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Do I Need to Outsource Services?

In today’s highly competitive business landscape, outsourcing has become a popular way for companies to cut costs, increase efficiency, and stay competitive. Many essential services are outsourced, including accounting, marketing, human resources, customer service, IT support, and manufacturing. Outsourcing these services allows businesses to focus on their core competencies and save time and money on non-core activities. Additionally, outsourcing provides access to specialized expertise, technology, and resources that might only be available in some places. As a result, outsourcing has become an attractive option for businesses of all sizes, from startups to large enterprises.  

Outsourcing services is a valuable strategy for fast-growing and savvy businesses. It is particularly helpful if you are a lean and mean team looking for access to a broader range of experience, especially financially savvy and trying to keep overhead costs down, or if your hair feels like it’s constantly on fire trying to keep up with seemingly overnight growth. Outsourcing is also a good way to verify employee performance or cover key employee absences in case of medical or maternity leave. Outsourcing may be a good option if your company lacks the expertise, resources, or time to handle specific tasks or projects in-house. Outsourcing provides access to specialized expertise and resources without the cost and commitment of hiring full-time staff. When considering outsourcing, it’s essential to evaluate potential providers carefully, set clear expectations and goals, and establish effective communication and collaboration processes to ensure success.

What Services Can Be Outsourced?  

These days you can probably find an outsourced solution for just about anything, but these are the most commonly outsourced areas.

1. Accounting and Finance – This is helpful when your team is overrun, you need to identify better/more efficient processes, or you are thinking about a large-scale process like an ERP implementation.
2. M&A Capital – Who has the cash to keep an investment broker on staff? No one! Bring in an outsourced team when you are thinking about acquiring or selling the business.
3. Sales and Marketing Strategies – Sales teams stagnate, and sometimes it takes an outside eye to get things moving again by creating metrics, visibility, and implementing some revenue-generating activities.
4. Content Creation – Most business owners lack both the time and inclination to document processes and build training, so this is a great area to outsource to a specialized third party. Your future self will thank you.
5. Software Development – Software teams get very expensive very fast if you plan to recruit the right experts to do the job properly (there are a lot of sub-par options out there, unfortunately). Unless you are a tech company, it’s probably best to outsource this instead.
6. Staffing and Recruiting – Most companies do have an in-house recruiting team, but staffing firms are great for high-level talent, specialty roles, and when recruiters are drowning under too many open positions.
7. Data & Automation – automation can make a huge difference in your company, but creating automation and system integration is often a full-time job for a few months to a year. An outsourced provider is much easier to fire after you finish the project than a full-time employee.
8. Tax Strategy – unless you have a CPA on staff, you have probably already outsourced this already. Most companies outsource this to avoid pesky rules like independence.
9. Legal Services – There are multiple phases in a business’s lifecycle where you will want a specialized legal expert. Outsource this service when you are considering big legal moves like applying for a patent, selling the company, or even going public.

Outsourcing is a cost-effective way to access specialized expertise and resources, particularly for small or medium-sized businesses that may not have the budget or need full-time staff in certain areas.

How Do I Know What I Need Outsourced? 

Start by taking stock of your employees. Which teams are overwhelmed? Where do you have upcoming absences? Next, look at underperforming areas of the business. Where do you lack visibility? Or where are you, as a leader, less confident? For example, if you are a former CTO running your own tech company, you might want an outsourced CRO to help you drive revenue or a lawyer to help you evaluate investor agreements.

C-Level Strategy plays a critical role in determining which services make sense to outsource for your businesses. They help businesses determine which services to outsource and which providers to use based on the company’s goals, budget, and overall strategy. 

As a business owner or accounting manager, you’re responsible for ensuring that your team can handle any challenges that come their way. However, with the fast-paced and ever-changing nature of the accounting industry, it’s not always easy to predict those challenges. That is why it is important to perform stress tests for your accounting team – to identify potential weaknesses and prepare them for whatever comes their way. This article will examine why accounting team stress tests are important, how to conduct them, and why hiring a consultant can be a valuable investment.

Why Perform Accounting Team Stress Tests

Stress tests are a way to simulate potential scenarios and test your team’s ability to handle them. By subjecting your team to various stressors, you can identify any weaknesses or areas for improvement and take steps to address them before they become bigger issues. For example, you might simulate a sudden increase in workload, a major audit, or a financial crisis. This will help you assess your team’s ability to handle pressure, meet deadlines, and maintain accuracy and quality in their work.

