Finance and accounting are crucial business functions that require professional and expert handling. It involves effective management of revenue and expenditure enabling companies to control their business. For this very reason, finance and accounting are known as the backbone of any business. Though accounting involves recording and reporting financial transactions based on both present and past transactions and finance is a management-based function used to make strategies and management of company’s resources, both these functions are clubbed together.
Companies especially start-ups and small businesses are seldom in a situation that enables them to take care of their finance and accounting services professionally to gain business success. As these processes are monotonous, cumbersome, and require experts which may be a costly affair, these companies often neglect this process. However, the growing trend and success of outsourced finance and accounting services give companies the very competitive edge required and provides them with professional insights taking their company’s business a step closer to success.
The Benefits of Outsourcing Finance and Accounting are many, some of which are;
- Undivided attention and better focus on core business activities
- Increases the efficiency of the in-house staff who no longer need to divert their time and resources towards accounting
- Helps to offload managerial responsibilities
- Reduction of hiring and infrastructural cost
- Access to a larger pool of professional talent
- Availability of various financial functions taken care of under one roof
Outsourcing firms do offer a lot of advantages but the question still remains whether your company needs to outsource finance and accounting services.
In order to Decide the Same, You Need to Ask the Following Questions;
- Do you have the required professional and experienced staff to handle your finance functions by providing undivided attention and in whose absence finance and accounting functions are not affected?
- Are you in total control of your finances to take important business decisions with the available data and information?
- Do you have access to the latest tools and techniques of accounting along with accounting software that makes it easy to extract reports and financial statements?
- Do you have access to quality financial statements and reports that show the true and fair picture of your company’s financial position?
- Have you been noticing that there are errors in your books and rectifying the errors is both tedious and expensive
If the answer to any of the above questions is a “Yes”, then you need to outsource your finance and accounting services that let the professionals take care of your business transactions while you can concentrate on important business activities.
Once it is decided that you want to outsource your finance and accounting functions, the next step would be to choose the right financial and accounting service provider.
Related post: Why 2021 Is the Year to Outsource Accounting
The Process of Selecting the Best-Outsourced Service Provider would Include the Following Steps:
Understanding Your Business Needs:
Before outsourcing your finance and accounting functions, it’s important to understand how much of your services need professional help, the amount of data you are willing to share with the outsourcing firm, during which period, and what exact finance service you really want to outsource.
Budget Required:
Though outsourcing financial services are cost-effective, one needs to know the exact expenditure of outsourcing. Companies need to weigh the benefits and the real value that outsourcing services will bring to your company for the number of resources you are willing to spend for outsourcing.
Listing all the Outsourcing Service Providers:
The next step is searching all the service providers in order to narrow them down to a single service provider. While making this list some factors that are to be considered are;
- The systems and accounting tools and techniques used by the outsourcing firm versus the current trends in the market
- The control measures used by the outsourcing firm
- Data security and compliance followed by the outsourcing firm
- Processes and timelines followed by the outsourcing firm that ensure timely reporting of financials
Checking the outsourcing service provider’s reputation by reading their reviews, client testimonials, number of years of service, number of clients served, etc.
Trail Run:
Most outsourcing firms provide trial runs to help their clients get comfortable with their services. These trial runs help you understand the service provider’s style of working and how best it fits your company’s culture. It enables you to understand the performance, compatibility, and efficiency of the service provider. It also helps you to narrow down on the best provider who will offer value for your money.
After following all the above steps, you would have chosen the best service provider who would partner with your finance and accounting needs and lead you to the path of growth and success.
Over to you
While you use the above guide to find yourselves the best-outsourced finance and accounting service provider, Diligen is one such service provider that can cater to all your accounting and business needs in 2021. At Diligen we not only serve our clients with basic finance and accounting services but also help them in project valuations, IRR forecasts, cash flows analysis, and other financial functions that enable clients to make correct business decisions.
Our professional and qualified financial experts at Diligen are up-to-date with the latest financial trends for the year 2021 and provide;
- Automated and real-time finance and accounting by using digital and cloud-based accounting that integrates and updates your financial records regularly. As financial data about the company is easily accessible at any time and anyplace, business decisions can be taken quickly; So that you can explore the opportunities in a much more informed manner.
- Financial models of advanced nature can be created due to our sophisticated and automated cash flow forecast which leaves no room for surprises. Diligen helps its clients to forecast future growth opportunities accurately so that proper plans are put in place at the right time.
- Diligen understands that every client has varied needs and to cater to this, we provide tailor-made accounting and finance solutions which are customized to meet all your business needs. So that our clients can exactly choose what and how much data they need to share with us.
- Our team at Diligen constantly strives hard to maintain data integrity and data security, by using the latest tools and techniques of finance and accounting we are placed in a position to ensure that our client’s data is fully protected and in safe hands.