What is EOR? Should we use it for hiring a finance analyst in another country?

We’re looking at a candidate abroad for a junior analyst/finance ops role. The work would be normal company-side finance work: reporting, variance analysis, model updates, some KPI dashboards, and helping the team keep monthly numbers cleaner.

The candidate is great, the cost makes sense, and the timezone overlap is workable. The issue is the employment setup.

At first, the easy answer seemed to be “just hire them as a contractor.” But the more we discussed it, the more it didn't really look like a contractor role. It would be ongoing, full-time, directed by our finance team, and tied into internal reporting. It's not like we're hiring someone for a short project.

I admit, my knowledge of EOR is limited, and when it was mentioned as an option, I had to do some research. I was reading here, and from what I understood, the basic idea is that the EOR becomes the legal employer in that country while your company still manages the work. So, they handle the local contract, payroll, taxes, benefits, and compliance, so you do not need to open a local entity just for one hire.

For anyone in startup finance, PE-backed companies, or portfolio ops, how have you handled this? Contractor first, EOR, or only hire once you have an entity?