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Recently many businesses and accounting firms have began to outsource their accounting tasks to contractors be it, accounting outsourcing providers or accounting freelancers.
This article will look at the benefits of using an accounting outsourcing provider as opposed to an accounting freelancer when outsourcing accounting services.
What Is A Freelancer?
A freelancer, often interchangeable with the term independent contractor, commonly refers to a person who is self employed and is not committed to a particular employer for a long period of time.
What Is Outsourcing?
Outsourcing is a business practice of hiring a party outside a company to perform services and/or create goods that traditionally were performed in-house by the company's own employees and staff.
Why Use An Accounting Outsourcing Provider As Opposed To An Accounting Freelancer
Both accounting outsourcing and accounting freelancing, require persons outside of an organisation to perform tasks of a company.
So why is it beneficial to use an accounting outsourcing provider as opposed to an accounting freelancer to do accounting services for your business or accounting firm?
Security
The biggest concern when outsourcing to an accounting freelancer as opposed to an accounting outsourcing provider is your businesses or accounting firms security.
Financial information of a business or accounting firm is highly confidential information.
Trusting it to just anyone can leave a business or accounting firm open to potential issues of fraud and financial loss.
When it comes to evaluating an accounting freelancers integrity, there is little to no way this can be done, all you can do is rely on what they have told you. However an accounting outsourcing provider, with many years of experience and reviews usually has a lot more to lose when providing accounting services to businesses or accounting firms.
Safety
This leads to the next biggest concern for businesses and accounting firms, when hiring an accounting freelancer and that is safety.
With a surge in the amount of freelancing platforms such as UpWork and Guru, hiring accounting freelancers has became a lot easier.
These platforms assist with compliance for both sides and can help businesses and accounting firms choose freelance accountants that will suit their business or accounting firm. However, such a system cannot cover all of the risks.
Freelance platforms have no control over:
Fake profiles. Unless someone reports a profile, there's no way to know if the information provided there is 100% true.
Work process. Usually, there is also no contract that can save you if a freelancer doesn't comply with the requirements.
Deadlines. An accounting freelancer can juggle several projects at once. This often results in missed deadlines.
Long-term guarantees. Once you pay, your accounting freelancer can easily disappear forever. Some do even before that, leaving incomplete accounting work, requiring you to pick up the pieces, which can be difficult.
When you outsource your accounting services to an accounting outsourcing provider, due to you working with a business, there is a greater ability for you to research their history and seek recourse in the event work is not done, due to their reputation as a business being at stake.
Longevity
A common problem with accounting freelancers is their longevity.
When outsourcing accounting services, no matter how experienced the accounting freelancer or accounting outsourcing provider is, there is always a training component and IT setup involved, which can be costly and time consuming.
The common problem, especially in the Philippines, is that freelancers, usually disappear after several months of work, due to a variety of reasons.
With an accounting outsourcing provider, employees are more stable and in the event of a change in staff, there is usually minimal IT costs and a comprehensive handover, resulting in little to no re-training of staff and loss of time.
Flexibility
With accounting freelancers there is usually no ability to increase staffing requirements, other than to go back and search for more accounting freelancers.
This often requires re-training of staff, IT set up costs, reduced ability for accountants to work collaboratively and less control on the type of freelancers you will get.
When you contract with an accounting outsourcing provider, they will often have redundant accounting staff, meaning when you need extra staff, they are available.
The best part is your staff will be located in the one place allowing for greater efficiency and collaboration.
Environment
For an accountant to work efficiently and effectively, a certain type of environment is required.
Often accounting freelancers work from home or from busy cafes, which is not conducive for accountants to work efficiently and effectively.
Contracting with an accounting outsourcing provider means your accountants will be working in an office, with other accountants, with high speed internet, air conditioning and all the other facilities conducive for an accountant to work efficiently and effectively, leading to greater productivity and happier staff.
Control
When you hire an accounting freelancer, you often have less control as opposed to when you contract with an accounting outsourcing provider.
This is due to the accounting freelancer being your only point of contact.
When you contract with an accounting outsourcing provider, you get a whole other business at your disposal. This mean you you can voice your concerns, directly to upper management, should you feel that KPI's or work quality is not being met or should an urgent task be required to be completed, providing you with piece of mind.
Conclusion
If you have tried outsourcing your accounting services to an accounting freelancer or an accounting outsourcing provider and not had the success you were after, feel free to contact Integrated Globaltech to see how we can help by clicking here.
Integrated Globaltech is a trusted accounting outsourcing provider, located in Manila, Philippines, and can assist your business or accounting firm with accounting outsourcing services, with prices starting from $10 AUD/hr.