Top Three Accounting Tasks to Outsource

The decision about which accounting tasks to outsource first should take into account the skills, preferences, schedule and workflow of your team.  The best task for your company to outsource first depend on you answers to several questions.

You might ask:

  • Which of these tasks causes the most disruption to our core business?
  • Have we had any accuracy or deadline-related problems with any of these tasks because we just don’t have time to do them properly?
  • Which of these would be easiest to hand off?
  • If I could take one thing task off your plate, which would you most like to get rid of?

Based on our experience, if had to pick a short list of our clients’ favorite accounting tasks to outsource, they would be these three:

  • Tax preparation & filing,
  • Routine bookkeeping
  • Payroll

Here’s why:

Top Three Accounting Tasks to Outsource

Tax Preparation & Filing

For most small and medium-sized businesses, tax preparation and filing can be a huge disruption each year.

And for many companies, tax season can be very inconvenient.  For businesses that do their tax reporting on a calendar year basis, reports are due right after the busy holiday season when your team is already overwhelmed from retail or just getting back from holiday vacations to a large pile of overdue activities in their in-boxes.

If you file in April, this can coincide with spring sales, and  plans for summer holidays.

In any case, it’s often a large amount of work that needs to be accomplished in a short amount of time. It can be a huge disruption for a small team that has other priorities to manage as well.

Outsourcing tax preparation and filing can create a much more level workflow requirement for your team throughout the year, and free up lots of time to do more business (or approve more vacation requests!)

Bookkeeping

Recording daily purchases, sales, receipts and payments transactions can be time consuming.

In many companies, these administrative tasks are assigned to salespeople or skilled technicians who get paid a higher salary or hourly rate because of the value their skilled work brings to the company.

Requiring these people to spend their valuable time on bookkeeping just doesn’t make financial sense.

It’s also tedious, especially for people whose strengths and talents may not include this type of detailed work.  If bookkeeping tasks are competing with more interesting work that your team is required to do, they will often find reasons to procrastinate.

And bookkeeping that has fallen behind becomes an even more dreaded prospect.

Outsourcing bookkeeping can lift this burden and have the added benefit of a “second set of eyes” on those numbers to reduce errors and inaccuracies.

Payroll Processing

Ensuring your employees get paid accurately and on time is a big priority to keep the team that supports your business happy and motivated.

Unfortunately, payroll processing often involves some time-consuming calculations and reporting.

Some businesses that manage their payroll in-house also report that their employees sometimes appeal to them for advances and other preferential treatment, creating difficult conversations and situations among the team.

Outsourcing payroll processing can help businesses establish and adhere to fair and impartial best practices and avoid any internal gossip and awkwardness, or appearance of favoritism.

Which Accounting Tasks Should your Company Outsource?

Each of our clients is different. We work with small and large companies in many different industries, countries and sectors.  So of course, each would answer this question differently.

There are many tasks that would be good choices, including:

  • Financial management & analysis
  • Reporting
  • Treasury
  • Credit control & invoicing
  • Invoice processing & help desk
  • Procure-to-pay services
  • Accounts receivable & collections
  • General ledger accounting
  • Fixed Assets Management
  • Period closing & bookkeeping
  • Contract & order management
  • Business setup
  • Corporate document management
  • Quality and process improvement
  • Advisory services

Ready to get started?  Read more about how to Outsource Accounting.

Set an appointment with one of our Virtuosos.  We will assign an associate with experience working with companies similar to yours.

We can bring our knowledge and suggestions to find a solution that saves you time, money and headaches, and gives you more freedom to focus on what you do best – producing products or taking care of customers.

We look forward to working with you!