S&B Private, the offshore accounting firm co-founded by Australian practice owner David Buff, is expanding its capacity to support Australian accounting firms and in-house finance teams facing a deepening talent shortage, offering a dedicated offshore accounting model built by accounting practice owners.
Australia is in the middle of an accounting talent crisis. Industry analysis points to a shortfall of more than 10,000 qualified accountants as of 2026, with 60% of firms already reporting they have turned away new clients due to insufficient staffing. For accounting practice owners, the consequences are immediate: work arriving without qualified staff to complete it, rising salary costs combined with growing retention challenges and partners absorbed in day-to-day client work rather than focusing on strategic initiatives and business development activities.
S&B Private was co-founded in 2018 by David Buff, who built and ran DB Advisory & Co, a tax and advisory practice servicing private businesses, professional services firms, and not-for-profit organisations across Australia, prior to co-founding the offshore firm. David Buff holds a Bachelor of Business (Accounting) from Swinburne University, is a full member of the Institute of Public Accountants, a member of Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand and a Registered Tax Agent.
That practitioner background is central to the S&B Private model. The firm was not designed as a staffing product for the accounting market. It was built from the inside out, by co-founders who understood what a practice owner requires from a team such as deep familiarity with Australian tax legislation and accounting standards, competence across the software platforms that practices operate on including Xero, MYOB, NetSuite, and QuickBooks, and the ability to function as genuine team members rather than trying to manage competing priorities across clients, as is the case with most other offshore models.
“Every accounting firm owner I spoke to had the same problem,” Buff says. “Not enough qualified people and no realistic pipeline of new recruits coming through. You can increase salaries, improve culture and do everything right, yet you still can’t hire your way out of it. The supply simply isn’t there.”
S&B Private operates a dedicated office in Colombo, Sri Lanka. The firm manages recruitment, assessment, background checks, payroll, HR, continuing professional development, technical training, IT infrastructure, and the physical office environment. Clients simply direct their team members’ day-to-day workflow. S&B Private manages everything else.
Weekly technical training in Australian tax and accounting standards is embedded in the S&B Private model which is a reflection of the firm’s founding logic rather than a marketing claim. Data security is managed from Australia by a local MSP. Team members are dedicated rather than drawn from shared resource pools, and senior Australian oversight is a standard requirement across all engagements.
“We built S&B Private to solve a problem we had ourselves,” Buff says. “Every design decision traces back to what we needed as practice owners and couldn’t find. That’s still the test we apply.”
S&B Private works with two distinct client groups: Australian accounting firms seeking to fill talent gaps and strengthen technical capacity without the risks associated with local hiring, and businesses looking to resource in-house finance functions with qualified, dedicated professionals. Client industries include retail, hospitality, technology, property, medical, and not-for-profit sectors.
For accounting firms, the value proposition is direct including access to qualified professionals trained to Australian standards, reduced partner time on work that sits below their level, and the capacity to take on new clients without being constrained by headcount. In Buff’s assessment, firms that have structured offshore capability effectively are the ones currently growing. Those waiting for conditions in the local hiring market to improve are, at best, holding steady.
The structural drivers of the talent shortage including declining enrolments, an ageing practitioner base, and reduced appeal of the profession to new graduates do not resolve on a short timeline. S&B Private’s position is that firms planning on the assumption that local hiring will recover are planning for a market that no longer reflects current conditions.