Outsourcing Accounting Services: The Benefits and Why It Works

Businesses globally face new and uncharted challenges in the way they operate as they accept the changes enforced by a global pandemic. In the face of economic uncertainty, business owners are keen to embrace disruptive technologies and strategies to add value and drive down cost.

The pandemic has also taught many business leaders that what they required to be sitting in an office next to them, may no longer be the case.

Outsourcing of accounting and finance functions remains strong and continues to be a cost effective, attractive, and valuable alternative to onshore resources. Tasks are often repetitive and resource intensive, making it a perfect function to start with when considering offshoring.

Beyond that, businesses are leveraging outsourcing to drive greater business insights through enhanced reporting and analysis that are difficult to achieve with onshore resource constraints.

Top 5 benefits of outsourcing accounting services

Businesses globally are forced to adapt to the uncharted challenges caused by the global pandemic, and many business owners are realising the benefits of outsourcing accounting and bookkeeping services including:

1. Save time and spend it on growth strategy

   Logging, analysing, and reconciling financial records takes time. One of the benefits of outsourcing accounting and bookkeeping services to a reliable BPO partner is that you can free up your time from doing these tedious and time-consuming tasks and spend more time on the strategic component of your business.

2. Reduce errors and improve accuracy

   Good record-keeping and accurate accounting enables the business to run smoothly and allows business owners to make important business decisions. Having an automated accounting system that seamlessly tracks your finances, with an experienced accounting professional helps alleviate financial errors and resolves any issues immediately.

3. Access to experienced accounting professionals

   Outsourcing provides you access to full-time accounting professionals who understand the process and industry of accounting and finance inside and out. These offshore accounting professionals are well-trained, knowledgeable, and highly experienced in handling complex accounting situations and tasks.

4. Reduce business costs

   Based on the latest 2020 Deloitte study, cost reduction remains one of the major benefits of outsourcing accounting services. Many business owners are taking the advantage of saving on overhead expenses in hiring outsourced accounting professionals with high-level of expertise.

   “Cost reduction is becoming increasingly critical again. The impact of COVID-19 plays a key role here: the uncertain economic environment is switching the focus back to the numbers.” Deloitte said.

   Source: Deloitte Global Outsourcing Survey 2020

5. Access to robust cloud-based accounting software

   Most outsourced accounting services for small businesses utilise leading edge accounting software such as NetSuite, Xero, MYOB, QuickBooks, and many more. These accounting software helps you streamline your accounting processes, organises your day-to-day financial data, and enables you to quickly view your finances anytime, anywhere.

Top Finance functions to outsource

There is a long list of Finance functions that you can outsource and take benefit from. optiBPO always recommends our clients to start small, prove the concept, and then build from there. A typical roadmap to maturity would involve the following progression:

1. Accounts Payable
2. Accounts Receivable
3. Accounts Officer
4. Financial Accounting
5. Reporting & Analysis
6. Financial Control
7. Business Intelligence

When properly executed, outsourcing these essential accounting services can add value to your business and allows you to take advantage of untapped opportunities that can help grow your business.

For more roles to outsource beyond accounting and bookkeeping services, the optiBPO value map can help you think about your growth drivers, and where and how an offshore team can support your business.

Opportunities exist across the value map to rapidly build teams that save cost, drive growth, create success, and enable new services to be delivered that are not justified onshore.

To view the map in full, check optiBPO Offshoring Value Map

Conclusion

While the effects of business disruption is here to stay, outsourcing has embraced the change and is becoming a critical growth strategy for many organisations. Outsourcing not only helps businesses to reduce cost, but it allows them to have a greater level of flexibility, two important considerations in times of uncertainty.