Japan outsourcing service (BPO for bookkeeping/accounting/tax/payroll/etc.) MARUNAGEKANRI.

The skills and experience required for accounting, labor relations, recruitment, and legal affairs differ for each area, making it difficult to hire someone with expertise in all of them. Therefore, it has traditionally been common for companies to have several people handle these responsibilities internally.

Furthermore, due to the complexity of tax filings and labor management, it is still common practice to outsource these tasks to external tax accountants and social insurance and labor consultants. Typically, the tax accountant handles only tax matters, while the social insurance and labor consultant handles only labor matters.

However, tasks like payroll calculation and year-end tax adjustments, which involve both tax and labor aspects, often lead to confusion: “Who should I ask about this?” Additionally, when consulting a tax accountant, you might be told, “Please ask your social insurance consultant” (and vice versa).

Except for very large firms, even those advertising “We can introduce you to our affiliated social insurance and labor consultants (tax accountants)” typically refer clients to separate companies. Since these are not affiliated groups, the reality is that contact points remain separate, making it almost identical to engaging two distinct firms.

With MARUNAGEKANRI, tax accountants, social insurance and labor consultants, judicial scriveners, etc., form a single group. By consolidating the point of contact, the telephone game disappears, and you no longer have to wonder who to ask. Clients only need to make the minimum necessary judgments, confirmations, approvals, and document sharing. You won’t even need to give instructions or worry, drastically reducing the effort and man-hours spent on back-office tasks.

Of course, you can handle some tasks in-house and outsource specific functions like accounting or labor affairs. Alternatively, you can entrust all operations to us if desired.
We aim to provide the optimal solution tailored to your needs, eliminating unnecessary hassle for you.

No matter how excellent a service may be, if it’s costly or of poor quality, no one will use it.
At MARUNAGEKANRI, our overwhelmingly streamlined operational methods—developed through experience designing and improving processes for over 500 companies—enable our specialists to work efficiently without waste. This allows us to achieve higher precision in less time than ever before, making low-cost service provision possible.

As a result, we’ve established a pricing structure that reduces costs for companies compared to hiring full-time or part-time employees, utilizing temporary staff, or outsourcing to tax accountants or social insurance consultants.

Roughly speaking, hiring one full-time or part-time employee to handle accounting and HR tasks typically doesn’t include tax filing. Therefore, companies usually need to hire an external tax accountant as a consultant to handle year-end tax filings. Depending on the company size, this can cost approximately 5 million yen per year.

When hiring as an in-house employee, costs generally increase by about 20-25% beyond the gross salary, including the company’s share of social insurance premiums, office rent, and other expenses. Factoring in recruitment and training costs reveals the expense is often higher than anticipated.

MARUNAGEKANRI not only handles these tasks at an industry-leading low price—less than one-third of such costs—but also ensures high quality through supervision by certified professionals.
Try outsourcing just a portion of your tasks to MARUNAGEKANRI first. You’ll quickly recognize the quality and cost-effectiveness.

We believe that paying for something you don’t need is a waste, no matter how inexpensive it may be. This is based on the fundamental principle that you pay for something because you received it or purchased it.
Marunage Kanri provides only the services our clients need, only when they need them, only for the necessary tasks, and only in the required amount. In the aviation industry, you might think of LCCs as an easy comparison.

Traditional ‘flat-rate advisory fees’ that accrue even when no work is performed are akin to insurance premiums or bodyguard fees. You pay monthly for the assurance of having someone to consult if something happens, yet the actual instances where ‘something happens’ are relatively rare.

We hear of cases where ‘management consultants visit monthly for consultations,’ but how often do you hear claims like, ‘Thanks to management consulting, our company’s sales have grown!’?
Of course, we don’t dismiss all advisory fees entirely. There are cases where firms justify them by saying, “We’re charging advisory or closing fees to offset savings in other areas.”

At MARUNAGEKANRI Outsourcing, we decided to eliminate these “vague, hard-to-explain fees.”
Therefore, all our service fees are simple and transparent, allowing clients to freely choose only the services they want.

