UK accounting and USA CPA firms are going through a period of constant change as more and more cloud-based accounting software is being used by businesses. Striking a balance between overseeing bookkeeping and giving their clients wise real-time guidance has grown impertinent for US accountants. Accounts outsourcing is crucial in this situation. This is where accounts outsourcing plays a pivotal role.

Bookkeeping is a low-value transactional work. Accounts outsourcing helps USA CPA firms to focus more on the critical aspects of the business and to save costs by not hiring in-house accountants to carry a low-value tasks. Instead, outsourcing to a competent firm gets the job done in a faster and more efficient manner. The absence of a fixed cost commitment is arguably one of outsourcing’s major benefits. The cost depends entirely on the volume of transactions. Additionally, a subpar in-house bookkeeper raises the risks involved, as opposed to an outsourced company, which not only assumes these risks but actively works to reduce them. Additionally, businesses have more time to focus on the business rather than on it.

This means more time to focus on increasing revenue, and building and expanding the existing offering, without having to perform day-to-day tedious tasks. Everyone has witnessed the finance team wasting many hours on the BAS when this time could have been better spent on financial analysis or budget preparation, for example. According to research by Accountancy Age and ForrestBrown, over two-thirds (64%) of accountancy companies in the UK anticipate outsourcing key services in the future to maintain their competitive advantage in the market.

To put it simply, accounts outsourcing makes good business sense as realized by many.

Due to multiple factors, including which the lack of a skilled talent pool, which can work on the accounting software, being the primary; accounting firms, regardless of their size, have been outsourcing transactional work like bookkeeping, financial reporting & accounting work to Indian & Philippines outsourcing companies to realise the benefits of outsourcing.

As per industry leaders, analysts and speakers in the Accountex, outsourcing trends will increase in the near future so that accounting firms could focus more on their client relationships & business development while working on high-value work like predicting cash flows, consulting, advisory and data analysis, etc.

Thus, it becomes very important to realize the value of quality delivery from your outsourcing vendor. Below are few pointers you can have a look at which shall help you to decide on your outsourcing vendor.

  1. Take a free trial from your vendor: To gauge their work quality & communication and the cultural gap between your business and your outsourcing vendor, give 2-4 jobs to your vendor which should be a mix of slightly normal to complex so as to understand their competency. Enquire about their quality assurance & staged review process.
  2. Give your vendor, marks on the KPIs – Accuracy, Communication & Turn Around Time: Accuracy, Communication & Turn Around Time: Monitor the KPIs on each job and give marks out of 10 and calculate the average of the total of the jobs on these KPIs. This shall help you understand the competency of your potential outsourcing vendor. Try to analyse their weakness and strengths as per your business strategy and your desired outcome so that you have clarity and this will further help your decision whether to go with your vendor or not.
  3. Understand the culture of your outsourcing vendor: Besides gauging their technical competency, it is also essential to analyse their work culture which plays important role in the long relationship with your outsourcing vendor. Analysing their attrition shall help you understand and low attrition also helps your practices to expect a stable relationship.
  4. Data security: With changing scenarios where working globally has widened the opportunities and broadened the risk of data vulnerability. With new technology and more firewalls to follow, outsourcing firms are spending a hefty amount to create the safest online vault for clients’ data. CEOs and accountants must ask about all the data measures, the alternative plan to prevent data loss and other security measures to prevent abuse and exploitation of system vulnerabilities internally and externally.

Read our other blog: Benefits of Creating Offshoring Team for the UK Accounting Firms