Advancetrack MD Vipul Sheth covers some of the key indicators that suggest your firm should look into accounting outsourcing.
There comes a point when an accounting practice’s managing partner, or a departmental head, realises that ‘enough is enough’. And this is when accounting and offshoring becomes a viable option for its operational strategy.
Of course, you might see the signs but not realise that accounting outsourcing, offshoring or Podsourcing® are the solution (or at least part of it) to your problems.
The starting point is recognising what these issues are so that you can take action and put in place a strategy for sustainable business growth.
Are your team members working harder and harder? Do they complain about their workload? Are they struggling to deliver on all tasks or failing to prioritise tasks effectively? Are deadlines being missed or nearly missed? Has there been an increase in workplace stress, burnout or team members experiencing mental health challenges? If so, then you will likely see staff morale and satisfaction fall. This level of stress leads to staff absence, and churn.
Our inaugural Accounting Talent Index shows that partners are having to work harder than ever, while stress levels are climbing. Firms are struggling to hold onto talent, and recruitment is extremely difficult. Practice leaders are concerned that they don’t have the skills within the practice to service clients effectively.
This can put a ceiling on your business growth, as you can’t take on new clients successfully when your team is struggling to service those you already have.
Some of the questions you can ask yourself and survey your team on include:
Answering ‘yes’ to any of these questions can be a sign that you need to take action urgently and a potential option to consider is looking into outsourcing for accountancy firms.
Since the pandemic, the level of support required from clients is higher than ever. As accounting practices struggle to provide the requisite service to existing clients, one of the knock-on effects is that they turn away new clients. This is of course exacerbated if the stress of providing services sees your staff leave or go off sick.
I spoke to a managing partner who said, ‘tongue in cheek’, that “I daren’t have a meeting with a client in case they want my firm to do more work for them”.
This kind of situation can escalate and do irreparable damage to client relationships, bringing more risk to your practice and affecting your profitability, as well as your ability to forecast and strategise for the future.
At Advancetrack, we say that an accounting practice’s clients are ‘the heroes’, and that the practice is the ‘enabler’ to help create a platform for the business owner to achieve what they want in business and life. Your practice should operate in a way that facilitates the ambitions of its clients.
Accounting outsourcing, offshoring and Podsourcing® can’t solve all of the operational and resource issues that an accounting practice faces, but it can go a long way to relieving the pressure and setting you up with a more efficient and scalable business model.
If your practice is underserving its existing client base; you’re turning away business; your existing staff are working too hard and you’re struggling to recruit, then these are the types of problems we like to help solve.
Outsourcing some of your accounting services for clients might feel like a big step, so we’ve looked at just a few of the many issues that it can help resolve for your accountancy firm.
If you’ve been having problems finding the right people to recruit for your team, with experiences in the specific areas you need and the ability to hit the ground running, outsourcing is a great way to access this expertise straight away. At Advancetrack, our team have all of the specialist skills needed to complete your client tasks accurately and efficiently and can seamlessly become an extension of your in-house team.
While many bread and butter accounting tasks need accuracy and consistency, that doesn’t mean that they are always the best way to use your team’s time. By outsourcing these tasks, this frees up your team’s time to devote to managing client relationships, offering advisory or strategic services and generating new business.
Expanding your in-house team comes at a cost to the business. You need to factor in salary, benefits, employer contributions and even things like IT costs for providing them with the necessary equipment. While outsourcing also requires some budget, the outsource partner bills you for the work completed at an agreed cost and there are none of the overheads of recruiting a new member of your in-house team. With the ability to scale outsourcing up or down as your practice needs, this means you can carefully manage the costs of the services you’re delivering to your clients, while retaining the flexibility to grow your business sustainably.
If you’d like to talk to the Advancetrack team about how our services can help your practice then book a call today.
