Virtual accountant services provide a range of benefits – a pool of skilled workers, expansion potential, and reduced overhead just to name a few. Today we’d like to narrow our focus down to one of the major reasons to consider outsourcing – eliminating workflow blockages.

How do these blockages occur? Usually one of two problems is the culprit.

The first problem is that there’s simply too much work for at least one link in your process chain.

The second problem is that you have people doing the wrong kind of work. Perhaps you’re short-staffed so you personally have had to take on hiring staff right in the middle of income tax season. Or maybe your income tax experts are tied up with a crisis in an SME file.

Either way, work gets backed up. Clients become dissatisfied and word spreads that you’re not to be relied on.

Happily, both problems are very solvable with virtual accountant services.

Break Down Your Blockages

It’s possible that the idea of collecting and then shipping work elsewhere seems counterintuitive to you – doesn’t it take longer to include this unseen group of people into the loop of your firm’s processes?

Not at all. With the speed of today’s internet the information flows in an up-to-the-minute fashion. This includes communication with your virtual accountant manager – via email or even video calls with Skype you can get current updates on a file’s status.

Part of partnering with BOSS to set up your virtual accountant services is streamlining your processes. From our end we help with the training and management of your overseas virtual accountants, making sure they’re familiar with your particular methods of handling files.

In addition we set up a weekly or monthly (your preference) virtual meeting with your overseas manager, an agent who is the one in charge of maintaining the established processes overseas and keeping you informed back home.

Sort, Separate, Streamline

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again – Virtual accountant services is a fantastic method of pruning away waste in your in-house processes. Waste that includes having people stuck doing the wrong work.

When you send your number-crunching work overseas you free up your in-house talent (including yourself) to focus on where they work best and are needed the most.

By preparing your business to expand into outsourced practices you’re going to naturally be taking a good hard look at your own processes. In so doing you’ll identify what works best and what needs tweaking.

Once you’ve reworked the less than ideal aspects of your firm you’ll codify these newly reworked processes, a sign of a healthy and well-run company. When further work blockages occur, you’ll now have a step-by-step process manual to check against to identify where new slowdowns occur, enabling you to fix them.

Thanks to your expanded worker base via your virtual accountant services your blockages will be eliminated, meaning your services are going to have a much quicker turnaround time. Good-bye to penalties due to tardy filing times.

A quicker turnaround time means more time for more clients, and the chance to offer more services.

BOSS Blasts Blockages… And So Much More

Freeing up your current workflow blockages is reason enough to give virtual accountant services a try. We’re confident that you’ll find that it’s just the tip of the iceberg in how we can benefit your business.

More and more agencies are using outsourced accounting services to give their profits a quick boost up to 42%. That’s a juicy reason to send services to BOSS’ outsourced accountants. But there’s a problem – many agencies are only looking at overseas operations as a way to reduce costs… which means they’re leaving a number of further benefits lying untouched on the table.

Agencies are tapping into outsourcing to shrink operating costs, to reduce their capital investments, and to bear down on their core business offerings. But that’s only half of what outsourcing can offer.

The other half is that outsourced accounting services are not just about reduction but about growth – decreasing turn-around times, increasing the quality of the services rendered, speeding up response-times to customers, and broadening just what your particular firm considers its core services.

It’s all about whether you have a short-term or long-term goal for your business. The short-term of course is that almost immediate jump up to a potential 42% profit (as reported by one of our clients). The long-term is about leveraging a deep and wide pool of trained outsourced accountants in order to reshape the very foundations of your business.

Happily, with BOSS’ outsourced accounting services you get to reach both kinds of goals in one decisive and simple action.

Get Proactive

It’s hardly news that the financial world is shrinking. Twenty years ago you could market yourself as your particular city’s top accounting shop. But now, thanks to the internet age, you’re no longer competing just with other services in Sydney, Perth, wherever your brick-and-mortar offices are located  – you are now, whether you like it or not, in a nation-wide league.

And there are some big players in this league. For example Deloitte, the international financial concern with member firms in a range of countries, is opening up its gates to release a flood of services aimed at the SME sector with its Private Connect Technology.

Their technology, based on cloud computing, allows SME entrepreneurs access to current management reports, online payment authorizations, queries, and alerts all through one easy-to-use portal.

You’re probably not going to have the resources to take on a flock of programmers to create your own specialized portal software. So how do you compete?

You partner with BOSS’ outsourced accounting services and let us aid you in staying relevant.

