“The best time to start outsourcing was yesterday. The next best time is when you don’t have enough capacity to serve your clients and scale your firm.
You may have a choice today, but you will be forced to do it tomorrow. Once you start offshoring or outsourcing, you will get global expertise, cut costs, and increase efficiency.”
—Maanoj Shah, Co-founder & Director of Growth, Finsmart Accounting
Your value as a firm owner is not in getting lost in the weeds of your firm. Your value lies in providing strategic direction and managing client relationships to facilitate growth.
But if you’re constantly concerned about your team’s capacity to serve new clients, growth can feel like a curse, rather than a blessing.
The primary benefit of outsourced accounting services is the ability to create new revenue lines without worrying about overworking your in-house team.
Let’s see how outsourced accounting services can be the shortest route to sustainable growth for your accounting, bookkeeping, and CPA firms.
Why Growing Firms Are Turning to Outsourced Accounting
Outsourced accounting is projected to grow at 4.33% by 2029 due primarily to the increased complexity of maintaining internal accounting teams.
The larger your in-house team, the more payroll, payroll taxes, and employee benefits you have to manage. Apart from the monetary commitment, these processes require additional time and effort that could be better invested in core business functions, like business development.
With outsourced accounting, you simply partner with a third-party accounting services firm (which takes care of all background requirements at no direct cost to you) to provide the same quality accounting services for your clients.
Six Benefits of Outsourced Accounting Services for Growing Firms
These are the most common reasons to use outsourced accounting services, according to beneficiaries:
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Cost Savings Without Sacrificing Quality
As we’ve established, full-time accounting employees are expensive to maintain. Besides the time and resources required, recruiting them requires payment for advertising, assessment, onboarding, and training.
And when you are done onboarding them, the overhead costs (salary), employee benefits, paid time off, pension, 401k, etc., will kick in.
For a growing firm trying to get the most value for the least possible amount, outsourcing helps you bypass these costs without missing out on quality client service.
Outsourcing allows you to pay a subscription fee to get a dedicated team of accounting professionals at a fraction of the cost of having an in-house accounting team.
Finsmart Accounting, for example, provides you with a dedicated Bookkeeping Expert at $2600 per month without employee benefits and compensation. You can also get a dedicated bookkeeper at $20 per hour.
That way, you can channel your resources into hiring those employees who need to be in-house.
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Access to Experienced Global Professionals and Latest Tools
Outsourced accounting opens you up to a global pool of accounting professionals with domain expertise and years of experience serving your type of clients.
These professionals are also trained on the latest computer programs accountants use to serve their clients.
For example, the Finsmart Accounting team is trained in international accounting software (QBO, XERO, Drake Software, Intuit TurboTax, Lacerte, Oracle NetSuite).
“The Finsmart team can work with any software you have. QuickBooks Desktop, QuickBooks Online, Xero, Bill.com, you name it!
We don’t have to train anybody. They’re already trained.
—Mariko Hayashi-Hall, Founder and CEO of Chicago-based Brilliant Solutions Group
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Increased Focus on Core Business Activities
“We have found some great success using Finsmart Accounting to help us with recurring activities and special projects while our U.S.-based employees handle the high-level projects. We’ve been super happy outsourcing to Finsmart.”
Juliebeth Melone, Founder, J B Advisory Group
It’s hard to grow when you spend your precious time on low-level tasks, but how can these tasks be done when every in-house team member is overloaded with work? The shirt answer is outsourcing.
Juliebeth has used Finsmart to free her in-house, US-based team up for projects that generate the most profits.
Outsourcing can also free up your time and mental energy to focus on strategic functions like client relationship building and other big-picture tasks that bring growth.
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Scalable Services That Grow with You
Finsmart Accounting assigned one main person at the beginning, and she has continued to learn and develop. When we had to bring on additional projects, they assigned additional staff to help us manage the increased workload.
Elizabeth Bergen, Owner of Foray Business Group
Most outsourced accounting partners use a subscription model that allows you to:
- Pay for only the services you need.
- Add or reduce the services you pay for as your workload increases or decreases.
Their short-term contracts enable accounting firm owners like Elizabeth to control when they use more (or less) outsourced services.
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Improved Accuracy and Reduced Compliance Risk
The average outsourced accountant, especially those from India, studied accounting in school and trained on global financial reporting standards like the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).
That means you won’t have to train them to manage your client’s finances in compliance with relevant regulatory requirements.
“Most of Finsmart Accounting’s staff are the equivalent of a CPA. They’ve got a master’s degree in accounting. A lot of bookkeepers that I work with are self-taught. They’re not necessarily trained as accountants but have learned it on their own. Finsmart Accounting has a very high standard for their team members’ knowledge and Education.”
—Patricia Hendrix, Head of Coaching and Communities at Woodard
Combined with the training from the outsourcing firm’s management, outsourced accountants come ready to meet your client’s deliverables accurately and efficiently.
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Faster Turnaround Time & Streamlined Workflow
Outsourced accounting firms have the domain expertise, dedication, and workflow experience to complete your client’s projects on time.
They understand the common bottlenecks that delay certain accounting projects. This empowers them to provide tailored workflow solutions to improve project turnaround time.
BONUS: Peace of Mind for Founders and Finance Leads
Increased workload leads to stress, workload imbalance, and human errors.
Using outsourced accountants to address workload imbalance enables your in-house team to improve quality control, leading to more accurate client work.
When you don’t have to worry about the accuracy of your financial records, you will stress less (even during tax season), giving you peace of mind and the confidence to make strategic decisions.
“The outsourcing process has been fantastic. It has brought a lot of peace to my heart and mind, especially considering the overflow of accounting work that our firm has to do.”
—David Encarnacion, CEO, Day Care Accounting Pro
This peace of mind translates to quality time for family, friends, and other meaningful activities you enjoy outside work.
Is Outsourced Accounting Right for Your Growing Business?
“We were a little nervous about getting started with an offshoring program. Now that we’ve started doing it. We can see that there’s an opportunity to do more of it.”
—Nancy Orben, Senior Manager, Blue & Co. LLC
Most growing businesses need outsourcing, but their fear of giving away control prevents them from seeing or embracing its numerous benefits.
But if you answer YES to any of the following questions, you need outsourced accounting yesterday.
- Do you have seasonal workload fluctuations?
- Do you want access to advanced technologies?
- Do you lack in-house expertise?
- Do you want to reduce your fixed accounting costs?
- Do you need expert support with compliance?
Don’t let today pass without taking steps toward outsourcing your accounting functions. By tomorrow, your business needs may force you to do it. By then, you’ll be deciding from a weaker position.
Click here to book a call and learn how Finsmart Accounting can meet your unique outsourcing needs.
Maanoj is Co-founder & Director of Growth Strategy & Alliance at Finsmart Accounting. He is an Outsourcing Expert, a People Champion, and a Dynamic Leader with strong Business Strategy and Scaling-up experience. He has incubated businesses, sold & exited ventures; helped build strong enterprises in very diversified verticals like Fintech, HR & Consulting spaces in various CXO capacities over the last 20 years.
