As businesses grow, a need for more staff naturally arises to accommodate the increase in workload. For accounting firm owners, the current shortage of qualified and experienced accountants makes it challenging to attract the best talent as a business continues to scale.
As a result, business leaders often need to seek outside help to avoid being short-staffed and unable to manage client demands.
There are two main options that accounting firm owners have to choose from when looking to expand their teams: freelance professional accountants or global talent solutions. The benefit of having different options is that it provides business leaders with the opportunity to choose what is best-suited to their firms.
However, it’s important to be well-informed about these options, especially when they directly influence whether or not you achieve growth in your business, and if you can do so without compromising the quality of the services your business provides.
We’re going to take a look at global talent solutions and freelancers to see which would be the most beneficial to you.
Should you consider outsourcing?
Before getting into the main differences between freelance accountants and global talent solutions, let’s explore some of the reasons you might consider either option.
As we’ve mentioned, being a firm owner means that at a certain point you may need a bigger team to efficiently take on the growing workload as your business expands. To do this, you often need to hire more employees, especially those who can take care of the time-consuming tasks related to compliance, finance and accounting. This leaves accounting firm owners trying to find ways to get more done with fewer resources.
A common misconception is that only large firm owners face these challenges. The reality is that organisations of all sizes can stand to benefit from outsourcing accounting services, which is why they are one of the most outsourced functions.
A good way to tell if this would be a viable option is to consider if you have any of these challenges:
1. Capacity
While having a successful business is what every firm owner strives for, not being able to meet client demands is a challenge that can be a by-product of that success. Once this happens, you need to look into strategies to help you ensure that your organisation has the production capacity to meet demand.
Your initial instinct may be to hire new talent, which brings us to our next points.
2. Time and costs
The expansion of your business will inevitably result in the need to invest both time and money into finding viable solutions to manage your firm’s growth. If you choose to search for new permanent employees, it can take time before you attract the right talent for your business and, this in turn, can stall your growth.
3. Productivity and turnover
Apart from stalling your growth, the lengthiness of the hiring process can also impede productivity. Not having enough team members to handle all your client demands means that you can’t get as much work done. It also means that the staff you do have, may find it difficult to focus on the important tasks and responsibilities that drive your business’s growth.
4. Skills and resources
With the current skills shortage, it’s no secret that attracting and retaining qualified accountants is a challenge. To run a successful business, firm owners want to be sure that the people in their team possess the expertise and experience to ensure their clients’ confidence never wavers. This adds an extra layer of pressure to the process of hiring new talent.
Global talent solutions providers vs freelance workers
With these challenges to consider, firm owners understandably often choose to outsource accounting talent using either global talent solutions providers or freelance accountants. While both options are common, each one is different in what it offers.
Freelance accountants
Working with a freelance accountant typically involves assigning work to a freelance worker on a short-term or part-time basis.
You can work with freelancers by posting a task or a project you need completed on a site or a professional marketplace where companies or individuals can get in contact with you to offer their services. This is usually a fast and easy way to get hires for the projects you need completed. Whether it be a one-time arrangement or an ongoing agreement.
If you choose to go this route, it can be cost-effective because companies or individuals bid to work on projects, which puts you at an advantage because the freelancers bidding will be more likely to meet the price you are willing to pay or even offer their services for less, in an effort to win the bid.
The downside to this option, however, is that you have no way of keeping track of who is really doing the work on your project, since the work can then be outsourced to other freelancers who may or may not meet the standards and qualification you are looking for. This gives you less control over who is working on your projects and can be risky, or even turn out to be more costly if the work is not up to the standards you expect. This may even result in having to hire another individual or company to take over.
Talent solutions providers
Talent solutions providers offer talent sourcing services and can provide you with one or an entire team of qualified accountants or bookkeepers to add to your existing team, which can improve overall performance and boost productivity. In addition, talent solutions providers offer you talent, resources, office facilities, and management your team members require to do their best work.
With this option, you have control over who is part of your team because you are given the option to talk to and interview candidates before deciding who you would want to be part of your team. This arrangement provides HR managers, payroll, and all other employee-related matters, so you don’t have to.
It’s a cost-effective solution to driving growth in your firm without compromising the quality of work produced in your business.
With the option to hire accountants from outside your own country, you have more control over how much you want to financially invest in a global team, so that you can achieve more without breaking the bank. A global team also allows you to restructure the roles and responsibilities of your entire team to achieve the transformation your business needs to scale at speed.
Which is the best option for your business?
Having different options to choose from offers you the freedom to decide what is best for your business, and choosing the right option can make all the difference in how your business grows.
The process of working with freelancers can be faster and even less costly because various companies and individuals are vying for the same job and willing to make lower bids. The downside of this option is that you have less control over whose hands your projects are really in and whether they have the expertise you are looking for. This is especially the case if a freelancer acts as an agency and outsources the work to other companies. Essentially, while this option has the potential to be less costly, it could potentially compromise on quality, which could be costlier for your business in the long run.
With global talent solutions providers such as TOA Global, you have the benefit of saving costs while ensuring that you also receive quality assurance, and the costs are often lowered further once you have more than 15 members on your team. A global team also allows you to have access to resources that might not be readily available to you locally.
The risks involved in working with talent solutions providers are also significantly lower. A fully supported onboarding process relieves you of the pressures associated with employees outside of your local team. Another benefit of using a talent solutions provider is that whether you’re looking for help with financial reporting, preparing financial statements, finishing tax returns or completing any other accounting function, you will be working with people who understand your business and have the means to meet your specific needs.
Why choose us
More firm owners are choosing to hire global teams to drive their top talent retention programs so they can see increases in growth and profitability, especially since one of the top reasons that businesses choose to outsource is that more than 50% of outsourced accounting services result in cost cuts.
At TOA Global, we are a leading global talent solutions provider for the accounting industry and provide facilities that are custom-built for accounting firms. Our global teams are made up of experienced accountants and CPAs who receive training to upskill their compliance, technical and soft skills through our very own Ab2 Institute of Accounting.
You can expect to work with a global team of highly-skilled and specialised employees that will support you and your business needs, so you can boost productivity, allowing your local team to focus on the most important tasks.
TOA Global aims to empower leaders to unleash their business’s true potential by providing them with dedicated teams for their firms so they can start scaling efficiently.
Key takeaways:
- Global talent solutions allow you to delegate time-consuming work to a global team member so you can free up time to focus on your business.
- Hiring a global team of highly-skilled accountants can help you scale efficiently in every phase of your business cycle.
- Outsourcing your accounting function can increase your billable hours and you’ll be able to consistently deliver great service to your clients.
- Bringing on board one global team member, or several, is a cost-effective solution that not only saves costs but offers quality assurance and compliance.
If you are looking to partner with a best-in-industry global talent solutions provider, chat to us today
