As a small business we are faced with growth challenges that require us to be astute and optimise our resources. One key department is our Accounting, which needs to focus more on financial intelligence, rather than just compliance.
We can try and hire highly trained experts, or we can outsource! There are many benefits to outsourcing, and although this article features a Zoho Books logo, the points mentioned below are equally relevant to Sage 50, Xero, QuickBooks, Tally, Peachtree, MS Dynamics or any other platform.
TIME & COST SAVINGS
Hiring, training and supervising bookkeeping or accounting staff is a massive overhead, both in terms of time spent and salaries. Even partial Outsourcing can help you save valuable time and minimise recurring costs, thereby growing your business profitability.
FLEXIBILITY
With employee salaries you are committing to fixed costs and all the associated overheads, whereas outsourcing becomes a variable cost, which you can throttle up or down and scale, as required.
EXPERTISE
Small businesses can’t attract, let alone afford, expensive, highly trained resources. Outsourcing can empower your existing back office staff by giving them the help they need to move into more productive positions.
MANAGEMENT INTELLIGENCE REPORTING
A powerful advantage of outsourced accounting is that you will get access to timely and accurate information, and most importantly, management intelligence reports that will drive action to improve profits.
LEVELS OF OUTSOURCING
So, what are your options, should you decide to help your existing staff?
Level 1. As a start, ensure that you are using a feature-rich, web-based tool like Zoho Books, Xero or Quickbooks online, which can grow with your business. This usually comes with some basic training to help with the initial set up, and ensure you opt for on-going support.
Level 2. Subscribe to a part-time or full-time BookKeeper, which will also help move any existing staff to more productive roles. Outsourcing this routine task, ensures you don’t need to supervise or worry about it becoming a single point of failure.
Level 3. Leverage a full service Accounting service that will help with actionable insights, fraud detection, risk mitigation and strategic decision making to drive profitability. This will be based on real data analytics and answer questions on marketing initiatives, pricing, cost per acquisition and operational processes.
Outsourcing is a fully managed service offered by Mercer Lal, so get in touch and we will help reduce your costs, increase your sales, optimise your efficiencies and improve your bottom line!
