Accounting & Finance Staffing in New York, NY

Contract accountants bill at a loaded hourly rate. Direct-hire placements run a percentage of first-year base, usually 20% to 25% depending on role seniority and the New York market. We quote the number upfront.

No padded fees, no surprise line items, and every direct-hire placement carries a replacement guarantee. A senior accountant on the Upper East Side prices differently than the same title in Queens, so we work from real local comps instead of a national flat rate. According to the BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, accountant and auditor employment is projected to keep growing through 2033, which keeps wage pressure real in a high-cost market like New York.

Average time-to-fill across our placements over the past 12 months is 17 days. Staff accountants trend shorter. Senior, controller, and multi-entity searches trend longer.

The biggest driver isn’t sourcing speed. It’s interview cadence. New York teams that run one 30-minute screen in the first 48 hours close searches fastest. Teams that book interviews three weeks out tend to watch their first choice take another offer, often from a fintech two blocks away that ran a tighter loop, moved on the same candidate, and had a signed letter out the door before the slower team finished scheduling round two.

All of it. We actively place across Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Long Island City, and out into Westchester and the northern suburbs, not just the Midtown core.

The finance talent pool clusters by industry corridor here. Buy-side and banking sit in Midtown and the Financial District, media and consumer brands run through Brooklyn, and corporate back offices stretch up the Metro-North line. Our recruiters know which employers are hiring in each one and which commutes quietly kill an otherwise great offer. We support hybrid and remote New York teams too.

Local recruiters understand your market the way a national firm working from regional averages can’t. We know New York comp bands, the active candidate pool, and the employers people are quietly leaving.

National firms operate from playbooks built for the median city. We operate from relationships built in this specific market since 2005, which means we usually know which controllers are quietly open to a call, which firms just lost a VP of finance, and which counteroffers are coming before the candidate even thinks to mention them. The licensed-CPA pipeline here runs through bodies like the New York State Society of CPAs, and that tighter, pricier pool shows up in every New York offer. When a private equity firm and a media agency both need a senior accountant, those are two different searches, and we treat them that way.

Yes, and they’re two of our most common New York searches. Fund accounting roles need NAV, waterfall, and capital-call experience. Real estate finance roles need ASC 842 lease accounting, CAM reconciliations, and property-level reporting.

Those skill sets don’t overlap much, so we keep separate benches for them. A staff accountant who has only ever closed a SaaS subscription ledger is not a drop-in for a fund accountant at a Midtown PE shop, and we won’t pretend otherwise. For finance leadership in these sectors, see CFO staffing and VP of finance staffing.

Hire contract when the work has a finite window, like audit prep, an ERP migration, leave coverage, or a restatement. Hire direct when the seat is permanent and you need someone to build institutional knowledge.

Contract-to-hire splits the difference when you want a working trial, or when the work is already on the desk but headcount approval is still in motion. Most New York transitions favor a blended approach, and we’ll map it with you on the intake call. The New York State Education Department’s Office of the Professions sets the CPA licensing rules our candidates work under, and we verify status before submittal.