Think Strategically

When you partner with BOSS outsourcing accounting services you’re changing your business in two essential ways.

The first is you’re changing what your firm has on offer. The services you always had on the menu will now be turned around faster. This leaves room for you to take on new clients, meaning your firm is primed to grow.

You’re also going to be able to expand that menu of services. BOSS staff can do any Australian bookkeeping, tax, or SMSF work an Australian accountant can do.

So if you’ve always been about individual income returns, now is your chance to expand into small business bookkeeping. Did you build your reputation on tax prep? Now you can offer business start-up assistance.

The second change focuses on the heart of your business – you. Your role in both your business and in the lives of your clients is going to change. You’re going to redefine yourself from being an accountant to being a business consultant who is tapped to help with key financial decisions concerning your clients’ businesses.

And you’re going to create all of this expansion in the long-term while having an explosive gain in your profits in the short-term.

Squeeze Your Outsourced Accounting Services for all Their Worth

Perhaps the greatest thing that BOSS can offer you with its outsourced accounting services is that there’s always more – more ways to redefine, reshape, and grow your firm.

Tapping into a well of benefits that won’t ever run dry – now that’s strategic thinking.

See a complete list of our services or schedule an appointment!

Let’s talk about how outsourced accounting services are going to transform your tax season workflow from a trickle to a raging (but controlled) torrent.

Every year come tax season it’s the same old story – your clients have left out some vital info. Not out of malice of course, but they’re awfully busy over there, you know how it is…

So you send out the standard round of queries to your clients, and then you wait. And wait. You give them a gentle reminder that the government doesn’t care for having their deadlines snubbed.

And then all at once there’s the info in the most disorganized form possible accompanied by an almost visible air of panic and please make sure you get our taxes in on time because we can’t afford the penalties!

This is how workflow bottlenecks are born.

Time to file for those extensions again. Which is more work. But who really wanted to have a social life anyway?

But let it ring loud and clear throughout the Australian accounting world that there is indeed a way for you to not only process accounts like a well-oiled machine (and even take on more accounts with little to no added muss or fuss) and see a movie while it’s still in theatres.

Outsourced Accounting Services = Time + Increased Client Base + Profit

For the sake of a really simplified example, let’s say your firm pretty much consists of you, the Senior accountant, and one Junior. In theory, you’d like to operate along the lines of Junior doing all the compliance stuff, while you’re the one handling the tricky items that pop up while you’re liaising with the clients.

You’re already shaking your head, we can tell. No way does tax season run that smooth. You can’t keep up with multiple clients’ latest info, never mind bringing in new accounts. So you increase the Junior staff – you double it, then double it again.

You’re moving a bit faster, but your in-house costs (salaries + computers + furniture etc…) are soaring. Instead of fishing for new accounts, you’re spending your time gearing up for your new talent, plus teaching them the ropes.

Then the busy season ends and you still have staff on the payroll that you no longer expressly need.

Or you can take the outsourced accounting services route and save yourself some headaches, a bunch of money, and a whole lot of time.

Saving Time

Do you have processes currently in place that act as benchmarks for you to check the current status of any client’s account? You will with BOSS.

Setting up a measurable system is a big part of accounting outsourcing with us, and it’s something we will revisit with you and your overseas Manager on a monthly basis to look for ways to improve and evolve.

Just like that you’re no longer scrambling to keep up with your clients’ accounts – you now have time to spend on improving your own business.

Because you personally are no longer doing compliance work you have time to liaise more with clients. Give them one-on-one attention.

Plus your outsourced accountant team are going to be set to find red flags in clients’ accounts on a daily basis, which means you’re now the Johnny-or-Jane-On-the-Spot in coming to your client’s financial rescue; whereas in your old purely in-house system big problems could potentially linger until you could find the time to investigate – and by then it could be too late.

You’re now your clients’ Consultant, and potentially their business’ hero.

And that is going to earn you new clients without the cost of additional marketing. Who isn’t going to recommend an accountant that has their fingers on the pulse of their day-to-day dealings?

Profit

Your new deep pool of expert virtual accountants comes at a fraction of the cost it would take to increase your talent pool in-house. Outsourced accounting services require no furniture, no computers, and no training beyond the initial set-up.

We usually suggest that you do set up one person to be your overseas liaison, the person in-house responsible for keeping that precious flow on information going and coming, leaving you free to do an integrity check on a weekly or monthly basis, whichever you prefer.

So no, outsourced accounting is not entirely fire-and-forget, but your tax season workflow will suddenly go from a daily scramble to a weekly or monthly overview meeting.

