Every company, large or small, is obligated to keep their accounts updated and in compliance with the accounting rules and obligations in force. This is essential for them to be able to present reliable traces of the various commercial, material or legal flows in the event of an audit. This information is necessary to have an idea of the financial situation of a company. Similarly, accounting indicators guide managers in their decisions. The position of accountant in a company is complex. It requires a lot of attention to detail and knowledge of the field.
The outsourcing of accounting consists of entrusting part or all of the company’s accounting needs to an external service provider. Why outsource accounting management? Which departments are concerned? What are the advantages of this approach?
Outsourcing accounting management: why and how?
For a company, accounting management is a very important position, not to be taken lightly. Outsourcing this function can be interesting for a company for various reasons. In general, companies tend to do this when their accounting obligations become too important and they want to offload a task that may be too heavy to handle. Others outsource their accounting because they do not have the skills or resources in-house to manage it. Finally, for a company, outsourcing accounting management is a way of ensuring that the job is done properly.
The outsourcing of accounting management can take several forms and affect several services such as
- Accounting entry (accounting for sales, accounting for overheads, accounting for purchases, accounting for payroll management, accounting for cash flow, etc.)
- Tax accounting (VAT, business tax, etc.)
- Legal assistance
- Management of fixed assets
- Inventory work
- Lettering of accounts
- Preparation of annual accounts and tax returns
There are therefore a multitude of services related to accounting management that a company can outsource. Before resorting to outsourcing, the company will have to determine its needs as best as possible. To do this, it must assess the volume of documents to be processed, the deadlines to be met, the management charts it needs, the mandatory declarations, etc. After this stage, the company will sign a contract, known as an “engagement letter” with an external service provider. Among other things, this document will set out the conditions for carrying out the assignment, the division of tasks between the company and the external service provider and the cost of the work.
The advantages of outsourcing accounting management
Increased security
When a company entrusts all or part of its accounting management to an external service provider, it ensures security. The work will be carried out by experts with specialised skills in the field and extensive experience of business problems. The latter is considered to be the guarantors of good accounting management. Their expertise will therefore enable a company to have a global vision of the activity in real time, to benefit from up-to-date information, to ensure accurate bookkeeping and to minimise the risk of errors in calculations. Similarly, the declarations will be made as soon as possible, which will enable the company to avoid any penalties linked to delay. The security of outsourcing accounting also concerns the company’s data. Indeed, sensitive information will be very well protected in the hands of an external service provider: they are trained in a sense of ethics and are committed to respecting the confidential data of their clients.
Save time and enjoy increasing flexibility
When a company does its own bookkeeping, it can be very time-consuming, especially if it does not have all the necessary knowledge. Moreover, this task takes up a lot of space in the agenda. This is why outsourcing accounting has its advantages! It allows a company to free up time and energy that can be invested in other business functions or to think about developing strategic aspects. More generally, outsourcing will give a company the opportunity to achieve its objectives more easily and to innovate. It will also give it more flexibility: in the event that one of the managers is off sick or leaves the firm, the company’s accounts can still be monitored!
Make savings
The question of whether to insource or outsource accounting often raises the question of the cost to the company. It is important to bear in mind that sometimes the cost of having a dedicated workforce is not justified, especially when you add in the cost of equipment, salaries, software licences or any training. Outsourcing the management of accounting is a good way for a company to save money, as it avoids the need to have an individual in-house for each of the areas and to have a single expert handling everything. It is estimated that several hundred euros can be saved and that the savings can be as much as a quarter of the initial expenditure.
Contact us!
At ProContact, we work closely with you to include outsourcing in your business strategy. We can offer you an unprecedented adaptation of your way of working thanks to the arrival of resources located elsewhere, without losing time, money or quality.
ProContact is more than a contact centre. Thanks to trained, qualified, hand-picked and multilingual agents, we enable companies that choose us to gain credibility and, above all, to satisfy their customers, regardless of the situation and in complete transparency.
Outsourcing has become a tangible and concrete business strategy for the development of the company. To find out more about our services and for a quality partnership, click on our contact form, send us an e-mail or call us on (+33) 1 84 76 24 03.