Therefore, it’s perfectly fine to outsource only other task-based services without using advisory services. In fact, we’re happy to handle only the task-based portions for you, while you retain your existing advisor for the advisory part. (Situations like “we can’t handle just bookkeeping” simply won’t happen.)

As a result, MARUNAGEKANRI offers a completely new service: a ‘free advisor for essential consultations anytime’ and a ‘paid advisor available only for the months you truly need it’. There are no minimum commitment periods, penalty fees, or other restrictions.
For your reference, the fee for months with no requests or consultations is ¥0.

In an era where risks abound—from improper expense use and embezzlement/fraud to attendance management issues leading to unpaid overtime and employee complaints, bad debt risks on accounts receivable from clients, and risks of tax audit findings—it’s crucial for companies to fortify their defenses before going on the offensive.

It’s a given that companies tend to let their guard down precisely when business is booming and things are going great. But nowadays, with the Electronic Bookkeeping Act, the invoice system, and the increasing rigor of labor management, the rules for running a company are getting stricter almost every year, and the risks are growing.

Failure to establish defenses commensurate with company growth or to properly address the tightening legal regulations could leave you vulnerable to unexpected setbacks. The foundation of this ‘defensive corporate management’ lies in ensuring compliance with tax, labor, and legal regulations. This means maintaining a ‘proactive management’ approach while simultaneously solidifying daily operational processes to prevent sloppiness.

In MARUNAGEKANRI service operations, qualified professionals oversee all daily tasks (managing both group offices and the main entity). Furthermore, experienced, qualified professionals with deep business knowledge and expertise in IT infrastructure—the foundation of daily operations and potential risk sources—supervise the entire process from sales to execution. This comprehensive management approach reduces client risk from every angle.

Business owners who work with older tax accountants and social insurance consultants often tell me things like, “The consultant I’m currently working with is elderly and hard to reach via chat, which is inconvenient,” or “I don’t get a reply to my emails even after a whole day.”

We also frequently hear complaints like: “When I urgently need advice, I can’t reach them by phone after 7 PM, and many firms are closed on weekends. I understand their offices are busy and being a fair employer is important, but it’s frustrating when I can’t connect when I need them most…” or “Younger advisors may talk about chat… cloud… AI… using all the latest buzzwords, but honestly, I don’t really understand it. I wish they’d also support me with more traditional methods.”

MARUNAGEKANRI was created by gathering feedback from small and medium-sized business owners nationwide, so rest assured on these points. We will be a partner who runs alongside you with speed and dedication, striving for your company’s growth.

To put it simply, MARUNAGEKANRI typically handles even the tasks that professional practitioners don’t do or can’t do.
For example, we provide detailed advice not only on “defensive tasks = organizing the past” like accounting and labor affairs, but also on “offensive tasks = creating the future” such as recruitment, M&A, going public, and budget vs. actual management. We also actively advise on tax savings and subsidies. We plan to offer services like client referrals to boost revenue.

This might be preaching to the choir, but the struggles of business owners are often difficult for those without management experience to truly understand—perhaps that’s just how it is. We ourselves, having been involved in managing small and medium-sized enterprises, have felt this way.

Speed is crucial in business management. If the necessary trial balances, financial statements, and other documents required for making decisions don’t come out promptly, it’s simply unacceptable. Furthermore, we constantly strive to improve the situation where business owners, who truly want to focus their minds on “core management tasks,” are instead burdened by daily administrative chores and management duties. However, this sense of urgency is difficult for those without management experience to grasp.

That’s precisely why we developed MARUNAGEKANRI. We realized that unless we created services business owners truly want, MARUNAGEKANRI would just become “just another accounting firm” – and that would negate our very reason for existing as a company! Our team, led by founding members driven by this conviction, understands the businesses of SMEs and consistently delivers on our clients’ needs.

