Businesses are increasingly turning to outsourcing to handle some or all of their financial and accounting processes. In fact, beyond the commonly recognized benefits of providing an affordable solution that reduces the hassles of in-house finance, rapidly changing technology and constant regulatory changes have made financial process outsourcing ever-more useful to businesses of every size, from the smallest startup to national and even international corporations.
Let’s take a closer look at several tangible benefits of outsourcing your finance processes.
A SOLUTION YOU CAN TRUST
If you are still hesitant to trust your critical financial processes to an outside company, keep in mind that a reliable, proven provider will not only have your business’ best interests at heart, but their own business interests as well. A financial process outsourcer that doesn’t provide the best, most timely knowledge, software, best practices and compliance to its clients will soon find its own business suffering. The best financial outsourcers are invested in your business’ success as well as their own, and many businesses find that this synergy makes outsourcing their financial processes even more trustworthy than maintaining an in-house finance department.
OUTSOURCING SAVES MONEY AND TIME
One of the key benefits of outsourcing your financial processes is significant savings of both money and time. These savings are realized in a variety of ways. For example:
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Capital Expenses. It costs money – potentially a lot – to maintain computers, software, work space, storage, and other necessities to maintain an in-house finance department.
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Wages. For some businesses, the annual salary for just one in-house accountant can be more than a full-service financial outsourcer.
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Downtime and Recruitment. Sick days, vacation, and resignations can really stress an in-house finance department and affect its ability to fulfill critical responsibilities in a timely manner.
THE FINANCIAL OUTSOURCING ENVIRONMENT IS ONE OF CONSTANT IMPROVEMENT
Due to a variety of factors, good financial process outsourcers are constantly learning and improving, and that inherently impacts your own business’ results:
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Handling numerous clients promotes constant learning. Unlike an in-house team that only sees a single business’ needs and processes, outsourcers serve many clients with many varied systems. And when they see a new idea or better process with one client, they can apply that new knowledge for the benefit of their other clients. In addition, if your outsourcer works with several clients in your industry, you don’t have to try to monitor the best practices of your competition – your provider will likely be applying them already.
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Outsourcers’ employees work alongside their peers. Within a typical in-house system, there are only a few employees with similar responsibilities that can learn from each other. A financial process outsourcer, on the other hand, is likely to have many employees doing the same job for different clients, and this promotes a constant exchange of timely knowledge and best practices.
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As noted earlier, outsourcers have a business interest in keeping up with changing technology, improving best practices, hack-proof data security, and changing regulations. So they are more likely than an in-house team to have that knowledge and have regular processes to disseminate that knowledge to all their employees.
FINANCE OUTSOURCERS HAVE TO USE THE LATEST TECHNOLOGY
Software – and the hardware required to run it – is constantly improving and requires regular investment and upkeep. For an individual business this is expensive and time-consuming – often prohibitively so. For an outsourcer, however, it is a key part of their profit driver, so a good one will seek to be on top of all the new options to provide the best possible product and keep up with their competition. When you employ a quality outsourcer, you can expect them to always have access to cutting edge technology.
BETTER COMPLIANCE AND REDUCED LIABILITY
Rules and regulations are constantly changing for every business, and it can be hard for an in-house finance team to keep up. Things can slip through the cracks and cause real headaches, up to and including fines and punishments. A finance process outsourcer’s business success requires that your business not face these negative consequences, so aside from the fact that a good provider truly cares about your success, it is in their own interest to keep up with every change and ensure you are fully in compliance. In addition, they will keep things on hand for audits and file that paperwork for you. Whether it is tax rules, international rules, industry rules, or any other relevant rules, a financial process outsourcer is more likely to get it right than the average in-house team.
BETTER GUIDANCE
For many businesses, no matter how big or small, a financial process outsourcer is likely to be able to provide the best, most actionable, most useful guidance for compliance, analysis, and growth.
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Data Analytics. With the explosion of data available, there are all manner of new insights available to business, but fully exploiting it requires real expertise. You can expect a quality provider to have the latest analytic software and the experts to make the best use of it.
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Financial guidance. You can expect a quality provider to understand your chart of accounts, your industry, and be able to identify opportunities for growth that an in-house team may not see. Combine a high-level, up-to-date view of the business environment with high-level expertise and analysis, and you have a recipe for future success.
CONCLUSION – FOCUS ON YOUR CORE PROFIT BUSINESS
When you outsource a non-core aspect of your business like your financial processes, you free up time, energy, and resources to focus on what really matters: your business’ profitability and growth. A proven, reliable financial process outsourcer can take a variety of tasks off your plate and probably do them better at the same time. Let an outsourcer’s employees do what they do best, and free yourself and your employees to focus on building a great business.