Some companies prefer to keep as much under one roof as possible, which is understandable. Especially for SMEs, there are plenty of benefits to getting employees to multi-task and have as great an understanding of the ins and outs of the business as possible.
With accounts, this also makes sense on the face of it, but it’s worth remembering that the same benefits can be gained from outsourcing accountancy, where the answer to any queries is only going to be a phone call or email away.
While it certainly is useful for a company to have an employee with some understanding of accountancy, many businesses place too much weight on the idea of a ‘team’ of accountants, thereby investing time and money poorly. Here are three reasons why:
1. Uses up company time and money
A staggering statistic was revealed by the Federation for Small Business (FSB) last September, showing that owners of small and medium-sized firms are using up 12 days of their year through number crunching and dealing with tax administration matters. As the old saying goes, this is hardly working ‘on’ a business rather than ‘in’ it, so it’s an inefficient use of business owners’ time and, perhaps more worryingly, money; the FSB calculates that such tasks are costing SMEs around £0.5bn per year.
Outsourced accountants can take a huge bulk of this out of a business’ hands, allowing it to use the newly found time to focus on more proactive matters such as launching services and generating links with other companies and customers.
2. The expense of staff
Staff members are a business’ biggest commodity, but only when they are needed. The expense of wages, insurance, training, sick pay and holiday means that no business owner can take the decision to recruit lightly.
3. Lack of continuity
Lastly, because employees are human beings with different goals, needs and ambitions, business owners never quite know how long they’re going to stick around for. Even the happiest and most competent of employees can often surprise their companies by handing in their month’s notice.
Training up a new member of staff to replace them adds extra expenses, but it also means that good practices that were previously in place could be lost amid the changeover. This isn’t a problem with an outsourced team, because the professional accountants on hand will be able to dedicate greater time to the books.
The upshot of all of these is that outsourcing frees up more time within a business, helps to generate cashflow, and gives the business owner greater control of the company.