8 Signs Indicating You Need To Outsource Your Bookkeeping & Accounting Function

Bookkeeping & accounting is a vital business function that every business must do to prepare the financial records for a given period. These records further help evaluate a business’s financial position and make well-informed financial decisions. It is also one of the most outsourced business functions. To your surprise, even your business might need outsourced bookkeeping & accounting services. Let us look at few signs that indicate the need to outsource your bookkeeping & accounting tasks.

1. Lack of time
   Do you feel like you don’t have enough time? Remember, you can not do everything on your own. It would be best if you delegated as multitasking may be costing your business productivity. Bookkeeping involves tracking the fine detail and recording it in accounts software. If you spend more time handling your financial records, payroll, and other related financial services compared to working with clients, it may be time for you to look into outsourcing your bookkeeping & accounting process.
2. High overhead cost
   Do you incur high overhead costs on your bookkeeping & accounting team? Hiring in-house personnel comes with a lot of overhead costs, from employee insurance to utility bills. Not only these, but the hiring process can also itself be a costly procedure from putting out ads, screening, interview and testing. You can eliminate these overhead costs when you outsource your bookkeeping & accounting process as you will only need to pay the services you avail of.
3. Under-trained or over-worked staff
   These can both impact your overall business productivity. It can result in inaccurate financial data, delayed financial reporting, and fiscal uncertainty. If your staff is under-trained, you have to train them, which will cost you your precious time and money. In case of over-worked staff, you have to hire additional staff to help share responsibility. This will result in addition to your salary expense plus overhead costs, not to mention the effort required to manage more workforce. With outsourced bookkeeping & accounting, you do not have to worry about training or workload; your outsourcing partner will take care of it all.
4. High dependence on your Employee
   Being heavily reliant on a few key employees can be put you in a sticky situation. Do you have a plan B if your bookkeeper or accountant decides to quit? What about the times when they take are sick or on vacation? Your bookkeeping and accounting task will only pile up and affect your overall productivity. Outsourcing the bookkeeping & accounting process does not have such shortcomings as a team of professionals are working on your accounts. This ensures that any employee issue on their end is handled internally without affecting your work.
5. Unable to scale up or down as per the business requirement
   Do you have a business in which the number of daily transactions fluctuates over time and season? If yes, then you must be facing this issue where your bookkeeper and accountant are over-worked during a specific period and times when they are sitting idle without work. Hiring in-house bookkeepers and accountants do not allow you to scale up or down as per the business requirement. However, when you outsource, you can pay your outsource partner as per the workload; this enables you to scale up or down whenever you want without firing or hiring employees.
6. Unable to access vital figures
   For you to make financial decisions on time, you need to have access to vital figures right when you need them. If your bookkeepers and accountants are unable to provide you with financial information when you need it the most, then clearly, you need to outsource your bookkeeping & accounting process.
7. Discrepancies
   From billing and payroll fraud, to check tampering and skimming, there are a plethora of occupational fraud methods employed by thieving employees. If you find any discrepancies in your accounts, there is a chance that it happened because you haven’t implemented the separation of duties. Having a person conducting the payment process and reconciling the bank statements is asking for trouble. Once you outsource, you will have better control of your finance and a clear separation of duties, helping eliminate discrepancies.
8. Lack of updated knowledge
   Accounting and bookkeeping is an activity that requires expert supervision. This is because there are also some changes and revisions in accounting standards, laws, and regulations. Also, there are updates in accounting software that you use as well. If you feel like your accountant and bookkeepers are not well aware of these changes, you lack expert supervision. With outsourced bookkeeping & accounting services, this will never be the case. A pool of expert accountants and bookkeepers will always guide you with new changes and updates and act as an extra pair of eyes to monitor your accounting process.

So, these are the eight signs that indicate you need to outsource your bookkeeping & accounting functions. If you face any of these in your business, it is high time you outsource bookkeeping & accounting from a reputed outsourcing partner. Contact us today and get 30 minutes free with our expert professionals.