Outsourced Accounting vs. In-House Hiring: What You Should Know

While outsourcing essential financial functions such as accounting and bookkeeping has become commonplace in recent years, not all accountants or accountancy practices are comfortable with it yet. Security concerns, potential loss of control, and negative opinions of clients and employees tend to deter accounting practices from choosing to outsource.

Hiring accountants in-house to handle your various accounting needs may seem like a great idea; however, it comes with its set of challenges as well. Here are a few reasons why you should take a long, hard look at your hiring strategy.

Why Outsourced Accounting Is Better than In-House Hiring

Hiring and Training Process

Hiring and training new employees is a tedious and time-consuming process. Posting new job openings, interviewing candidates, rolling out offers, and onboarding employees can take up a lot of your staff’s time. Not to forget, there’s also an adjustment period for the new employee before they’re up to speed with how things work in your practice. Outsourcing, on the other hand, gives your practice access to highly skilled accountants at affordable rates. With the outsourcing partner taking care of manual and repetitive tasks, your team will have more time to focus on client needs and more pressing matters.

Costs

Along with the headache of finding the right candidate, you also have to deal with the costs of hiring a full-time in-house resource. You’ll need to account for expenses such as salaries, medical insurance, paid holidays, NI contribution, office space rent, training costs, etc. Add all of these expenses together, and you have a massive amount in front of you. With outsourcing, you can minimize the costs. You’ll be billed based on the type of service you choose, whether that’s based on the number of hours worked, use of a full-time employee, or blocks of hours. With outsourcing, you’ll save a significant amount of money in the long run.

Productivity

Although the in-house staff is expected to be efficient and productive throughout the day, the reality is that there may be distractions in the form of water-cooler conversations and frequent breaks. Additionally, it could be challenging to manage any extra workload when an employee is unwell or is on leave. On the other hand, outsourcing gives your practice access to highly skilled accountants at affordable rates. These experts are available round the clock to ensure your work does not suffer at any point.

Financial Expertise

Financial functions like accounting and bookkeeping are complex. They require accountants and bookkeepers to constantly be up-to-date with legislative changes, changing accountancy and taxation norms, HMRC rules and regulations, etc. Along with handling clients, it can be challenging for your in-house staff to stay on top of all these changes. This can lead to stress and hamper their productivity in the long run. As opposed to this, outsourcing tedious accounting and bookkeeping tasks allows you to utilize a whole team’s expertise. You can outsource projects to the person with the most appropriate level of knowledge and expertise. This ensures the timely and effective completion of projects.

Fraud & Data Security

With access to a lot of confidential information, there might be concerns regarding fraud and data security. An outsourcing company has systems and controls in place to ensure that only a select number of people have access to confidential information. Additionally, these companies have checks and balances in place to ensure no fraud takes place.

Many outsourcing companies are also equipped with the latest technologies and the best security systems. Furthermore, their employees sign non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), so you don’t have to worry about data security. All these factors ensure that your information will not fall into the wrong hands.

Conclusion

In-house staff is definitely an asset to your practice when you’ve chosen the right people with the right skillsets for the job.

However, it might be a smarter option to go with an outsourcing partner especially if you are planning to scale your practice in future, hire someone in the rush season, or looking to increase profits.

Finding the Right Accounting Outsourcing Partner

It’s important to choose the right accounting outsourcing partner as they will become an extension of your practice. So, ensure you do your diligence when looking out for a potential outsourcing provider.

With the help of an experienced and accomplished outsourcing partner like QXAS, your accounting practice will be able to operate efficiently and offer high-quality returns to your clients. We offer a comprehensive range of accounting outsourcing services, including bookkeeping, payroll, making tax digital, management accounts outsourcing, etc.

If you have any queries about accounting outsourcing, reach out to our accounting experts at [email protected] or call +44 208 146 0808.