Using an Outside Service Provider in Managing Accounting Finance Function is Becoming Common

• Seda Bayraktar, CPA
• Partner
• Accounting Compliance & Reporting
• E-mail to Seda

Outsourcing (contracting an organization’s services to an external provider) has many benefits for any organization. Non-operating activities such as bookkeeping, financial reporting and payroll performed by a qualified outsourcing firm can help the company’s management to focus on their core competencies. Some may think that using outsourced services is a bad idea because of weaker control and higher costs, but it is a myth that has been proven wrong countlessly. In fact, outsourcing your services rather than assigning them to your own department has great benefits.

Let’s summarise those benefits:

Greater “control” over the business and the accounting and finance function

Your management is freed up to focus more time, energy, and resources on building the core businesses as the service provider assumes full responsibility for managing the day-to-day back-office operations. Many executives are under the impression that outsourcing reduces “control” over the relevant function. In fact, outsourcing greatly increases “control”. Because the management has better control when it can spend time in “analysing” business information instead of simply managing the daily aspects of the function.

Accurate, timely and useful reporting

If you outsource accounting and finance function, your service provider can produce high quality, timely, tailored financial reports. Financial reporting function requires deep analysis of figures beyond the traditional accounting function and provides critical data to the company management for decision-making. While normally you could recruit a person who has expertise on this matter, your expert service provider can easily meet your financial reporting requirements. 

The ability to focus on strategic, pertinent finance issues instead of no added value activities

One of the most significant benefits is increasing focus on important financial issues affecting the business instead of spending valuable time managing the accounting and finance department as well as clerical staff. Through outsourcing, the management can focus on more strategic issues and other important company initiatives and has more flexibility to assign staff and allocate resources to more valueable projects.

Elimination of recruiting and managing staff

Managing a clerical staff which typically has high turnover and requires extensive training generally gives a headache for most company managers and distracts from other, more important priorities. With this in mind, you can actually save money by using outsourced accounting and finance function services.

Achieve cost reductions and save your money

Outsourcing your accounting and finance function has proven to bear many benefits. These benefits will not only save you time and money, but will also provide solutions to help you grow and expand your business based on the information you receive from your service provider. Accounting and finance function can be a very strenuous task which requires a lot of attention to detail as well as  field expertise. Since such services can be outsourced so easily and done at a more reasonable rate than in-house, outsourced accounting and finance function has proven over time to be the best option.

Through reengineering, process improvements, and advanced technologies, unnecessary operating costs and overheads are eliminated while reducing and bringing other administrative costs under better control.

Better service quality of accounting and finance function

As a result of the outsourced tasks being performed by experts, the companies are able to provide higher-quality services. These high-quality services provide assurance to the company’s management in face of constant and sometimes radical changes or complication of laws and regulations.      

Access to qualified professionals

The management can access  to qualified and experienced professionals who have knowledge and expertise and  who  may not be employed in the company.

Make continuous improvements in business processes

A good service provider can design, build and manage business processes so that they become better, faster and cheaper, and work with the company’s management to make continuous improvements regarding their effectiveness and efficiency.