Australian SMEs spend $175,000 to $270,000 per year trying to build an in-house back-office. Valont delivers the same coverage — with deeper expertise and no recruitment risk — from $30,000.
The Reality
A bookkeeper to handle your finances. A payroll and HR officer to manage your people. An IT support person to keep your systems running. A marketing coordinator to drive growth. That's four separate hires, four separate salaries, four sets of recruitment costs — and you become the manager coordinating all of them.
Even if you find great people, you end up with task executors rather than strategic advisors. Nobody connects the dots between your finances, your people, your operations, and your growth. Nobody asks: “If you're hiring three people next quarter, what does that mean for your cash flow?”
The Numbers
Handles day-to-day transaction coding, bank reconciliation, accounts payable and receivable. Limited to data entry — no advisory, no forecasting, no strategic input.
Processes payroll and tries to stay across Award interpretation, leave management, and onboarding. Usually not qualified to advise on Fair Work compliance or HR strategy.
Manages day-to-day tech issues and user support. Rarely has the strategic skills for cybersecurity, business continuity planning, or cloud architecture.
Manages social media and basic content. Typically lacks the depth for SEO strategy, paid media, conversion optimisation, or data-driven growth.
Xero, MYOB, payroll platform, HR platform, antivirus, backup software, marketing tools — each with separate subscriptions, logins, and support contracts.
Advertising roles, interviewing, reference checks, onboarding, training. Repeated every time someone leaves — which happens more often in small teams.
In-House Total
$175K – $270K
per year — before management time
Valont
$30K – $60K
per year — everything included
Beyond Salary
You become the manager. Reviewing work, answering questions, resolving conflicts, and coordinating across roles. That's 5–10 hours per week of your time as the business owner.
When your bookkeeper goes on leave, gets sick, or resigns — everything stops. There's no backup, no knowledge transfer, no continuity. Your BAS deadline doesn't move.
A part-time bookkeeper doesn't know Fair Work rules. Your IT person doesn't understand ATO data security obligations. Nobody connects the compliance dots across functions.
Your bookkeeper doesn't talk to your marketing coordinator. Your IT person doesn't know about upcoming hires. Each role operates in a silo — nobody sees the whole picture.
Salary reviews, super increases, training needs, equipment. The $175K starting cost grows every year, and you still don't have the strategic oversight you actually need.
One person can't be an expert bookkeeper, BAS specialist, cash flow forecaster, and financial advisor. You get task execution without the strategic insight that drives business growth.
The Full Picture
Is This You?
Big enough to need proper back-office support, but not big enough to justify a full internal operations team
You didn't start a business to become a people manager for your bookkeeper, IT person, and marketing coordinator
Before you spend $60K+ on a single operational hire, compare what that investment could deliver through Valont
Scaling businesses that need back-office capacity to grow with them — without the lag of recruitment cycles
The Valont Difference
When you hire individually, each person operates in a silo. With Valont, your Finance, People, Operations, and Growth hubs share data, coordinate strategy, and communicate through a single Trusted Advisor who sees your whole business.
Free tools to compare what you're spending now versus what Valont would cost.
Input your current staff costs, software subscriptions, and management time to see the true cost of your in-house back-office.
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Try it nowFAQ
This comparison is most relevant for Australian SMEs with 5 to 50 employees — businesses large enough to need proper back-office support but not large enough to justify a full internal operations team. If you're currently spending (or thinking about spending) $150K+ on operational hires, this comparison directly applies to you.
Yes. Valont is structured around four integrated hubs — Finance, People, Operations, and Growth — each staffed by specialists. Instead of hiring generalists who do a bit of everything, you get deep expertise in every function, coordinated by a single Trusted Advisor who understands your whole business.
Your Trusted Advisor becomes your single point of contact for everything. They know your business, your preferences, your goals. Many clients find this relationship is deeper than what they had with individual hires, because the advisor sees the complete picture rather than just one function.
Valont works alongside existing team members. If you have a bookkeeper you love, we can build around them and fill the gaps in HR, IT, marketing, and strategic finance. The service is modular — you choose which hubs you need.
We run a structured onboarding process that typically takes 2 to 4 weeks. We handle the knowledge transfer, system migration, and process documentation. Many clients overlap Valont with existing staff for a transition period to ensure nothing is missed.
No. Valont operates on a month-to-month basis. There are no long-term contracts, no exit fees, and no lock-in periods. If it's not working, you can leave at any time. We earn your business every month.
Most multi-hub clients pay between $2,500 and $5,500 per month depending on scope, complexity, and which hubs they need. That's $30,000 to $66,000 per year — compared to $175,000 to $270,000+ for equivalent in-house hires.
Any Australian SME that needs back-office support but finds it hard to justify or manage multiple individual hires. We work across trades and construction, professional services, healthcare, hospitality, retail, manufacturing, and many more.
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