The accounts Industry is changing at a rapid speed and searching for new ways to make growth more effectuated. Accounting Outsourcing practices like preparing accounts, bookkeeping, filing tax/VAT returns, etc are widely opted by numerous accounting firms from proprietorship to top 50 accounting firms during the pandemic.
Also, the strategies used before are not working in the 2021 when pandemic has taken a big toll on businesses. With new strategies to implement, accountants are trying to utilize their time in more valuable tasks such as strategic consulting and advisory to save a lot of time from mere number crunching. Even being a leading accounting outsourcing firm, we have noticed a big change in how top accounting firms are choosing the process wisely without leaving any stone unturned. Even during the COVID-19 pandemic, when it became essential to streamline the processes as mission-critical to make the work more effective, accounting outsourcing firms not only offer managed solutions but also deliver accuracy and efficiency in numbers for maximum benefit to clients in the accounting outsourcing practice.
With new rules and working conditions, it is becoming another critical reason to choose outsourcing as a strategy to fill the gap in the skilled talent pool. It is not the problem of current times but for many years accounting industry in the UK has faced difficulties in hiring the talent pool and updating the staff with the latest standards. This has been the problem for a while, which is being faced by many practices, which is due to the supply side crunch of the accountants.
Now it is necessary to make accounting work more software-driven. To do the number crunching, Xero, SAGE, IRIS, Receipt Bank, TaxCalc, etc have been used extensively because of the cloud solutions which fit perfectly if your client/staff is working from another part of the globe. Many Industry analysts and speakers at conferences and seminars have repeatedly mentioned how outsourcing the accounts can be beneficial and how it helps them boost the value chain. Check out 11 major benefits of choosing any outsourcing accounting services in India.
Below are the key points through which you could gauge the performance of outsourcing for your accounting practice:
Gain the competitive advantage: Try to understand the motivation of your outsourcing by offshoring transactional work to a vendor like India & Philippines. Major motivation may come from the cost-cutting side which shall get you a more competitive gain. Or it could be providing the premier services to your clients like strategic advisory, consulting and business strategy, and data analytics so that you could focus more on valuable tasking by outsourcing transactional work.
Gauge the KPIs: Once you have understood the motivation, it is very essential to gauge the critical parameters like Quality, TAT & communication skills of the team of your potential outsourcing vendor. Observing the working culture of the vendor enables you as an accounting firm to understand the gap between your business culture and your vendor’s working culture. A few points can be jot down to bridge the gap analysis.
Free trial: Planning to hire an accounting outsourcing firm? Don’t just check the reviews and decide. Ask for the free trial service from your vendor to do a couple of jobs. A free trial will help you to understand if your vendor can speak your work culture, the type of security measures they use and most importantly the professional experience for your project.
Accounting expertise: Latest updates in industry practices and requirements need regular training sessions for the staff which will introduce additional expenses. But when you choose an accounting outsourcing firm, you not only get professional experts in the mere usual bookkeeping, accounting and tax work but also you get access to a global talent pool with a solid knowledge base on cloud software which is the way forward, especially after COVID-19.but the cloud software solution with no extra expense on the table.
Security at peak: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, when most of the work has been shifted online, privacy and security are the two things that demand the most attention to avoid risks and make the vulnerability low, especially for the global accounting firms who want to or already outsourcing. When you decide to outsource, you must ask for all the data measures your accounting outsourcing firm is offering so you can ensure that your valuable data is going into safe hands.
If all the above points seem to get checked positively with your vendor, you could start working to make the process go live and sign the contracts. Also, make sure to ask what value your vendor can provide to your business during this difficult time.
You can also read How can UK accounting practices leverage cloud accounting especially post COVID-19?