Hiring is hard; hiring an accountant is even harder. Whether you are a small business, a start-up, or a full-grown enterprise, if you have ever hired an accountant, you will understand where we are coming from. The field of accounting is super competitive with some severe scarcity of resources with the necessary skills and abilities to handle an organization’s financial statement, tax preparation, bank accounts, payroll processing Etc. As the business grows, the accounting, bookkeeping, payroll Etc. tasks grow with it. And before you know it, spreadsheets are taking up your valuable time, which otherwise would’ve gone towards strategizing to take the business to the next level.
Accounting outsourcing is one seemingly obvious solution to address all those issues simultaneously. It has been around long enough to be considered a legitimate solution, and businesses of all natures and sizes are ready to vouch for it. Companies have been able to relieve their staff from mundane tasks and leverage them towards optimizing their processes and growth initiatives, improve their cash flow, bring down their TAT (Turn Around Time) for their procedures, and even create profitable product and service lines to aid their growth plans, all thanks to accounting outsourcing. However, the cynics and doubters are still out there, casting a shade of doubt in the minds of the first-timers or even seasoned leaders charting their path to outsourcing.
So, it is only fair to clear out and shun away those doubters and shed light on the clear benefits of accounting outsourcing for businesses. If you have been contemplating outsourced accounting for your businesses, here are five key benefits of accounting outsourcing for companies that you can expect straightaway.
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What Does Accounting Outsourcing Mean?
At its core, accounting outsourcing is hiring a third party to handle your organization’s accounting function. These third parties are organizations specializing in outsourced accounting, including bookkeeping, financial reporting, payroll, tax preparation, accounts receivable, accounts payable, and other accounts-related services.
These accounting outsourcing service providers have a team of expert accountants specializing in accounting laws and regulations of different geographical regions and the tools required to accomplish the task to perfection. These service providers comply with all international accounting standards and practices to ensure that the work they deliver can go through under any scanner without any hiccups.
That said, let us look at the five benefits of accounting outsourcing for businesses.
Benefits of Outsourcing Accounting
- Go Digital with Automation
- Improved Cash Flow
- Scalability
- Flexibility
- Business Continuity
1. Go Digital with Automation
It will not be an exaggeration to say that the breakout of the COVID-19 pandemic just accelerated the digital adoption rate in a lot of industries, which otherwise would have taken years, if not decades, to reach where they are today. Finance and accounting being one such industry. And while the finance and accounting function has taken huge strides towards going completely digital, there still is a lot of ground to cover. And it can be addressed with the help of an outsourcing partner.
The finance and accounting outsourcing service providers partner with all leading accounting software providers, such as QuickBooks and Xero, to automate as much work as possible. By working with their accounting teams, you can easily automate many of your tasks, which you have been putting on hold for quite some time now. It also helps your cause towards becoming a green business and reducing your carbon footprints, as it now requires you to use a lot fewer paper.
2. Improved Cash Flow
Cash flow is the most critical aspect of any business that the finance and accounting teams face. The lack of cash flow could result in you failing to meet your financial obligations, hindrance in the path of your growth, or even worse, failing to pay your employees. It can have severe consequences, both on the business as well as personal front. However, with outsourcing accounting, you can improve your cash flow as you get instant access to expert accountants proficient in forecasting your cash flow, identifying any possible pitfall you might encounter, and eventually fixing it.
These accountants are experts in identifying mundane/redundant tasks that can be automated for better resource allocation and improved cash flow. They put the necessary measures in place to help you maximize your resources towards business expansion and growth as opposed to handling the everyday mundane tasks.
3. Scalability
Scalability is one of the areas where the finance and accounting functions struggle the most. Take into account the incredible shortage of resources, thanks to the great reshuffle/resignation, and you are looking at a virtually nightmarish situation come this tax season. However, a good finance and accounting service provider should be able to help you scale with absolute ease. The best thing here is that these finance and accounting service providers are proficient in identifying when they need to scale up and when to scale down. So, you are always ready to meet the business demand at any given point without burning a hole in your budget.
They also have the tools and infrastructure to facilitate scaling, allowing you to be agile in your business operations. The reputed finance and accounting outsourcing providers also offer a flexible payment structure that perfectly fits your business model.
4. Flexibility
Accounting, as a function, sees extreme highs and lows in workload throughout the financial year. While the steady flow of work is always there throughout the year, the tax season brings extra work and extra pressure. Now, to cope with these seasonal demands, you can have a full-time resource bound to a certain extent of work. However, with a resourceful finance and accounting outsourcing partner, you can crank the volume of work up or down as and when needed.
A good finance and accounting outsourcing partner should be able to meet your peak season demand with the necessary resources at all times. They should also have flexible payment plans to allow you to increase or decrease the volume of work without worrying about the cost it will invite. So, flexibility is one of the biggest benefits that accounting outsourcing service providers bring with them.
5. Business Continuity
Business continuity has been atop the priority list of business leaders worldwide since the beginning of time. The recent disruption due to the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted its significance again, especially for a time-sensitive function such as accounting. As a business, you can face troubles due to unavoidable circumstances resulting in loss of critical information, delay in payments, system downtime, physical inaccessibility to your systems Etc. All such disruptions could result in a business loss for your firm. However, having the right accounting outsourcing partner by your side could prevent you from any such disruption and, consequently, business loss. Most modern finance and accounting outsourcing service providers are equipped with state-of-the-art Cloud-based infrastructure and automation process, allowing you to have consistent services despite your circumstances. These service providers even allow you to add a business continuity plan in your agreement with them. It safeguards your business from any unforeseen disruption that may befall upon you.
The Takeaway
Accounting outsourcing offers a wide array of benefits to modern businesses and global economies. If you, as a business, want to get started on your outsourcing journey leveraging the current technology infrastructure and a team of proficient accounting experts, we have the tools and resources to get you started. You can reach out to us at: [email protected], and we will connect you to one of our expert accountants to get you started.
