings we hire your Linker from:
See 3 candidate profiles for your role
Tell us the role. Within 48 hours our team emails you 3 anonymized profiles from people who applied for this kind of work with us: their experience, their region and the software they use.
Questions owners ask
How much does it cost to outsource accounts payable?
$2,995 a month for one dedicated, full-time person (40 hours a week), month to month, or $2,895 a month on the 6-month plan. There is no setup fee, and pay, equipment and management are inside that one number. For comparison, a US bookkeeper costs about $5,870 a month fully loaded, using the BLS median wage plus employer costs.
What does it cost to process one invoice?
APQC, the nonprofit benchmarking group, reported a median total cost of $5.83 to process one invoice across 1,485 organizations, with the best quarter at $2.07 or less and the bottom quarter at $10 or more, in figures published in 2018. That cost is labor, systems, outsourcing and overhead together, so your own number depends on how much of the process is still done by hand.
When is a dedicated AP clerk cheaper than paying per invoice?
Divide $2,995 by the per-invoice fee you are quoted, or by what your own team's time costs per bill. If you process more bills than that each month, one dedicated person costs less per invoice, and the coding, approvals, vendor records and duplicate and bank change checks come with the same flat rate. If you process fewer, an AP tool or a part-time bookkeeper is the better deal.
Can they release payments from our bank?
No. Your Linker uses only the logins you give them, lines up each payment run against cash on hand and due dates, and you release it. They never release a payment you have not approved, and a vendor asking to change bank details is flagged to you before anything moves.
How is this different from hiring a virtual assistant?
You get one dedicated person who handles your work on your hours, inside your software, and a Neon Link manager runs the account: pay, equipment, replacement if it comes to that, and a phone that gets answered. You never run offshore payroll or manage a freelancer alone. It is not a shared pool, a ticket queue or a 24/7 answering line.
How fast can someone start?
We start recruiting when you say go. You interview the finalist before anyone starts, and the start date is set with you once you pick the person. We would rather take the time to find the right fit than hand you whoever is free.
What if the person is not the right fit?
If the fit is wrong in the first 60 days, we swap them at no cost. After that, if they leave, we recruit the replacement at no charge and manage the handover. Training on your process runs at the normal monthly rate.
Do we have to sign a long contract?
No. Month to month is available on every plan. The 6-month plan trades a longer commitment for a lower monthly rate. A written quote at the published rate is held for 30 days.
Sources: APQC benchmarks via CFO.com (2018) (checked Oct 27, 2026).
Related pages
- Accounting & Bookkeeping: Bank recs, AP/AR, workpapers, payroll prep in QBO and Xero. Staffed before busy season.
- QuickBooks bookkeeper for CPA firms: Reconciliations, AP and AR, payroll entries, month end close and monthly reporting in QuickBooks Online, with schedules your CPA can pick up without rework.
- Executive and Admin Assistant: Inbox and calendar, scheduling, records and CRM upkeep, orders and invoices, routine customer and vendor questions and a weekly report.
1 US bookkeeper, fully loaded: ~$5,870/mo How we calculate this
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