Lee Court
Save time and money by getting it right the first time you choose an outsourcing provider
If you’ve considered accounting outsourcing services you’re not alone these days. More and more practices these days have added at least one outsourced accountant to their team.
The following two mistakes can be avoided before jumping in.
There are many things to consider when choosing which accounting outsourcing provider to go with. If your potential provider isn’t offering many of the things above, this could be a reason for the cheaper rates.
BOSS (Back Office Shared Services Pty Ltd) is Australia’s premium accounting outsourcing provider supplying well-trained high-quality accountants and bookkeepers. To discuss your needs and how we can help, Book a Consultation NOW!
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In its earlier years, 14 years ago when BOSS first opened its doors, accounting outsourcing was quite the new phrase. Many firms struggled to embrace the idea while a small few decided to give it a try. We understand what it’s like embracing a new business idea. Most businesses want to see how it all pans out before jumping in and rightly so. After all, even though engaging a remote accountant may benefit a firm in the beginning of a new industry it doesn’t mean there won’t be any hiccups to smooth out due to the offering of a fairly new service dealing with people on the other side of the world.
Now that BOSS has been in the accounting outsourcing business for longer than most outsourcing firms, we feel that any headaches we may have had to endure have been smoothed out nicely. Our best offer we present to clients now and the offer that has been the most widely embraced is our Freedom Service.
Now that taking on an outsourced accountant has become more mainstream and lots of firms have gone before you to assist in ironing out any problems, now more and more firms are enjoying what it can offer their businesses. Is it your time to do a free trial? Let us show you exactly how BOSS can increase your profit.
BOSS (Back Office Shared Services Pty Ltd) is Australia’s premium accounting outsourcing provider supplying well-trained high-quality accountants and bookkeepers. To discuss your needs and how we can help, Book a Consultation NOW!
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A lot of accounting outsourcing providers don’t give firms the opportunity to communicate directly with their remote staff.
Time to sort out accounting queries.
If you want a job done fast and you and your accounting outsourcing team must go through other channels to pass information between each other this can add a lot of wasted time when you need work back fast.
Miscommunication between remote staff and your office.
If your accountant asks a question via somebody else their question may either not be understood by you, or you may mistake exactly what they are asking. This can add to further delays which can cause you money in wasted time and create headaches for both parties.
BOSS offers clients the opportunity to communicate directly with their accounting outsourcing staff whether they engage a full-time dedicated accountant, part-time, casual or the newer service we offer called the Freedom Service (minimum 50 hours per month). You have the ability to quickly get in touch with your accountant to ask and answer queries making a big savings on time and removing any delay frustrations. After all, they are your staff, so why wouldn’t you have the chance to communicate with them directly?
BOSS’ newest service has been welcomed with open arms as BOSS now takes on all the risks involved with hiring staff. As well as all the usual needs being met like; hiring, quality of work, training and HR, BOSS now has created something new named the Freedom Service which works 100% on a fixed fee basis. All jobs are performed with fixed fees rather than the traditional charging out on hourly rates. This takes out the anguish of any potential budget overruns. Clients can know exactly how much a job is going to cost them before a job starts, saving them a lot of money annually! The service also benefits firms because they no longer have to pay out for annual leave, sick leave and public holidays. (Or any other leave that employers are normally entitled to pay) Imagine being able to hire all your accountants this way!
The only requirement on your behalf is giving BOSS 50 hours per month. There are no other costs involved in bringing on a freedom service accountant and as per usual, you have the choice of changing accountants if you’re not happy with them or cancelling with a month’s notice. It’s quite the offer.
BOSS’ sales and marketing manager Lee Court says “I’ve been delighted with the way this offer has been welcomed. New clients can see exactly how much they’re going to have to outlay for each job before its started and they’re very interested in knowing more about how accounting outsourcing staff can help them. It’s tickled many a firm’s interest”
If you’re at all wanting to learn more about how the Freedom Service could benefit your firm please get in touch by booking a call.
BOSS (Back Office Shared Services Pty Ltd) is Australia’s premium accounting outsourcing provider supplying well-trained high-quality accountants and bookkeepers. To discuss your needs and how we can help, Book a Consultation NOW!
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Although most websites are happy to tell you that social media is the best way to make new leads for your business, they are seldom likely to talk about which kinds of businesses benefit the most from using social media to attract new clients. Well, unless you’re an extremely rare exemption you’ve no doubt found (if you’ve paid attention to how your leads are coming through the door) that social media for accounting firms ain’t going to cut it if you’re serious about growing your firm. Unless you’re happy to wait around for decades to bring in new clients!
