What Are the Benefits of Outsourcing Bookkeeping?
Bookkeeping is one of the most vexing topics in the business world: it doesn’t contribute to the growth of the business, but it still needs to be done properly and regularly. Whether it’s writing invoices, keeping track of finances, or doing tax returns, it costs you or your employees time – and therefore money. We’ll show you the advantages of outsourcing accounting from your business and putting it in professional hands.
1. You Save Your Most Important Asset: Time
Outsourcing accounting saves a lot of time. If you previously did the bookkeeping yourself, or had an employee do it on the side, you now save this time. Instead, you and your employees can concentrate more on the core business and your customers and thus on the really important tasks that contribute to business growth and do not just generate overhead.
2. You Save Money
At first glance, it may seem counterintuitive to hire a service provider. Why should outsourcing accounting save money? After all, the experts at the service provider don’t work for free either.
There is no question that you will have to pay for this service, but the bottom line is that you will save more money than if you did the accounting in-house. The reasons are:
In-House Accounting Is Expensive
If you employ an employee who takes care of the accounting, or even have a whole accounting department, you have to pay these employees. And this does not only mean the monthly salary, but there are some additional costs on top, e.g. social security contributions, fees for training and further education, costs for accounting software and equipment of the workplace.
All-Inclusive at the Service Provider
The service provider who takes care of your accounting either offers you a flat rate or charges for the services on an hourly basis. This does not result in additional costs that burden your liquidity.
3. You No Longer Have to Fear Personnel Bottlenecks
One problem in many companies is that usually only one person is responsible for accounting. If this person is absent for a longer period of time due to illness or quits, you as the person responsible face a big problem. You must immediately provide a replacement or transfer the tasks to another employee.
This initially creates a bottleneck, because the work is left undone for the time being. In addition, the application and induction process for a new employee costs a lot of money.
Whether you hire in a new employee or assign someone else from your company to do the job, in either case they will need time to learn the accounting tasks. It can then be easy for things to be overlooked and not show up in the books, which can lead to inquiries from the tax authorities, or for a later audit to reveal that the company figures are not correct. In both cases, cleaning up these errors costs a lot of time.
When outsourcing accounting, you no longer have to worry about staff absences, because your service provider always has someone available to take care of your accounting.
4. You Scale Your Business More Easily
Especially if you are in the expansion phase, you may ask yourself whether you should increase the administrative area in-house, or whether some activities should rather be outsourced.
In this case, outsourcing accounting has the advantage that you do not need to hire new employees. If your company grows and your accounting becomes more extensive, you inform the service provider and he/she then ensures that more resources are provided.
In the event that your company downsizes, outsourcing also has the advantage that accounting can be easily scaled back down.
5. You Let Real Professionals Run Your Books
In particular, if you have previously taken care of the bookkeeping yourself, or have commissioned a non-specialist employee to do so, your company will benefit from outsourcing the bookkeeping.
With a professional service provider, employees receive regular training and continuing education. If tax laws or regulations change, these are immediately taken into account in your accounting. You and your employees will be spared trouble with the tax authorities because your accounting does not meet the legal requirements.
6. Your Accounting Is State of the Art
In-house accounting tends to cut corners to save money, which means that outdated software may be used that makes employees’ jobs harder than they need to be.
Good service providers who specialize in accounting, on the other hand, invest in the latest software solutions so that work becomes more efficient and legal requirements are always met.
7. Your Data Is Safe
Accounting service providers who take their work seriously ensure a secure IT infrastructure. This means that your data is stored at the service company on secure and modern servers, so that there is no breach of privacy policies.
Moreover, by outsourcing, you avoid that the data is manipulated and used by one of your employees to their advantage. The systems of the service providers are set up in such a way that an alarm is raised in the event of data manipulation. This way, you can be sure that the data you provide to your service provider will show up in your books and tax records exactly as you provide it to them.
8. You Benefit From Consultants
A good accountant not only keeps your books and takes care of taxes, but he/she is also there to advise you. He/she will make suggestions on how you can make your bookkeeping more efficient. By networking with other companies, he/she can also give you valuable tips on how to better align your business financially.
9. You Save Taxes
Companies could save a lot more in taxes if they had their tax returns and accounting done by experts who are always up to date on the latest tax law and know all the tricks of the trade on how to help their clients save on taxes.
Experts know what matters on your tax return and can see opportunities in your books and data to reduce your tax burden.
By outsourcing, you may then have more money at your disposal in the next fiscal year, which you can invest in new projects instead of accounting and thus make your company even more successful.
We offer different packages for startups and small businesses. The spectrum ranges from company incorporation to payroll and accounting. After you have contacted us with your non-binding request, we will calculate the service complexity and consequently determine the price. All our corporate clients receive personalized packages, which are put together in consultation with the client.