Introduction
A company that has brought accounting in-house in Vietnam and worked its way through a first and then a second hire runs into a new question: how do you actually build an accounting team? In our earlier articles, we set out that the first in-house hire needs to be a Chief Accountant (Kế toán trưởng, hereafter “CA”) level professional (“Your First In-House Accountant in Vietnam: Who to Hire“), and that once a one-person setup starts to show its limits, the second hire should be someone who complements the first (“When Does a One-Person Accounting Setup Hit Its Limit in Vietnam?“).
Once the team grows to a certain size, a setup in which the CA personally oversees everyone and carries all of the judgment, coaching, and approval starts to strain. What is worth considering at this point is placing a middle layer between the CA and the general staff — someone who performs first-line review of the staff’s work and holds the team together. In this article, whatever the job title, we call the person who handles first-line review and team management between the CA and general staff the “No. 2.”
One point worth noting: at smaller and mid-sized foreign-invested companies in particular, the CA is often not only the person accountable for accounting and tax, but also the one managing staff and allocating the work. Placing a No. 2 means starting to divide up this management function that the CA has been carrying alone. This article is the third in a series that follows the growth stages of an accounting organization.
1. How a “Second Accountant” Differs from a “No. 2”
The “second accountant” we covered in the previous article and the No. 2 we are discussing here play different roles. It helps to sort this out first.
- A second accountant: someone who shares the increased day-to-day work — bookkeeping, payments, invoicing, expense settlement.
- The CA’s No. 2: someone who performs first-line review of the staff’s work, fields questions, manages progress, and coaches junior members.
In other words, hiring a second accountant is mainly about spreading the volume of work, while placing a No. 2 is about creating a layer of management and review. Where the second hire adds to the CA’s “hands,” the No. 2 takes on a share of the CA’s “eyes” and coaching role.
While the team is at two or three people, the CA can oversee everyone directly, so a No. 2 is not necessarily required. But as staff numbers grow and the CA can no longer check each person’s work, you need someone who stands between the CA and the front line.
2. The Signs That You Need a No. 2
Whether you should place a No. 2 cannot be decided by headcount alone. Even at three or four people, if there are many junior members and questions and review requests concentrate on the CA, a No. 2 may be needed. Conversely, on a team where experienced staff work independently, there are cases where you need not rush to add a middle layer even as numbers grow.
Rather than headcount, it is more reliable to watch for whether the following signs are starting to overlap.
The CA personally checks every journal entry and document
If the CA is reviewing each item the staff has processed, all the way to the end, that checking eats into the CA’s time. Ideally you want first-line review in between, so the CA can look only at what is material.
Questions from staff concentrate on the CA
A state where every routine question — “how should I handle this?” — goes to the CA. The more junior members a team has, the more this happens, and the CA ends up interrupting their own work to respond, over and over.
No one carries out first-line review of the monthly close
Where, at every close, the CA reviews everyone’s work alone at the end, and that becomes the bottleneck. With a No. 2 handling first-line review, the CA can focus on final checks, and the close is faster and steadier.
Business judgment stops when the CA is away
Every time there is leave, a business trip, or maternity leave, work that requires judgment comes to a halt. Not having someone who supports the CA and can stand in when needed is a business-continuity risk. We also touch on the impact of a CA’s extended absence in “When Your Chief Accountant Goes on Maternity Leave.”
The CA has no time for tax, headquarters, and audit matters
The CA’s real work — tax judgment, reporting to headquarters, handling audits and tax inspections — gets crowded out by day-to-day staff support. This is also a classic entry point to a CA wearing down (see “What Companies That Exhaust Their Chief Accountants Have in Common“).
3. What Kind of No. 2 Do You Need? Three Types
“No. 2” is a single term, but the person a company needs is not one profile. Depending on what you want to hand over, it divides into at least the following three types.
Type 1: Day-to-day team leader
Someone who fields staff questions, manages progress, and performs first-line review. Practical skill and coaching ability are central; tax judgment on par with the CA is not essential. When the team has grown and the CA is consumed by day-to-day management, this is the type you need first.
Type 2: Technical deputy
Someone who can make a degree of judgment in the CA’s place on the monthly and annual close, tax filings, and audit response. This is the type you need when backup during the CA’s absence is the priority. It calls for a higher level of expertise than Type 1.
Type 3: Future CA candidate
Someone who initially handles first-line review and staff management, and gradually takes over tax judgment, headquarters reporting, and external dealings. This is the option when you want to develop the CA’s successor internally.
Deciding which type you are looking for, before you start, settles both the selection and the development path.