How to Conduct Accounting Team Stress Tests

Depending on your goals and resources, there are several ways to conduct stress tests for your accounting team. Here are a few options to consider:

1. Scenario-based testing: This type of stress test involves creating realistic scenarios that simulate potential challenges your team might face during their work. For example, you might simulate a sudden influx of invoices, a system outage, or new regulation. This type of testing aims to evaluate your team’s response to the scenario, including their ability to communicate effectively, prioritize tasks, and maintain accuracy and quality in their work. By simulating these challenges in a controlled environment, you can identify areas where your team may need additional training or support and take steps to address any weaknesses before they become more significant issues.
2. Capacity testing: Capacity testing is designed to evaluate your team’s ability to handle a high volume of work. This type of stress test involves simulating a peak period, such as year-end close or tax season, and evaluating your team’s ability to manage their workload, meet deadlines, and maintain accuracy and quality in their work. By testing your team’s capacity to handle a high volume of work, you can identify areas where you may need to allocate additional resources, adjust processes or workflows, or provide additional training or support to ensure that your team can handle the workload during these peak periods.
3. Skills testing: This stress test evaluates your team’s technical skills and knowledge in key areas such as GAAP, tax law, or accounting software. This can be done through quizzes or tests that assess your team’s proficiency in these areas. By identifying areas where your team may need additional training or support, you can provide targeted training and development opportunities to help them improve their skills and knowledge.

Why Hire a Consultant?

While stress testing can be a valuable tool for identifying weaknesses and preparing your team for potential challenges, it can also be a complex and time-consuming process. That’s where a consultant can come in handy. A consultant can objectively assess your team’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as valuable insights into best practices and strategies for improvement. They can also help you design and conduct stress tests that are tailored to your specific needs and goals. In addition, a consultant can provide training and coaching to help your team develop the skills and knowledge they need to succeed.

Stress testing is a critical component of ensuring that your accounting team is equipped to handle any challenges that come their way. By simulating potential scenarios, testing your team’s capacity, and evaluating their technical skills, you can identify areas for improvement and take steps to address any weaknesses. With the proper preparation and support, your accounting team can be well-prepared to navigate any obstacles and continue to drive the success of your business.

Most business owners probably didn’t enter the business world to become experts in finance and accounting, but out of a passion for their customers or services. Even so, business owners often have to take on many different roles as they grow their business: marketer, salesperson, human resources, accountant, etc. The list goes on. A blind spot in any one aspect of business has the potential to gum up operations (and revenue!), none more so than with your finances.

Company finances are so complex and overwhelming that it can seem impossible to glean any useful information. Reading financials feels like an avalanche of figures and reports, and filtering through it all is a job in and of itself. (One that CFOs are paid handsomely for, in fact.) However, a successful business should be able to pinpoint exactly where their money is going and what it’s doing at any given time.

Once you know what your money is doing and where it’s going you can start to make informed decisions about the future of your business. Financial visibility allows you to analyze how long it will take to pay off that new piece of equipment you’ve been monitoring or whether or not you can actually afford to give your employees the five percent raise they have all been asking for. There is nothing worse than making a big decision only to find out you didn’t have the backing to execute it and scrambling to find a way, but that is how most business owners find themselves running their business.

Stop scrambling and start planning. Wouldn’t it be nice to anticipate your taxes throughout the year and plan ahead instead of getting hit with unexpected fees come April? What if you automatically knew how much money you have made on any given day and could predict what you were going to make two or three weeks any advance with minimal variance? When was the last time you actually hit your annual budget? Financial visibility opens all of these doors.

Now, you might be feeling a little overwhelmed with financial visibility at the moment. It can sound a bit like a secret recipe that would solve all your problems if only you could get the mixture right, but somehow you never quite seem to get there. That’s okay. Financial visibility is not created in a day. It’s a process that builds over time.

Get started by analyzing which areas have the biggest impact on your business. Is it sales activity? Operational costs? Then ask whether the reports you are seeing are really serving you. Do you get them frequently enough to matter? Is the data you are tracking meaningful or just easy to access? What else would you like to know? Finally, sit down with your team, and maybe an expert of two, and create a plan to improve your financial data one department, product, or service at a time. This way everyone is involved and understands the impact of their role and you can get the information you need.

Still feeling overwhelmed? Or maybe your team doesn’t have time to work on additional financial reports? That’s okay too. Call CLS. We can help.