You’re left free for those face-to-faces with your client base and to figure out what you’re going to do with that windfall increase in profit.

See a complete list of our services or schedule an appointment!

Outsourcing your accounting services can have a lot of appeal for an accounting firm owner – a quick jump up to 42% profits has a lot of appeal. However it might not seem quite such a treat for your current employees on account of the words “outsourcing” and “overseas” have been linked with the notion of job loss.

You want your current in-house team on board. In fact, you need them to be firing on all cylinders because making the leap to outsourcing is going to require that you and your team rethink your current work processes. That is not something you want to attempt to do all on your own (unless of course you’re a one-accountant show).

Here are 4 big mistakes you should make an effort to avoid when you’re gearing up to evolve to an outsourcing accounting firm:

• You Don’t Clarify That Outsourcing Means Expansion, Not Reduction.

  Yes outsourcing your accounting services means a reduction in costs, but it’s a move you make when you’re looking to expand your business.
  You’re looking to bring in more clients, not fewer, and since outsourcing works best when your overseas workers have all of the necessary info for any one particular file, your in-house team is still going to have plenty to do.
  Some jobs will lose some of their responsibilities and gain others, but the business is going to grow as a whole, and there will be need of a good in-house talent pool.

• You Don’t Let Your In-house Talent In On Your Goals.

  Even if you wanted to (which you shouldn’t), making the change to outsourcing your accounting services is not something you’re going to be able to keep as a secret, not entirely at least.
  People fill an information vacuum on their own, and more often than not they’re going to fill it with negative assumptions.  Left on their own, your people are going to speculate that the upcoming change means they’re going to be turfed, when in fact as your business grows you’re going to need them more than ever.
  They may go on the hunt for new jobs. Or you may find yourself with a firm full of people who are no longer on your side. All of which could be avoided if you kept them in the loop.

• You Don’t Let Your In-house Team Help You Make the Upgrade.

  BOSS has years of experience helping accounting firms of all sizes expand their business through outsourcing. We do everything possible to make the process painless.
  However there is still going to be some work you’ll have to do at your end. Like we mentioned above, part of that work is redefining the roles everyone will play as your firm grows.
  Get your in-house team involved in the process, helping you figure out what work they’re going to be doing as your business blossoms, and which tasks each person can send to your overseas partners. Get them to help define the measuring sticks you’re going to use to keep track of how far along each account is in your new processes.

• You Look At Your Evolution As “Mine” Instead of “Ours.”

  Your existing talent are available to help the transition be an easy one. Use them. Make it their transition too. Give them ownership. As the business prospers, they prosper.
  Include your team in helping you build toward your vision of where you see your firm a year from now, and 5 years from now. Not only is a shared vision going to make everyone embrace the upgrade to outsourcing your accounting services, but they’re going to become invested in helping you achieve that vision.

We’ve mentioned in the past how using BOSS to outsource your accounting services can lead to an immediate increase to 42% profit. But there’s a big question associated with such a boost to your profit numbers – can your business handle the growth potential outsourcing accounting provides?

Believe it or not there are some pitfalls that, if you’re not prepared, can possibly cause your business to get stuck with a bottle neck internally.

Don’t Set Your Cart Before Your Horse – Prepare Yourself to Receive Success

Problems arise when the Partners don’t first look at the numbers and processes that make up the internal workings of their firm.

What we mean is this – you may leap at the chance for that increase in profit. You outsource your accounting services, freeing up all sorts of time.

You use that time and additional profit to ramp up your marketing to rake in a huge number of new clients and extend your value-add offerings.

But you and your staff have no experience with handling this new volume internally. Even though a lion’s share of the work can be sent overseas, there’s still work that has to be done in-house.

Staff

Before you flip the switch on outsourcing your accounting services we strongly suggest you make sure that your in-house team’s processes are both running as efficiently as they can now, and are ready to scale up.

Don’t put your processes before your goals. The goals are more revenue, new clients and satisfied clients. But your current processes may not allow those goals to be readily achieved. You have to be willing to change your processes to fit the new paradigm of outsourcing accounting work. There will be an increase in jobs processed (data prepared for the outsourcing provider, queries needing answering, more jobs to review), new clients won (admin, meetings etc.), more business advisory work needed and probably more marketing activities now you have a reliable, quickly scalable compliance resource you can easily outsource accounting work to.

So if you insist on squeezing all this through your current internal system you may find things get stuck in a bottle neck and the whole process starts disintegrating.

