In a world far and wide re-shaped by the pandemic, businesses have accepted adapting to new ways of conducting business as the norm. Evolution has been the key to survival for all things living; it has been the same for the business fraternity. The pandemic just accelerated it. It has encompassed all industries alike, that even a traditional industry like the accounting and CPA world is now embracing change with open arms. It has allowed for a welcome change in the traditional CPA world; it also has spurred several new CPA firms into existence. And while it is suitable as a consumer, ask someone within the industry, and they will firmly attest it as pandora’s box.
While the number of new CPA firms growing came as a boon to the end consumer, for the business owners, it presented them with a unique problem – inadequate talent pool and retaining good employees in the firm. Make no mistake, competitive hiring practices certainly existed before, but most CPA firms were always capable enough to hold their own. Businesses promoted from within and attached additional incentives like great team environments, open-door policies, grassroots lunches, foosball tables, and a myriad of other social and educational perks in their attempt to lure new talent into the firm and retain the existing ones.
The hard fact is that only a limited number of skilled and talented accounting staff members are accessible locally, making it more challenging for the CPA firms to retain their staff. For the HR department within the firms, it quickly became a mammoth challenge to satisfy the needs of their employees. Compounded by several other factors, all of the above led to the great resignation/great reshuffle that substantially impacted our industry. It is not unseen, yet businesses have started giving heed to their most valuable asset – their people.
If you’re on the same path and are thinking a little beyond the flexible work hours for your staff, outsourced CPA solutions offered by Datamatics can help you realign your investment in people and ensure that your firm retains its best and brightest. Let us further elaborate on this proposition by highlighting how our CPA solutions can help you restore work-life balance for your dedicated and loyal in-house staff.
Embrace Offshoring
With the pandemic forcing almost 70 – 80% of the workforce to operate remotely, why can’t those tasks be offshored? Think about it. Many accounting firms are embracing offshoring wholeheartedly. A simple internal survey among your staff can help you identify the pain points and a practical perspective on different tasks that can be allocated to an offshore partner. You can start with smaller tasks that are mundane or recurring in nature and thus do not require a tremendous amount of diligence. These are generally the tasks that the in-house staff least enjoys doing. The internal survey should help you identify these relatively quickly. Offshoring all such tasks will refresh the internal tasks and rejuvenate the internal team.
Think Beyond Tax Season
Tax season is a super busy time for CPA and accounting firms. Most of them run a packed schedule with deadlines impending thick and fast. Add to it any unforeseen event preventing one of your accountants, and you are staring at a nightmarish situation. However, such problems should not arise in the first place. You need to offshore all the tasks that take the maximum bandwidth of your internal staff and can easily be outsourced. Offshore accounting and CPA firms have a vast talent pool capable of helping you operate at maximum capacity all year without causing burnout for your staff. Offshore accounting and CPA firms work as your saviour if you are short on staff or are burdened by mundane tasks, they deliver the highest quality services within your budget and takes the burden off of the shoulders of your in-house talent.
New Challenges. Newer Solutions
With the growth in the technology world, the nature of businesses, the economy, the markets, and attitudes have changed too. With everyone focused on development, retaining quality staff is critical for every business. However, when including the team, you need to make sure that they are upskilled to match the potential of the modern workforce. But if the learning curve is too steep for them and too cumbersome for you, a technologically sound offshoring partner is your best bet. With expertise in Cloud, DevOps, Agile, Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), modern offshoring partners can help you with a range of tasks. That include bank and brokerage write-ups and reconciliations, working paper completion and documentation, drafting financial statements, and preparing corporate tax returns. While this addresses your upskilling problem, it keeps your employees happy and allows you to scale your business to meet the business needs of modern customers.
Offshore Accounting Firms are the Way Forward
Every accounting and CPA firm needs breathing space. And rightfully so. They operate in a highly competitive space with mounting client expectations every season; there is absolutely nothing wrong with exploring new avenues that can help them grow their business while keeping the internal staff happy. However, striking a balance between capacity and cost can be tricky. When growing the company, you neither can get trapped into a lengthy recruitment cycle nor cut corners to maintain the volumes.
It impacts growth.
This is what makes offshore accounting and CPA firms such a smart option. Working with offshore accountants provides you with a team of accountants well-versed in global accounting standards, richly experienced, and accessible at affordable rates. This offshore team of yours is not on your company’s payroll and thus can be added up or down as per the business needs. As a result, you can invest heavily towards the well-being of your in-house staff.
Always remember, a happy employee is a productive employee.
