How should a bookkeeper review a subcontractor's work?

In layers that relax with demonstrated quality but never disappear: 100% review of reconciliations and unusual entries for the first several months, then sampling — every reconciliation report checked against statements, a rotating deep-dive of one client file per month, and permanent full review of anything touching payroll liabilities, loan splits, or equity. The reviewer, not the preparer, owns the client relationship and the errors.

Do clients need to know a subcontractor works on their books?

Yes, in the engagement letter — a clause permitting the use of assistants under your supervision and confidentiality obligations. Quietly outsourcing client financial data is a breach of trust and, under some professional standards and privacy expectations, of duty. Clients rarely object to disclosed help; they reasonably object to discovering it.

Subcontracting and review work: growing past yourself

Every solo practice that succeeds hits the same wall: the capacity math stops working, rate raises have done what they can, and the next unit of growth requires someone else's hours. The uncomfortable truth about that step: your clients hired your judgment, and a subcontractor dilutes it unless you build a review structure that keeps your judgment on every file. Delegation without review is not growth; it is quality decay with extra payroll.

What to delegate first

Delegate the systematic, keep the judgmental. Good first assignments: transaction categorization under your rules, feed-queue matching (with the discipline from bank-feed hygiene), draft reconciliations, document filing. Keep for yourself, at least initially: the monthly client note, anything the client will read, payroll liabilities, year-end packages for CPAs, and every judgment call the preparer flags.

Classification note in passing: a genuine subcontractor controls their own hours, tools, and methods within your quality standards. If you direct the work like an employee's, the IRS's worker-classification factors may say you have one — with the payroll obligations that follow.

The review layers

The review structure by stage:

Stage	What gets reviewed	Depth
Months 1–3	Everything: every reconciliation, every unusual entry, categorization samples	100%
Months 4–12	All reconciliation reports tied to statements; one full client file deep-dived per month, rotating	High sampling
Ongoing	Recon reports every close; rotating deep-dives; error-rate tracking	Sampling, never zero
Always, forever	Payroll liabilities, loan principal/interest splits, equity entries, anything CPA-bound	100%

Three rules make the table work. Review the evidence, not the assertion — a reconciliation is checked against the bank statement, not against the preparer's confidence. Track error rates by type; recurring errors are a training document, and a rate that will not fall is a hiring answer. And never let deadline pressure convert "reviewed" into "skimmed" — the month you skip sampling is statistically the month it mattered.

The reviewed-preparer structure is also what makes your year-end handoffs stay trustworthy: the CPA relationship in working with the tax accountant was built on your name, and the review layer is how the name keeps meaning something.

Confidentiality and security

Before the first file moves:

A written subcontractor agreement: confidentiality surviving termination, no retention or reuse of client data, your ownership of working papers, and — mirroring your own engagement letters — explicit scope.
Access under your control: accounts you provision and can revoke, least privilege, MFA — the full regime from backup and data security, including the offboarding checklist executed the day the relationship ends.
Client disclosure: an assistants-under-supervision clause in the engagement letter. Disclosed help is normal; discovered help is a trust breach.
Insurance check: confirm your professional-liability policy covers work performed by subcontractors under your review — the coverage questions in bookkeeper liability basics get sharper with every preparer you add.