Social media ads, or information on your social site that lead viewers directly to a landing page on your website, on the other hand, can certainly bring in new leads if done well. This is placing reliance on new business more so on what’s called a landing page, rather than focusing on writing a plethora of facebook posts. A landing page is essentially a place where viewers ‘land’ and it’s basically a fancy way of saying a sales page. But don’t be scared by a dedicated sales page. It doesn’t have to look and feel like a loud Coles advertisement. It can be an elegant page filled with the key ways a prospect will benefit from your services. For ideas have a look at BOSS’ landing page which lets people know what they’ll get by using a qualified BOSS accountant or online bookkeeping service.
Although you may rely on referrals to bring in new business, do you have even a simple system in place to ensure a constant supply of referrals? Most firms believe that because a client referred someone to them they have a referral system in place. This simply won’t do the trick in today’s competitive world. However, if you want to implement a proper system but simply lack the time right now, here is a simple and effective way to increase business by only spending 20 minutes to make an adjustment to the signature of your email template that will go out to each and every client every time you send out an email. It couldn’t be more simple!
You could adjust your PS to go something like this:
Our firm is built upon referrals and working with people like you. Each and every referral we receive is very much appreciated.
By this simple statement you are attaining your goal of showing you enjoy working with your clients and you rely on referrals to build your firm. But for a more dramatic PS that asks that lets clients know what referrals get and how it can benefit them, the following is a much more effective PS.
FREE Financial Analysis for All New Referrals! We are offering a Free 60 minute deep financial analysis that could save firms thousands. We appreciate your business and if you know of anyone who could benefit from this, please let them know about this offer. Thank you.
The goal of the explicit PS is to let them know your appreciation for their business and to make them aware of your referral system and how it can benefit referrals.
Check out BOSS’ newest service called the Freedom Service offering firms the best online bookkeeping service in Australia.
BOSS (Back Office Shared Services Pty Ltd) is Australia’s premium accounting outsourcing provider supplying well-trained high-quality accountants and bookkeepers. To discuss your needs and how we can help, Book a Consultation NOW!
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From a recent Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO) audit of 626 businesses in some parts of Australia, which included towns in the mid-western regions such as Coonabarabran, Gloucester, Dubbo, Narrabri, Wellington, Moree and Gunnedah and from the mid-north coast, Taree and Port Macquarie, a shocking 48% have failed to comply in full with workplace laws.
Twenty-three percent were found to be non-compliant throughout the mid-western region, whilst in the mid-north coast area twenty five percent of businesses showed poor bookkeeping practices.
This audit came about as part of the Fair Work Ombudsman education and compliance campaign which was put into place to help employers make sure they are getting the basics right.
The Workplace and Basics initiative checked the wage and time records of randomly selected businesses from chosen business types that covered a wide range of industries though with a focus on sectors with potentially large numbers of vulnerable workers, including the employment of migrants, students and casuals. A specific area paid special attention to was the cafe and restaurants’ sectors including fast food businesses. Other businesses involved within service industries and labour supply chains were considered ripe for auditing as well.
FWO Natalia James says, “Businesses must be aware that recent legislative changes mean that penalties for serious breaches, as well as those for record keeping and payslip breaches, have significantly increased.”
BOSS offers a new online bookkeeping service which offers firms a qualified bookkeeper for a minimum of fifty hours work per month. It’s called the Freedom Service where clients pay only on a fixed fee basis rather than on an hourly basis meaning your firm can save on budget overruns and eradicate write-offs and also eradicates paying out on annual and sick leave and other paid occasions such as public holidays. It really is an off of Freedom!
BOSS (Back Office Shared Services Pty Ltd) is Australia’s premium remote bookkeeping provider supplying well-trained high-quality accountants and bookkeepers. To discuss your needs and how we can help, Book a Consultation NOW!
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A lot of companies have had enough with the whole recruitment process and are looking for ways to simplify or completely remove every stage involved with HR and its many ongoing requirements. BOSS is seeing a big move towards online bookkeeping services amongst every size of businesses.
This week Seek announced they would be giving employers the opportunity to mask the names of candidates as they search through their site. They call this the Hide Names tool which they feel will offer hirers a chance to choose a group of talent for their shortlists before knowing what background candidates come from.
