5 signs your business is ready for outsourced finance & accounting solutions

At what point of time does it make sense for your business to partner with an offshore finance & accounting team? If you already run a tight ship and have a strong team that you are proud of, why should you invest all the time and effort that is required to outsource some of your accounting functions? Are cost savings alone worth all the disruption that offshoring of accounting services may bring?

These are not easy questions for any CFO, Finance Director or Finance Manager to answer. However, outsourcing can be an effective method of reducing costs, improving efficiencies and implementing new processes or technologies. Here are some sure shot signs that show that your business is ready to outsource accounting and finance.

1) Accounting staff tied up with low-value admin tasks: It is not easy to recruit and retain qualified accountants at a time when the market is battling skills shortages. If the most talented members of your team spend a good portion of their work week on low-value or administrative tasks, chances are that they won’t stick around for a long time. In this scenario, outsourced bookkeeping and accounting services can help you free your staff from daily chores and allow them to grow by focusing on more high-value activities.

2) Lack of special expertise: Many companies use non-accountants to take care of accounting activities like billing, reporting and payments. Not only does this increase the chances of errors, but it also forces a non-accountant to focus on a task that he or she does not specialise in.

Also, for larger organisations, it pays to have specialists for separate functions like accounts payable, receivables management, credit control, management reporting, treasury management, or payroll. Often, it is the growing need for specialists in these accounting functions that push companies to go for outsourced accounting services. Offshore companies have large teams that specialise in each area, ensuring availability of specialised staff.

3) Assistance for process improvement: Accounting departments that are overloaded with a wide range and high volume of tasks simply do not have the bandwidth to invest in process reengineering or productivity improvement initiatives. By choosing finance & accounting BPO services, companies can rapidly access the benefits that process improvements provide.

4) Help with RPA, AI, Analytics and other innovations: The talk of innovative technology for finance & accounting has been in the air for a while now. But in reality, many companies are still stuck with paper-based processes. For accounting departments that want to move on to digital processes, or want to benefit from innovative technologies like RPA or AI, outsourcing accounting and finance is the simplest solution.

By choosing a provider experienced in implementation of such technology, the accounting department can modernise itself without incurring prohibitive infrastructure or technology costs.

5) Desire to improve the bottom line: As a business grows, so does the volume of transactions. This often translates into larger accounting teams. Finance & accounting outsourcing companies help businesses to shift non-core transactional tasks to a cheaper offshore team, which at the same time creates an opportunity for the existing on-shore staff to focus on more strategic and revenue generating activities.

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Originally published Mar 04, 2018 10:03:11, updated Jul 29 2024

Topics: Finance & Accounting Outsourcing