Outsourced Accounting & Finance

Listen: We get it. Business owners and entrepreneurs need to keep costs to a minimum – even though it often comes at the cost of their sanity. If you’re being resourceful in the early stages of your small business, approaching accounting and finance with a grassroots, can-do attitude, you’re not alone.

In fact, 74 percent of the nearly 28 million small businesses in the U.S. don’t employ accounting help. Why? Because it’s often viewed as a luxury so they instead choose to manage it themselves or internally.

Dollars and Sense of Outsourced Accounting

Unless your business is in finance, accounting or similar, we’d venture that bookkeeping isn’t why you got into business in the first place. And for something this mission-critical, outsourcing your accounting often proves to be not only the cost of your sanity, but also the cost of doing business – well.

Estimates indicate that some 4.5 million firms representing more than $10 trillion in business value will transition over the next decade or so, but only about 20-30 percent of those sell.

Why? Because too many owners waited until too late to focus on accurate accounting and relevant financial reports.

But paying for accounting isn’t a cost at all; it’s an investment. And that’s a subtle – but powerful – distinction: A cost is an expenditure, but an investment is an expenditure with value, one boasting the possibility of a return.

When the financial vitality of your business is at stake, it may actually save you money in the long run to get it all done right the first time around.

So you hire an internal bookkeeper. Seems simple enough, right? Well, not quite. Because often, they lack the skills necessary to work independently and – surprisingly – may do more harm than good.

Once your books have hit the proverbial fan, accounting services like ours are typically called in for a veritable ‘clean-up-on-aisle-2’, where we spend considerable time cleaning up old, messy legacy accounting. The worst part? Business owners often spend more money for the clean up than an outsourced accounting investment would have cost them in the first place.

When initiated at at the launch of a new business, outsourced accounting can start with the end in mind to create valuable accounting and financial information from the onset. This approach ultimately saves business owners time, energy, and – arguably most importantly – money.

Still not convinced? According to Bill.com, here are the numbers behind the dollars-and-cents sense for outsourcing accounting and finance:

• 80% of clients who outsource their accounting say they have more time to focus on their business.
• 79% would recommend their outsourcing partner.
• 68% report that accounting is easier and more efficient.
• Nearly 30% of companies outsourcing accounting have received advice from their partner that has helped them increase profit.

The Bottom Line

Ultimately, the bottom line for any business is that human capital is its most valuable – and finite – resource. And contrary to popular belief that a ‘penny saved is a penny earned,’ using your talent, time and energy on anything other than taking full advantage of your business’s unique value proposition does little to save you money. In fact, investing in outsourced accounting and finance could allow you to unleash far more discretionary energy to scale your business.

At CFO Alliance, our accounting as a service package provides all the support you need with on-demand accounting and finance solutions. Take control of your business to increase its value, save on costly, unnecessary expenses, and avoid financial messes so you can get back to doing what you love: growing your business.

Contact us today to see how CFO Alliance can help you grow your business.