COVER STORY - Outsourcing

Outsourcing, but not as you know it

@AdvanceTrack

Vipul Sheth ACA CTA, Founder and Managing Director,

AdvanceTrack Outsourcing

Vipul Sheth is a UK based ICAEW Chartered Accountant and Chartered Tax Advisor. Vipul trained with a regional UK firm before moving to Ernst & Young and KPMG. AdvanceTrack is a UK Headquartered Accountancy Outsourcing Company with offshore operational centres, delivering services around the globe.

As a profession, accountants have the power to change people’s lives...

Cloud accounting has been an incredible change and opportunity for accounting. It’s made the details of finances so much easier for business owners... which then means that simply producing a set of accounts is a core service - not a means to change lives!

The accountants who are

keen to grow their firm and do the kind of work they enjoy have seen great opportunity with these recent changes. You know that your clients come to you for the advice you give: not simply what the numbers are, but what the numbers can do for them. That means if the only service you’re providing is doing accounts and bookkeeping, it’s eventually not

That’s where outsourcing comes in.

The problem is, there’s a real misunderstanding by accountants as to what outsourcing actually is. If it’s merely seen as a way to get more accounts done faster and cheaper, that’s not enough.

Outsourcing isn’t about handing over a ton of compliance work: it’s about completely changing the nature of the interactions you have with your clients. At AdvanceTrack, our experience shows us that outsourcing works best if you use

it as a means to deliver a more powerful, more effective service to service is bespoke automatically. An

your clients.

Not every accountant has had a good outsourcing experience: and we’re committed to changing that. Whether you work with us or someone else, it’s critical that outsourcing enables you to change lives. Not merely deliver accounts a little bit faster.

Here are the hallmarks of a great outsourcing system.

Technology at the heart of your firm

Technology is at the core of accounting these days. Many accountants have expressed that they didn’t realise they needed to become an IT expert or a tech company in order to succeed as an accountancy firm: but it’s true. The more integrated technology is with your firm, and the delivery of your services, the easier it is to deliver the numbers.

Years ago, we noticed the start of a massive shift in the accounting business.

industry, which we all now know to be the advent of cloud accounting. Because of that, we custom built a system that was second to none. Fast forward to 2017, and it still remains exactly that, and it’s continuing to set us apart in the outsourcing world.

We rebuilt the system in 2017 in order to create a centre of operations for compliance. We realised that crunching the numbers may be a simple thing, but it’s at the heart of the great advice you give. If outsourcing makes the delivery of compliance work so with concerns in particular around

smooth and simple that you can spend more time advising and having real conversations, then it’s worth it. If all it does is fill the gap of hiring a new employee, it’s not really delivering what your clients need.

Mass customisation to your

Almost every accountant says they offer a “bespoke” service. But what Surely, as an accountant, every audit for one company isn’t going to be an exact copy of another audit for another business. Bespoke comes as standard.

But for true efficiency, you want to begin with a framework - checklists that ensure you aren’t missing the items which are the same for each project. You use these checklists as a framework, and then deliver the value through tailoring those systems to each business owners’ needs.

We carried this mentality through when we rebuilt our system, knowing that not only is every accounting firm different, every client is also different. You might classify your clients differently to another firm, or you might want to set your work requirements in the order of service. This is why our processes allow mass customisation.

Individual processes reduce errors

Outsourcing isn’t just about delivering smooth and simple compliance work, it’s also about doing it in real time. This means no more backwards looking, because your clients want real time updates and real time numbers they can use for actioning targets within their

Mastering those real time results comes from the power of process, having a specific process for your outsourced team to follow.

Reassurance through security

We’re no stranger to cloud accounting: and most likely, neither are you. We’ve seen accountants grow their firms from the ground up with Xero at the helm. But there are business owners who are still sceptical of cloud accounting,

client’s needs

security.

One of the greatest concerns in outsourcing is the security of your data. We built our outsourcing

system with secure networks, removing major concerns about data protection and loss of data. As with cloud accounting, there are several backups taking place on a daily basis, meaning your client’s data is in safe hands and under no risks. Just as you the accountant want have full confidence in every item

Whatever outsourcing system you use, check carefully to ensure that it’s as secure as the cloud accounting system you love.

Highly skilled staff trained in cloud accounting systems

Make sure that your outsourcing

Whatever cloud accounting system you use, you need to have the utmost confidence that your outsourced team is as expert as you are in using Xero - or possibly, even

One of the hallmarks of our outsourcing team is the training we give them in Xero and other systems. When you’re looking at outsourcing, having the confidence that the team working on accounts and bookkeeping actually understand Xero gives you reassurance - and saves you hours of time. No more detailed reviewing or suggesting Xero tips - you can focus on advising those clients.

Full transparency on each project

to be open with your clients about the work you’re doing, so too your outsourcing system needs to be scalable and transparent, so you that is being completed.

more so. system gives you a detailed look into everything the outsourcing team is doing for you. What emails are sent? What’s been assigned, and when? What is the status?

When you have that level of transparency, your confidence increases, and you’re better able to deliver those solid advisory services to your clients. It’s rather like having an extra member of staff or two: only instead of dropping an email to them to see what the

Has outsourcing been a fail for you?

You may have used outsourcing before and it didn’t work. Perhaps you were told it would save you money, or save you time, but it didn’t.

The true success of outsourcing isn’t the technology: it’s you.

Our experience is that the accountants who experience the greatest success with outsourcing are those who are longing to do more of the work they enjoy, and are committed to providing an excellent client experience.

Ask yourself all the questions in this article. Has the outsourcing you’ve tried delivered on all of these areas? Has it truly helped you to serve your clients better? If not, start again today.

Visit www.advancetrack.com today.