The Hide Names tool can be switched on and off throughout the process to see more candidate details. However, although the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) found when trialling their own blind recruitment strategy, that 50% more females were hired for senior management roles, another government study found that by not identifying candidates it reduced the probability of hiring women overall. The initiative was set up to address any gender and racial bias when looking for new hires. By focusing on candidates skills and experience rather than their names, potential unconscious bias could be circumvented.
There are lots of things to consider when recruiting and when sending out what seems to be a simple job ad you could be putting off future candidates. So here’s a quick sample of things to think carefully about before posting your job ads:
If you’ve simply had enough with the whole recruitment process, with its very high costs involved in drawing in the best candidates for your company, training the new recruit with all the expenses involved and then retaining them and you’d like to put all those dollars back into your business, check out BOSS’ newest online bookkeeping service which offers firms a way to remove every recruitment task. BOSS hires, trains and retains staff on your behalf and you’re none the wiser all this is taking or will ever take place!
BOSS now offers businesses “The Freedom Service” and with a commitment of a minimum of 50 hours of work per month, clients can have all their online bookkeeping (and/or accounting) need’s met and are charged on a fixed fee basis. (And all work is performed to your own procedures.) BOSS sales and marketing manager says “We take the risks away for businesses by offering them a way to know how much all their jobs are going to cost them before BOSS begins work on all jobs. Businesses can free up their business finances while removing the nightmare of budget overruns and consequently prevent any business write-offs. The risk lays with BOSS. And I think that’s a true offer of Freedom!”
BOSS (Back Office Shared Services Pty Ltd) is Australia’s premium remote bookkeeping provider supplying well-trained high-quality accountants and bookkeepers. To discuss your needs and how we can help, Book a Consultation NOW!
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The majority of business owners take care of their bookkeeping needs independently and require accuracy in order to keep up with the ever-growing economy.
Small businesses have a few options for bookkeeping services to suit their particular needs. Rates will vary depending on your choices but it’s essential to understand the needs of your business to decide on which services work the best for you. Below are three types of available bookkeeping choices including
PROS
CONS
PROS
CONS
To businesses that have never used outsourced online bookkeeping services previously it may feel like a strange and slightly frightening concept. However it may just serve all your needs without realising the benefits online bookkeeping has to offer. Advances in modern technology have made outsourcing a cost-effective option for many businesses that couldn’t afford full-time employees in the past but needed more than just part-time staff.
PROS
CONS
BOSS has been in the outsourcing business now for over fourteen years. Outsourcing was considered something new about a decade ago and many people balked at the idea of taking up a service they knew little about and felt hadn’t been tested. Now that thousands of companies have incorporated outsourcing into their business in some form many businesses feel more comfortable in trialing this kind of service.
BOSS offers a bookkeeping service that ticks all the boxes and assists many businesses with their bookkeeping needs. Fixed fees are offered rather than hourly rate charge-outs which help companies to know how much their spending before the job begins.
BOSS (Back Office Shared Services Pty Ltd) is Australia’s premium remote bookkeeping provider supplying well-trained high-quality accountants and bookkeepers. To discuss your needs and how we can help, Book a Consultation NOW!
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With an annual turnover of around £20 million and over 14,500 clients, it’s easy to see why private equity firms were on alert when Mr Simon Dolan decided to put his firm SJD Accountancy, up for sale in 2014. Sold to Sovereign Capital as part of a 100 million pound deal, Dolan, then 45, walked away with a clear £81 million ($144 million AU) in his pocket. But he is the first to admit growth didn’t happen overnight! He also readily explains that he didn’t receive outstanding growth doing things using traditional accounting methods of expansion.
Now that we are living in 2018 and the world has greatly changed since the days of accountants in the back room with their abacus and pocket watches, is it time to change the way accounting firms run their accounting practice? Dolan, now 49, from Chelmsford, Essex, UK, says, “We used cash flow to open other branches, we never bought anybody, all the growth was organic. It was a nice business with no capital costs – short of computers and people.”
Rather than following in others’ footsteps, Simon has always been a freethinking entrepreneurial type which is what allowed him to put aside the idea of being a partner in an accounting firm and instead choosing to be the sole owner of a business that offers accounting services. His perspective on life has caused him to challenge the English educational system as “pointless and impractical” and being blatantly fault-finding with the pressuring of young ones into taking up a university education in order to get a good job, has made him stand out in ways that most traditional accountants may not. But does that mean ‘traditionalists’ need to be rebels in order to push their annual profits through the roof? Not really, we all have role models, we all learn from others in some ways, you need not behave in the same ways in order to learn from them.