You also need to learn from your staff what parts of your existing system are not working well. Staff at the coal face will have plenty of valuable insight into how to do things better. You need to allow tweaks to be made and allow time for evaluation of work flow and a forum for feedback so your organisation can continually evolve systems and procedures.

You also need to appreciate a procedure may need regular refinement or overhaul. So, be flexible in your processes, not in your goals.

Having staff engaged in the process is important for more information on help with this please read How to Get Staff to Embrace Outsourcing

BOSS has systems, procedures, checklists and tips for all new clients.  A selection of tips follows:

Job Preparation

When outsourcing accounting work you should ensure all data from the client is collected before handing over the job. Making this a standard practice considerably cuts down on the amount of back-and-forth you have with your BOSS team. BOSS provides a checklist easy enough for an Administrator to follow.

The Right People for the Right Jobs

Make sure you leverage your staff as much as possible: Administrators should prepare data, chase clients for query answers and prepare the final presentation for the client. Accountants should provide BOSS with a brief of the client and job, handle the technical queries and review the job (if BOSS has not been tasked with a “first review”. A Partner should conduct a Partner level review and sign off the job.

For more info on the overall process including IT please read How Outsourcing Accounting Works

For a detailed idea of internal processes please read Outsourcing Accounting: How to Make It work for You

The Rewards of Preparing for Accounting Outsourcing

• More time free to deal face-to-face with clients.
• A more efficient process means happier clients, which means more referrals.
• An influx of (referral) clients with no money yet spent on marketing.
• You’re ready to expand.

Smooth the Way for Success

Outsourcing your accounting services can generate huge profit for your firm. But it’s not quite just a gift to be opened – you do have to put some effort into preparing your firm for evolving to its next level. But BOSS has eleven years of helping clients so when you engage us we can provide plenty of help!

So you’ve heard of the many financial blessings to be counted in outsourcing accounting. It’s no exaggeration; the cost-savings can be amazing, increasing your profits up to 42%* in one decisive move.

However, it’s not quite as simple as flipping a switch. Because the stakes are so enormous, it pays to take a moment and investigate the service to which you’re going to be handing large portions of your operations.

As an accountant your raison d’etre is making sure your clients get the most out of every dollar. Don’t you deserve the same level of courtesy for yourself?

Here are 8 questions BOSS encourages you to ask before you commit to our outsourcing services.

1. Does the outsourcing accounting service have a traceable track record?
   Does the service have other clients willing to give it a positive testimonial? Does it have an overall upward trajectory in new client acquisition? Did the other clients have any problems, and if so, how were they resolved?
2. Does the service match your companies’ needs?
   Perhaps the most obvious question – can the service do what you need to be done? While most companies that are outsourcing their accounting business have cost-cutting as their primary goal, it’s still vitally important that not only can the outsourcing service provide what you need, but they can do so more efficiently than you do in-house.
3. How is your business going to be managed?
   Is there going to be someone who is a dedicated manager of the people working on your account? Will there be a responsible manager who knows your particular company, your culture, and will they be able to guide others in maintaining the processes that you desire?
4. How much will you save?
   A pretty big question, considering it’s one of the main reasons you’re looking to outsource in the first place.
5. How scalable is the service?
   If your business needs more staff quickly what reassurances are there that the outsourcing accounting service provider can meet your demands without delay? How will training of the new staff happen – is it down to you or does the outsourcing provider take care of everything for you?
6. Are the outsourced workers good at their job? More importantly, are they good at your job?
   You’re outsourcing to save money, not to save on quality. It’s paramount that the workers at the other end of the line are able to maintain, and even better improve upon, the quality of output your clients have come to know you for.
7. What do you have to do at your end?
   How is the accounting outsourcing service going to migrate your business and introduce it to their workers? Do they offer an operation that makes the process as seamless as possible?
   Once it’s set up, do you have to dedicate someone in your office to managing the overseas operations? Will you have to learn any new software or processes at your end?
8. Are they financially sound?
   Like with any service you can imagine, it’s a good idea to investigate an accounting outsourcing service’s financial stability to make sure you’re partnering up with someone who isn’t going to suddenly fold up overnight, taking your outsourcing dollars with them to never be seen again.

BOSS has answers.

We’ve put this list together because we want you to be outsourcing your accounting service with confidence.

So call us at 1800 88 92 32 OR fill out our Contact Request Form, OR explore our services, and get the answers you need.

*A profit increase to 42% was reported by one of our clients – your results may differ.