When a company incorporates, when a one-person president starts hiring employees, when hiring gradually begins, or when aiming for business expansion to reach 50 or 100 employees—companies face various turning points. Each time, challenges arise: new employee training, hiring, personnel management, sudden resignations. Yet these troubles tend to resurface when you least expect them.
Furthermore, if these issues coincide with the busy year-end closing period or coincide with challenging times like changes in tax laws or labor regulations, you could find yourself in a situation where you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Despite concepts like the “X-person barrier” or the “X-billion-yen barrier” being fairly well-known from common business books, once you actually start managing a company, you might find yourself chasing sales growth while neglecting the defensive aspects. In the worst case, you could implode, ending up taking two steps back for every three steps forward. Even if you suddenly realize this and immediately hire the necessary personnel, it takes time for them to receive job offers and become productive assets. Furthermore, you must also focus on retaining that person and planning for handover if they do leave.

Many business owners likely feel, “I have to grow the business and manage it too—I just don’t have the bandwidth for that.” MARUNAGEKANRI’s outsourcing services are precisely designed to address these very needs.
When you entrust your operations to MARUNAGEKANRI, you naturally avoid the need to hire staff to address these staffing and expertise gaps. Furthermore, unless you deem it unnecessary, MARUNAGEKANRI will not leave, eliminating at

To some extent, it’s unavoidable, but fundamentally, the ‘We can do it for XX yen!’ claims prominently displayed in online ads and on websites are often rock-bottom prices that ignore all other factors.
The real issue lies in the ‘extent of the exaggerated claims’. In severe cases, the actual cost can end up being not just three or four times higher, but even more. (If a price seems obviously off, it’s wise to suspect this possibility.
(Pricing like ‘Starting at ¥1,980’ is unrealistic when you consider the minimum wage.)

Fundamentally, pricing for bookkeeping and accounting services is extremely difficult to standardize. Common patterns like “X yen per journal entry” or “X yen for X million yen in sales/X employees” are unreliable due to their low precision. For example, even for the same type of journal entry, the required workload can vary by a factor of ten or more depending on the content.

Therefore, if you encounter overly simplified pricing tables, ask detailed questions about why those prices were set. From the perspective of professionals or service providers, setting prices higher is a natural motivation to avoid losses if the work turns out to be more difficult than anticipated after accepting the job.

In other words, pricing structures or fee systems that aren’t based on a well-thought-out pricing table should be judged with greater caution, especially if they appear overly simple.

Next, be wary of the black box of settlement fees and advisory fees. As you might intuitively understand, phrases like “settlement fees are X months’ worth of monthly fees” or “settlement fees depend on sales volume” represent extremely rough calculation methods.
It might be hard to believe, but it’s not uncommon for the settlement of a company with ¥100 million in sales to be more difficult than that of a company with ¥500 million in sales. Therefore, caution is also needed regarding vague fee structures here.

Furthermore, even if an advisory fee is listed as a “fixed monthly fee of X thousand yen,” it’s unfortunately common to find firms where the specifics of the monthly fee aren’t clearly defined. They might simply state it includes “year-end closing fees” or “management consulting fees,” leaving unclear what services are actually provided for that amount.
This leads to complaints from business owners like: “We handle our own monthly bookkeeping and don’t consult them every month, yet we’re charged a monthly fee,” or “I was told management guidance and visit fees were included, but visits have become less frequent lately, and we receive less advice.”

Even when advertisements or websites state ‘Starting at ¥〇〇,000,’ it’s common to receive vastly different, much higher estimates upon requesting a detailed quote. Or, after the actual outsourcing begins, unexpected additional fees arise, justified by increased workload, which were not explained initially.
Even if you think, “Then I’ll switch to another expert or firm!”, the timing right before the fiscal year-end often leaves no practical time to change, forcing you to continue with the current provider.

First, regarding outsourcing companies, it is crucial to understand the existence of ‘exclusive professional services’. In Japan, certain tasks are legally restricted to licensed professionals such as certified public tax accountants and certified social insurance and labor consultants. Unauthorized individuals performing these duties are subject to penalties as illegal acts.
Despite this, some companies operate in a gray area, performing these tasks without proper qualifications (becoming fake tax accountants or fake social insurance consultants), so caution is advised. Some companies even fraudulently file tax returns or submissions using the name of a licensed professional.