Although Dolan has generally always done things differently to others, it doesn’t mean that you need to have the same outlook in order to thrive. There have been thousands of successful people who made their mark by following in the footsteps of others.
“I made £800 the first month then after I wanted to do £1,000, so if you keep doing that over the years of course it gets bigger and bigger.” He explains that high growth occured from a strong desire to always wanting to make more profit then the previous month.
“Accountants need to move away from the ‘grow your business by hiring another partner’ model,” he says. The partnership model is flawed. “If you look at the Top 50, with the exception of four or five, essentially all they are is 50 individual small firms bolted together. The problem with that is you don’t make much money and it is impossible to make a decision. They should look at accountancy being a business and not as accountancy being something they do.” When Simon needs to make a decision, he can make it in an hour rather than having to gather all the partners together in a room then trying to sell all the partners on ideas and then pray the majority all want to vote the same way. Before selling, Simon Dolan maintained full ownership of SJD Accountancy and was the only non-partnership in the Accountancy Age Top 50+50. His fee income was £14m in 2013 which was up 16.6% on the year before that. Being the sole owner of the business, that brought him in a tidy £14m profit, which happened to outperform KPMG’s at £2.78m per partner.
Dolan’s game plan is clear, “Our particular niche is one- or two-man limited companies, mainly white collar workers. The reason we have been successful is that most accountants want to do something that is complicated. What we do is not especially complicated or varied.”
Dolan, author of How to Make Millions Without a Degree, humbly points out, “I haven’t found accountants to be especially good businessmen….” but that’s not an attack on accountants per say, “…I find that of people in general.” He also emphasises that the crucial point he is trying to make is that there is “no reason to believe they are better or worse than anyone else” at business building. A valid example of this being the strict billing of clients on hourly rates rather than carrying out jobs on a fixed fee basis. Whilst billing per hour is what has always been traditionally the case, accounting firms are making themselves slaves to how many hours there are in a day. By changing the mindset from ‘we are an accounting firm’, to ‘we run a business that happens to offer accountancy and bookkeeping services’, partners of accounting firms can shake off that antiquated feeling associated with accounting practices, and begin their crucial step forward towards driving their business en route to modern ways of billing, and hence growth. Imagine being able to bill higher fees for the same amount of work that your firm is currently doing now. Now that sounds like a way to achieve higher growth without lifting a finger!
An overview of some of the things that Dolan did to build his business:
If you haven’t already heard, BOSS is now providing accounting firms with a unique offer called the Freedom Service. This is the opportunity to take on a qualified accountant and/or bookkeeper at a minimum of fifty hours per month. All accountants and bookkeepers are charged out on a fixed fee basis giving businesses the foresight of how much the jobs will cost before BOSS begins the work. Consider all budget overruns or financial write-offs a thing of the past! Now that’s Freedom!
BOSS (Back Office Shared Services Pty Ltd) is Australia’s premium accounting outsourcing provider supplying well-trained high-quality accountants and bookkeepers. To discuss your needs and how we can help, Book a Consultation NOW!
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Evolving from a Boss into a Leader
You’ll be receiving each chapter via email over the next few weeks. Keep an eye out for Chapter 9 in your next email from BOSS.
Table of Contents (for previous chapters)
Speaking of celebrations – why do it? After all, you’re already paying people to do their jobs, isn’t that celebration enough?
First, you can celebrate accomplishments (or just the fact that you’re all working together) because you genuinely want to make your people happy. That’s a pretty good reason in and of itself.
Second, it pays off.
While it will pay off for any size of company, making an employee feel like a rockstar can really pay off for start-ups and smaller companies that face big-company competition. The competition will always come sniffing around for your employees, especially the ones who are shining especially bright.
You can’t necessarily out-pay the competition, and/or you can’t offer bigger benefits.
The only arrow in your quiver might be that you’re able to make your employees feel like they’re more than just employees – they’re part of a family.
Even better, they’re part of a family that loves having them around. They may get more money at the other company, but if they’re just a small cog in a big machine or they end up in a sea of bland or even antagonistic co-workers they’re going to regret ever leaving you and want to come back.
Your people work for money, but they live for positive recognition.
Your customers will come back for the awesome service that results from interacting with employees that love their company.
Richard Branson, that Virgin guy, relates how his empire began with the one low-income record shop in a post to Entrepreneur.com:
“After the launch, the business’s finances were pretty tight — at the end of each week, we’d have to figure out if we had earned enough money to pay the rent and the staff – but this didn’t bother us. We were having such a great time that we kept going, mostly because we just liked hanging out together.”