There is one point here that tends to get overlooked: being able to do the work and being able to lead people are different abilities. Some people process accurately but are not good at coaching junior members or at standing between the CA and the staff to smooth things out. For instance, someone who handles their own assigned work flawlessly, but when asked a question thinks “it’s faster if I just do it myself” and takes it on — so junior members never develop. What you want in a No. 2 is practical skill plus this ability to stand in between and move people. If you are promoting from within, it is worth confirming that the person actually wants to manage.
4. How to Divide Roles and Authority
The most practically important thing in placing a No. 2 is deciding, in advance, the roles and authority of the CA, the No. 2, and the general staff. Leave this vague and you get the inefficiency of duplicated checking and confusion over where responsibility sits.
One example of how this might be divided is below. The right shape changes with company size and industry, so treat this as one reference point.
| Task | General staff | No. 2 | CA |
| Bookkeeping, document checks | Prepare | First-line review | Material items only |
| Monthly close | Close their own area | Progress management, account review | Final review |
| Questions from staff | ― | Answer routine questions | Tax and material judgment |
| Tax and audit response | Prepare materials | Compile materials | Set direction, external dealings |
| Cover during leave | Normal duties | Stand in on team operations | Involved only when needed |
Consider, for example, a five-person setup at a manufacturer, where the CA handles tax, the annual close, headquarters reporting, and audit response, and each staff member covers accounts payable (AP), accounts receivable (AR), inventory, and cost accounting. If the CA reviews every account directly in this setup, month-end checking concentrates on the CA. Having a senior accountant perform first-line review of AP, AR, and balance reconciliation, so the CA checks only tax matters and material accounting judgment, changes the flow of the close considerably on its own.
Deciding in this way “how far the No. 2 judges first, and from where it goes up to the CA” is the key to making a No. 2 work.
5. Promote from Within, or Hire from Outside?
There are broadly two ways to place a No. 2: promoting an existing senior staff member from within, or hiring an experienced person from outside.
The advantages of internal promotion are familiarity with your work and its history, and a fast start. On the other hand, when someone who was a peer until now suddenly holds a position of authority, relations with those around them can turn awkward. When promoting, it is important to make the role and authority clear, and to explain carefully to the team why that person is being elevated. Beyond practical skill, whether they are trusted by those around them and can smooth things over from the middle are also useful criteria.
The advantage of hiring externally is bringing in someone who has built management experience elsewhere, ready to contribute. That said, someone from outside will not necessarily perform right away. Even with experience inside Vietnam, it takes time to get used to your ERP or accounting software, group reporting rules, industry-specific processing, past tax positions, and internal approval flows. You also need to anticipate resistance on the ground to an outsider being placed above existing staff from day one.
6. What to Confirm Before Placing a No. 2
Adding a layer is not always the right answer. Before placing a No. 2, it is worth confirming the following.
Whether the CA can let go of authority. Even with a No. 2 in place, if the CA takes it all back — “in the end I don’t feel safe unless I see everything myself” — the load does not decrease. You need to confirm in advance how far the CA intends to delegate.
Whether the work is standardized. Placing a No. 2 while the way the work is done exists only in the CA’s head just means a long handover. Documenting and standardizing person-dependent work to some degree first makes it easier for a No. 2 to function. On the signs that an accounting team is not structurally holding together, our separate article “Five Symptoms That Your Vietnam Accounting Team Is Not Functioning” is also worth a look.
Closing Thoughts
Whether you need a No. 2 is not settled by simple headcount. What matters is watching whether questions and review are concentrating on the CA, and whether the CA has stopped being able to spend time on the tax judgment and headquarters matters they should be handling.
When you do place a No. 2, rather than deciding the title first, you need to sort out what they judge first and from where it goes up to the CA. Dividing roles properly leads not only to a lighter load for the CA, but to a steadier close and the development of a future successor. With this article, our series following the growth stages of an accounting organization comes to a close.
FAQ
Q1. Does a No. 2 need the same qualifications and experience as a CA?
Not necessarily. It depends on what you hand over. If the focus is day-to-day first-line review and staff coaching, someone well versed in the practical work who can hold a team together can do the job without qualifications on par with a CA. If, on the other hand, you want a deputy who can stand in on close and tax filing judgment while the CA is away, that calls for higher expertise. If you want to develop a future CA successor, select on the premise that tax judgment and headquarters matters will be handed over bit by bit.
Q2. If we promote an existing staff member to No. 2, won’t relations with the rest of the team get difficult?
That is possible. When someone who was a peer moves into a position above, those around them can be unsettled. To avoid this, it is important to explain clearly to the team why that person is being promoted and what the new role and authority are. Beyond practical skill, whether they are trusted by those around them and can smooth things over from the middle are also useful criteria for the decision.
