Outsourcing Services in COVID Pandemic – Accounting, Payroll & Marketing Insights
The COVID pandemic has toppled our worlds not just personally but professionally as well. Most of the companies are currently functioning as remote working virtually to steer their revenue during this financial crisis due to the pandemic. This situation has led to many companies getting swamped with work that is difficult to manage in the current scenario.
As leaders of your Companies, you surely realize the heavy and varied workload you and your team is trying to overcome, ranging from year-end accounting, bookkeeping, financial reporting, taxes, and more. While you adjust to the new normal of working from your house and supervising your teams remotely, it is becoming clear that functions such as accounting and bookkeeping, payroll, AR and AP, taxes, compliances, marketing etc., basically all those activities which are resource-intensive are striving and warrant a lot of your time, energies and money being invested therein trying to manage your staff effectively and yet things not delivering to satisfaction. Non-availability of your junior staff due to personal reasons arising out of Covid-19 situation too is a prick in the path to successful growth.
Hence the golden question – why not share your workload during this raging era?
As an expert Service provider, we have the experience and proficiency to offer in-depth insights that will help you productively outsource your accounting and book-keeping, payroll, marketing and a lot of other functions that you serve within a routine period. This article will serve as an escort to assist you during this hour of disaster so that you can leverage the efficiency and skill from us and make time to sustain your business growth.
1. Does the size of a company have bearing on the decision to outsource?
Cost reduction and process efficiency are the primary advantages of Outsourcing. Both of these benefits will be important as a part of your business contingency plans during such times, no matter how large or small your company is. Notwithstanding your company’s size, you can opt for outsourcing. If you know there are certain activities that you cannot manage effectively, which is resulting in delays and inaccuracies, outsourcing them makes sense for all kinds of companies, regardless of size.
2. Activities to outsource?
It depends on your company and its current efficacy levels in an onshore setting. You can either outsource the entire gamut of functions or certain specific tasks. If you think you are finding it difficult to manage your simple but voluminous tasks like marketing, payroll, banking, invoicing, bill booking, and tax return filing on time and precisely, you can outsource this task to us. Our last suggestion is – identify what to outsource keeping in mind the resource-intensive and challenging nature of the tasks.
3. The Engagement options
Your plan towards outsourcing will require a choice of the method through which you want to engage the services of the provider. More often than not, you will be presented with these three most popular options.
Models of Outsourcing?
Variable model: Here, you only pay for the number of hours the service provider has worked on your tasks. The provider assigns a staff member who is your single point of contact and who liaises with the accountants assigned to your tasks. This model is best suited if your plan is to not sign up for a long-term commitment or when you simply want to run pilot projects to test the offshore waters.
Fixed model: Also known as the full-time employee (FTE) model, this is the model everyone thinks of whether they want to work with service providers on full time basis. Here, you are assigned a dedicated team or an individual who only works on your projects. Regular reporting helps you stay on top of your projects and become more actively involved in project delivery. If your company has large volumes of work on a consistent basis, this is the best engagement model.
The Mix Model: At times, it may so happen that you cannot clearly define the volume of your work, whether the same would increase beyond the committed volumes. In such situation, the Mix model, as the name suggests is a combination of Fixed and Variable model, wherein you may commit an estimated fixed price for the full time dedicated employee you may need and if the work increases beyond the full-time employee hours, you pay as per the variable model i.e. only for the hours spent in excess.
There are two mainstays to your outsourcing strategy – the quality of the services you subscribe to and the engagement model.
Conclusion
This article allows you to identify challenges faced with outsourcing and find a solution to them. Further, a rock-hard, workable, and future focussed strategy pledges that you are able to meaningfully justify outsourced service providers and choose the partner who is best placed to deliver the benefits of outsourcing to your company you function as a remote firm locally during Covid-19.
It is also important to watch out for breakdowns in your current local accounting teams and make sure to protect the psychological health of your employees during this time and outsource wisely to share the workload by cost-effective means. We know that accountants are at the frontline of this financial crisis and outsourcing workload whenever possible would prevent possible burnouts.