“Since we were happy, we treated our Virgin Records customers like they were part of the family. And since our customers loved their experience, they kept coming back for more. Before we knew it, we had opened more shops and we were selling more records.”
“As Virgin grew, our ‘serious fun’ approach became a driving force for our enterprise.”
If you crave some numbers the 2015 Employee Recognition Report by the Society for Human Resource Management and Globoforce surveyed 823 HR pros to see how employee recognition affected their companies:
There Ain’t No Party Like a [Your Company Here] Party
So now you want to integrate these celebrations as part of your business’ culture – but what should you do?
Southwest Airlines, famous for their friendly staff, has a wall of memorabilia donated by staff. It’s completely composed of items that signify special moments for the employees – sort of a Planet Hollywood kind of display created by happy employees.
You can reward milestones. Groupon awards employees a track jacket after their first full year, and adds star patches for each additional year.
Influence & Co. (a content marketing agency) reward employees who make significant contributions with “The Belt” – a wrestling-championship style belt.
Zappos has reinvented the old performance bonus routine – they let employees reward other employees with a $50 bonus once a month. How motivating is that?
If you don’t have a lot of money you can get a little weird – Red Velvet Events (an event-planning company) has a little troll doll that the current doll-holder passes off to another employee during their weekly meeting, recapping the recipients’ good deeds that previous week.
Also, don’t think you have to reward only the big successes. Reward the risk-takers, even if they fail. Those risk-takers are going to be the ones who make some amazing break-through eventually that will put your business ahead of your competition.
You can even make an effort to make the people you reject feel good about themselves. If someone interviews for a job with you but doesn’t get it, you can still make them feel decent about their efforts by sending them a customised thank-you letter, and maybe a voucher for one of your products (hopefully they won’t take that as you rubbing it in).
Not only is it classy, but you’re going to be making a huge impression on that person that most of your competitors will not equal – if this is how you treat people you say “no” to, how awesome must it be to actually work for you?
Help out an employee who has fallen on hard times.
Be generous with parental leave.
Get a little personal with your employees. Can you imagine how fantastic it would be for a Virgin employee to turn around to find the Richard Branson there, come to shake his or her hand and to say thanks for making the company look good? They’re going to talk about that moment forever.
Every single little bit of recognition you dish out grants an exponential return from your business’ most important asset – your people.
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If you’ve made the decision to move forward with using an outsourcing provider as an addition to your in-house staff, (or for those that want to use an outsourcing provider for all their accounting/ bookkeeping needs (rather than hire any in-house at all), then as far as hiring a remote bookkeeper is concerned, there are some things you now need to consider to make sure your provider ticks all the boxes for your business needs.
Of course, there’s the obvious, quality of work and efficiency, are part of the priorities. But here are some other aspects to consider.
Are you looking to pay for your outsourced staff on an hourly basis? A full-time obligation or part-time?
Consider full-time staff requirements can run you extra costs involved with payout for leave costs like sick leave, annual leave, public holidays and any other types of leave that an employer is faced with when hiring a full-time employee. Hiring a part-timer can include the same kinds of costs. However, by using an outsourcing service you don’t have the headache of HR issues and there are no recruitment needs.
But what if you could hire a bookkeeper on a fixed fee basis where all those extra costs like annual leave you didn’t need to pay out at all. Hiring staff on a fixed fee basis means you don’t have to worry about budget overruns anymore which means no write-offs!
A list of tasks a remote bookkeeping provider can offer clients should include the following:
Is the providers security up to scratch?
See this link for how serious BOSS takes its IT security.
Does your provider offer the bookkeeping software you use in your own office?
BOSS Bookkeeping software includes all the standard Australian software programs:
If you don’t see your software here and it’s a program commonly used in Australia, then check with us, it will be something we definitely provide.
Is there flexibility with the remote service package you are looking at? Some things to consider:
Do you have the opportunity to scale up a team of accountants or bookkeepers through any busy times?
How long does it take to get the extra staff you need in a hurry?
Are there extra costs involved in scaling up or down?
What are the cancellation terms?
With the fixed fee remote bookkeeping service BOSS offers, you can scale up or down a remote bookkeeping team within a week to take you through any busy times or emergencies. There are no other costs involved and no hidden fees ever.
BOSS (Back Office Shared Services Pty Ltd) is Australia’s premium remote bookkeeping provider supplying well-trained high-quality accountants and bookkeepers. To discuss your needs and how we can help, Book a Consultation NOW!
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