Why Accounting Firms Need Accounting Back-Office Services

Recruitment difficulties are a major cause of concern for accounting firms. As an industry that relies on client-facing talents to deliver its services, a shortage of qualified accounting professionals can hinder growth and even affect the quality of its service delivery. A potential solution? Outsourcing accounting back-office services. 

What’s an outsourced back-office accounting team?

An outsourced back-office accounting team is a team of third-party accountants that work as an extension of your accounting firm. You can usually find them in specialized outsourcing companies that provide professional assistance to other financial institutions. 

As the term implies, they stay on top of the back-end side of things to assist your in-house, client-facing accountants in doing their duties more efficiently. 

You can think of it as a production team that works behind the stage to pull off a successful show. They are skilled professionals who do not directly interact with clients but actively collaborate with your accountants. 

A back-office accounting team can handle both administrative and technical accounting tasks. This includes bookkeeping, management accounting, tax preparation, and business analytics. 

Benefits of accounting back-office outsourcing 

Accounting firms can use outsourced accounting back-office services to increase their capacity for growth while keeping their overhead costs under control.  

On top of this, here are the other reasons why it can be an effective — and strategic — solution for your firm.

1. Wider access to skilled and qualified professional accountants

If your firm is affected by the ongoing accounting shortage, outsourcing back-office support can expand your reach to qualified talents.  

Outsourcing lets you tap the resources of specialized providers. It also gives you the option to do it onshore, nearshore, or offshore, depending on your preferred set-up, cost-savings, and quality of talent. 

2. Opportunity to upscale your team’s skill set

With a back-office team to take over tedious accounting tasks, your accountants can dedicate more time to training and knowledge sharing — thus, increasing their value on your organization. This is especially helpful amid the ongoing regulatory changes and the advent of new accounting technologies. 

What’s good with outsourcing is that credible service providers also provide intensive employee development programs to their employees. As a result, you’ll have the guarantee that even your outsourced team also possesses the right skillsets to do their jobs effectively. 

3. Increased capacity for growth

Growing your clientele is a good sign of growth. However, you also need enough people to handle their accounts.

With an outsourced team working at the back end, you’ll increase your ability to accommodate new clients — and even your existing clients’ requests for additional workforce.  

4. Flexible talent arrangements

The tax months are always the most arduous time for every accounting firm. However, hiring more staff simply for those two months means you have 10 months of wasted resources.  

Outsourcing gets around the issue by giving you temporary staff that would cost even less than hiring someone for only a couple of months. 

5. Cost-efficient solutions

Outsourcing your back-office team, especially to offshore destinations, is more cost-effective than hiring an in-house employee. 

The labor cost of an outsourced team alone already draws significant differences in price. Developing countries — where most offshore providers are located — have more affordable rates, which explains why their accounting services are also more cost-efficient.  

Hiring accounting back-office services may be an ideal solution to resolve some of your firm’s pain points. However, to achieve its benefits, you must choose a suitable service provider that can meet your needs and budget. You must also show your active engagement throughout the process.  

For a more comprehensive guide to outsourcing, check out this article: Your Comprehensive Guide to Outsourcing in Offshore Locations 

New clients keep coming in but you’re short of qualified talents?  

A continuous outpouring of clients is a good sign that your accounting firm is doing well. If supplying their talent requirements becomes a challenge, it’s time to get some help. 

D&V Philippines has over 1,000 skilled professional accountants on board. If you have unique requirements, our recruitment team can help you source qualified Filipino accountants. Our regular training sessions and Quality Assurance team can also give you the guarantee of receiving quality service delivery throughout our engagement. 

Contact us today or read our whitepaper, Finding the Right Talents: D&V Philippines’ Solutions for Modern Accounting Firms to learn more about our back-office accounting solutions.

This article was first published on 26 May 2020 and was updated on 6 March 2024 for relevancy and comprehensiveness.

Edited by: Mary Milorrie Campos