Paro.io is a US-based company specializing in matching businesses with highly-vetted financial experts. From finding part-time cover for day-to-day bookkeeping tasks to hiring a CFO, Paro can find you the perfect financial expert for the role.
The company has been in operation since 2015. Their headquarters is based in Chicago, US, and all of their staff and financial experts are based in the US.
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About Paro.io
The company is headed up by founder and CEO, Michael Burdick, and Director of Finance, Dan Wywrot. Their directive is to “match you to the exact finance experts you need based on industry, experience, and technology fit.”
Their business model is straightforward: Paro connects clients with experienced financial experts. They do all the “middleman” work, such as recruiting, screening, and introducing professionals to businesses.
Having a gap in your financial team can be costly to your business, and recruiting someone to fill that gap also costs money.
Clients turn to Paro as a solution, both to fill a role quickly and keep on top of their business’s financials, and save some of the time and costs involved with recruiting.
Paro says they have curated an elite network of finance experts. So, whatever financial assistance you need within your business, it’s worth contacting Paro to see if they can find you your ideal candidate.
How Paro Works
Paro offers a bespoke, personalized service. To get started, there is a short questionnaire to fill out. This provides their team with:
- your company size
- the financial role you want to fill
- what industry you’re in
Once they receive this information, a member of their team will call you to discuss your requirements in more detail.
They will then handpick a few candidates they believe are best-suited to handle your tasks. After reading their resumes, if you find a candidate you want to hire, they’ll put you in touch.
Services
If you don’t have the financial skills or manpower within your own team, Paro will find and supply any number of financial experts you need.
To give you an idea of the roles and core skillsets Paro focus on, when you first make contact with them, they ask which of the following roles you’re looking to fill:
- Bookkeeper
- Accountant
- Financial Analyst
- Part-time CFO
- Controller
Broadly speaking, this covers most financial roles for small to medium-sized businesses. If you’re looking to fill a role that isn’t on the list, as long as it’s finance-related, Paro want to hear from you.
Plans and Pricing
Paro does not have any set plans or pricing; they evaluate each hire on a case-by-case basis.
The only pricing information Paro makes available is their buyout fee. This fee is equal to 25% of the experts’ annualized marketplace pay rate or $25,000, whichever is higher.
Paro Alternatives
Paro is unique in offering highly skilled financial hires remotely, and clearly targets a fast-growing or larger business — as opposed to a solopreneur or owner-operator.
If you’re looking for remote bookkeeping services, there are a few more options to choose from, including Bench.co. For other accounting and financial roles on a part-time or project basis, you might consider a curated freelance platform like FreeeUp.
Your Turn
Have you worked with Paro? If so, please share a quick review of your experience below to help others with their decision.
Paro overbilled us by $2,500. STAY AWAY!
My holding company hired Paro, which is a finance staffing agency, to find us a bookkeeping company for our business to perform cleanup work for prior periods.
Prior to signing an agreement with Paro, we provided them with all of our bank records for all prior years that would be used to create the statement of work and range of hours for work to be performed.
Paro then provided us with a statement of work and agreement to sign, which provided a range of hours for the services to be performed between 10-15 hours at an hourly rate of $120, which at most, the invoice for the final work should have been $1,800.
Unfortunately, the final invoice amount for the services was 36 hours or $4,320.
When we complained, Paro only offered a $700 credit.
We chose to hire a finance staffing agency to avoid overbilling issues with a new bookkeeping service, which we expressed to them prior to signing the contract. When the overbilled invoice was sent to us, rather than attempting to hold the bookkeeping company to the estimated hourly range that they provided to us in the agreement, Paro chose to stand behind the vendor and not us, the customer.