3 Benefits of Outsourcing Your Accounting and Finance Function

By Bradford Jones, CPA, CVA, CMA, CFF

More than half of today’s organizations plan to outsource more business processes than they keep internally.

Why?

Because building and securing a competent finance and accounting team is becoming increasingly important for companies in today’s uncertain and ever-evolving landscape. But it’s also becoming more difficult to assemble that team.

Today’s CFOs face unprecedented pressure to optimize budgets, drive productivity, refocus limited resources on higher-value activities, and deliver insights. However, inefficient and/or outdated procedures within finance and accounting continue to place a significant drag on these goals.

Plus, with Baby Boomers retiring en masse, an unprecedented lack of accounting professors, and low CPA exam numbers, it’s no surprise that a lack of qualified accounting personnel is plaguing many companies.

According to an AICPA trends report, the accounting pipeline is at a 13-year low. CFOs continue to report that talent shortage is the thing keeping them up at night. A recent study shows that CFOs believe attracting and retaining competent talent in the finance and accounting function could impinge on their organization’s ability to execute strategy on schedule.

But there is good news too. Finance and accounting outsourcing (FAO) is not only a solution to this labor shortage, but provides many additional benefits.

Consider the following trends from a recent survey of companies that have outsourced their accounting function:

• 80% have more time to focus on their business.
• 50% worry less about mistakes.
• 30% have received advice from their outsourcing partner that helped increase profits.
• 79% would recommend outsourcing.

Companies can access the best of a diminishing talent pool, extract more value from their accounting and finance function, and enable the CFO to focus more time on providing value as a true business partner in the organization.

Access the Best of a Diminishing Talent Pool

Hiring and retaining top accounting and finance talent is difficult in today’s competitive market.

Not only has there been a tsunami of Baby Boomers retiring, but accounting programs are seeing record lows and the pool of graduates is far too small to make up the difference.

Organizations that outsource the accounting and finance function to a reputable CPA firm benefit by tapping into one of the deepest and best-trained talent pools.

These firms handle digital transformation of critical business processes for their clients on a regular basis. For CFOs, this means outsourcing can add an experienced partner that can help solve several issues at once:

• Address the labor shortage.
• Outsourcing to a firm with deep technology expertise can completely modernize the accounting function.

Extract More Value from Your Finance and Accounting Function

By modernizing accounting and finance operations through outsourcing, organizations accomplish more. For example:

• Accelerate the path to digital transformation. Partnering with the right outsourcing team provides access to industry best practices and opportunities for automation that can transform an antiquated department. Replace manual processes with efficient and streamlined practices.
• Tap into actionable insights. Many outsourcing partners have experience elevating the accounting function to take advantage of data analytics and AI, which leads to improved forecasting and data-driven decision-making.
• Deploy internal resources toward controls that mitigate SOX risk. When your best people aren’t processing accounting tasks that could be automated, they have time to implement best practices in a variety of ways. Not only does this type of efficiency minimize losses, but it can help your organization avoid hefty SOX non-compliance penalties. Plus, you can boost investor confidence and position the organization for future success.

Enable the CFO to Become a True Business Partner

In a perfect world, your organization’s CFO would have time to focus on work that adds tangible value to the business. However, overseeing a significant amount of financial transactions and ensuring the accuracy of financial reports can keep your CFO from more strategic and higher-value tasks.

Outsourcing enables the CFO to step away from tedious day-to-day minutia and operate in a much more strategic way to better utilize their expertise.

When that happens, the CFO can spend time on initiatives that:

• Strategically plan for the future
• Generate revenue
• Analyze the organization’s strengths and weaknesses
• Uncover growth opportunities
• Ensure proper capitalization

Learn More

Running your finance and accounting function is a formidable task — especially when budget and staff are limited and with today’s pace of digitalization and attrition.

Outsourced accounting ensures consistency and accuracy of bookkeeping and accounting. Plus, you can tap into specialized expertise usually unavailable within the constraints of small organizations and scarce resources.

But you’ve got to find the right FAO provider. When you work with PBMares, you can expect us to provide:

• A highly disciplined, efficient, and structured process
• A team with specialized industry expertise
• A completely virtual, paperless, and non-intrusive experience

Contact Brad Jones today to learn more about what you and your organization can accomplish when you outsource your accounting and finance functions.