Furthermore, some firms advertise as if they can handle “any type of work,” only to later claim, “That task is a professional service we cannot perform,” or “Even if it’s not a professional service, that specific task is too specialized for our company to handle.” In reality, they may only be handling part of the management or administrative work. Others may say, “We cannot perform exclusive services, so we will refer you to a partner firm,” effectively passing the work off to others (sometimes even charging a referral fee).

Next, regarding tax accountant offices and social insurance and labor consultant offices, as they are professional licensed practices, the above issues generally do not occur. However, fundamentally, many tax accountant offices (and some social insurance and labor consultant offices) do not accept outsourcing-type work due to considerations of profit margins and staff availability, so a wide range of services should not be expected.

While some tax accountant offices may accept outsourcing for bookkeeping or payroll processing under the premise of a retainer agreement, it is rare for tax accountant firms to handle a broad range of services including payment processing, expense advance management, or business management.

First off, just because it’s chat doesn’t necessarily mean responses are truly fast—you need to verify that. In reality, since they often “don’t respond outside business hours,” you frequently can’t get immediate help even when you need it urgently. Responses tend to be slow, especially if weekends are involved.
Also, compared to phone calls, chat communication can be difficult and frustrating at times. So, if a company states, “We basically only accept chat,” you should carefully consider that policy.

Additionally, some firms may vary response speeds based on client fee levels or rank clients to adjust communication methods. So, while a company might receive quick replies as a favored client, it’s unclear if your own company would get the same prompt service.
In such cases, it might be more transparent and fair to explicitly state something like, “With this pricing plan, we guarantee a response within X days.”

Recently, you might see claims like “Utilizing AI and IT for consultation support.” However, if everything could truly be resolved by a chatbot AI, there would be no need to consult experts. Moreover, it’s hard to imagine the world having so many tax accountant and social insurance consultant offices if that were the case.
When a robot automatically replies to your inquiry, you must verify crucial points: Can you truly accept the robot’s answer at face value? If the response contains errors, will they properly take responsibility? (Typically, such companies include a disclaimer like “In case of XX, it becomes your own responsibility”).

Option fees refer to additional charges within outsourcing service fees. Beyond the quoted base price, they involve statements like, “If you want us to handle tasks such as XX, it will cost an extra XX thousand yen.”

It’s important to understand that the existence of option fees itself isn’t a problem; in fact, it’s reassuring.
If all companies were charged a fixed fee with no option fees, then companies with heavy workloads and those without would pay the same flat rate. This could mean some companies end up overpaying and getting a raw deal.

The real issues are: ‘Is the scope of the optional fees reasonable?’ and ‘Are the optional fees not disproportionately high compared to the base fee?’

Examples of reasonable optional fees include: “Scanning fees for receipts,” or “Processing bank or credit card statement data that cannot be integrated with cloud systems.” Such fees have a logical basis and are acceptable as long as the amount isn’t excessive.

A bad example is when various optional fees are almost forced upon you, leading to thoughts like, “Wait, so it’s not just the base fee after all? It seems like paying optional fees is practically a given for almost every company.”
Always confirm what other costs might apply besides the monthly base fee, and calculate the total cost including those fees before signing a contract.
Once you’re already on board, discovering the boarding fee is exorbitant makes it difficult to back out later, especially considering the hassle of starting over.

Additionally, some contracts set fees based on hours worked, like ‘¥200,000 for up to 30 hours per month’. Naturally, exceeding 30 hours incurs overtime charges. Outsourcing arrangements with ‘¥X per hour’ pricing that can escalate indefinitely are overwhelmingly prone to disputes because the total cost remains unclear until the work is finished.

Online assistants are convenient for tasks where you can specify requests like “Please input as much as you can within 10 hours.” However, for jobs where you want them to “complete the entire task,” there’s a risk of high costs.

Furthermore, many agencies offer packages like ‘minimum 10 hours per month~’, often leading to dissatisfaction such as “I’m paying a fixed fee of ¥100,000 even though it doesn’t take 10 hours.” Some outsourcing providers allow unused hours to roll over to the next month only within the same month, but we’ve also heard stories of people “forcing themselves to create extra work just to use the remaining hours because it felt wasteful.”