Do you, as a small business owner, ever wish that you could do what you are good at in your business and have someone else to look after the financial areas which take your attention? We have been providing this service to clients for many years. Our Financial Outsourcing Department is comprised of a dedicated team of professionals who provide business owners with valuable support by managing, on their behalf, many of the various administration, bookkeeping and financial tasks of their organisation. Many business owners are acutely aware of the pressure certain tasks put on their already valuable time and therefore choose the option of outsourcing certain financial functions to a team of qualified advisors. By engaging the services of a professional outsourcing team, not only is the business owner ensuring that their organisation benefits from the broad experience of that team, but it also allows them to focus their energy and full attention on growing and developing the business itself. In recent years many of those businesses who have elected to outsource the Payroll and/or Bookkeeping functions have benefited greatly from easy access to Professional Advisors, along with achieving cost and organisation wide efficiencies. We have outlined below some of the important benefits that can be achieved by outsourcing the payroll and financial functions of your organisation.
1. Access to Qualified Professionals
When availing of the services offered by our Outsourcing Specialists, a business owner is gaining access to qualified advisors with expertise in many fields. In the case of a business’s payroll function a business owner need not be concerned with;
- Annual changes to PAYE/PRSI/USC from Governmental Financial Budgets.
- Registration of new employees.
- Preparation of statutory returns such as P30’s, P60’s, P35’s, P45’s etc.
- Completion of forms required by the Department of Social Protection which may relate to Maternity Benefit, Lay Off or Redundancy.
All of the above functions would be managed to the highest professional standards on your behalf by your team of outsourcing specialists. In a similar way, if you outsource the bookkeeping function the following work would be completed by your outsourced team;
- Processing of sales, purchases and expenses to the agreed accounting system.
- Processing of customer receipts and supplier payments.
- Preparation of control accounts and analysis of bank balances to allow the business owner easily understand the level of funds receivable and payable at any given time.
- The submission of periodic statutory returns such as VAT3, VIES, RTD etc. are dealt with in an accurate and timely manner, which in turn ensures compliance with statutory requirements.
2. Provision of Valuable Reports on a Timely Basis to Assist Decision Making
We understand that it is vital for the continued success of all businesses to be aware of their financial position at all times. As a business owner, you are busy with the operational side of your business and it may be difficult to set time aside to deal with the bookkeeping function of your business on a regular basis. All too often business owners only review the performance of their business when the year end accounts are produced. At this point the information reflected by the accounts may not be current enough to be of any valuable assistance in influencing vital decisions such as cost control, or indeed appreciating the impact of a change in the market. Having access to a team of qualified professionals can also provide you with many vital business analysis reports such as Management Accounts, Budgets and Cashflow Projections, along with the review of Key Performance Indicators. Such analysis may not be readily accessed from within the business. We find that meeting our clients on a monthly basis to discuss the various management reports provides our clients with the necessary analytical tools to allow them to be more aware of all the strengths, weakness, opportunities or threats which may apply to their business. By providing our clients with up to date information throughout the year, our clients are better positioned to effectively adapt to changes within their sector and outperform their competitors.
3. Organisational Efficiencies
By availing of the services offered by our Financial Outsourcing department the business owner is offered the flexibility of adjusting the service they require from the outsourced team in line with any changes which may occur in their business, without incurring all of the costs associated with such changes. The following time and costs could be greatly reduced or possibly eliminated through outsourcing as they would now be the responsibility of the outsource provider:
- Hiring and training new staff members
- Providing adequate cover in busy/seasonal periods
- Ensuring annual leave or maternity leave etc. are efficiently covered
- Layoff or redundancy costs
We are ready to support you and your business as it expands by ensuring that as your needs grow, additional appropriately skilled personnel will be assigned to your business.
4. Meeting Compliance Deadlines
Failing to meet compliance deadlines can have significant impacts on your business and may result in penalties for you personally and your business. In the instances of non-compliance with deadlines associated with statutory submissions, a business may fail to obtain a Tax Clearance Certificate from the Revenue Commissioners, may not obtain the renewal of a Trading License or indeed not receive refunds of taxes due to the business. Therefore it is important to ensure that your business returns are up to date at all times. Our team of outsourced professionals will work in partnership with you to ensure that all compliance requirements are met. A timely reminder of pending submissions will be given and once the information is provided our outsource team will use all resources available to them to ensure timely and accurate returns are made on behalf of your business.
5. Access to Best Technology and Best Practice
Many businesses cannot set aside resources to continually invest in upgrading to the best available bookkeeping software or to keep up to date with changes in laws and regulations. By outsourcing your financial function you will have access to both the most current software and professional knowledge. In addition, many of the ancillary costs such as hardware and software support contracts, staff training, hardware replacement, back-up management maintenance, are all borne by the outsourced service provider. In more recent times the introduction of cloud accounting offers a medium for collaboration between the business owner and their advisor. The use of cloud accounting further facilitates the ease with which an outsourcing team can be used, as it allows both the business owner and their staff to access the same timely and accurate information as their financial advisors. Cloud accounting also allows access, via the internet, to a business’s financial information anytime anywhere. There are many advantages to cloud accounting which we will be covering in a later blog. From our experience of working with the cloud accounting package of Xero, we believe and have found that cloud accounting is the future of bookkeeping for the small business owner.
