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Secrets to Successful Organisational Restructure for Accounting Firms

Secrets to Successful Organisational Restructure for Accounting Firms hero
Whether it’s for a new business process, or for a reshuffling of your team members, organisational restructuring must be carefully considered before any accounting firm owner greenlights it. With this said, here’s everything you need to know about corporate reorganisation, especially for accounting practices.

Knowing If Your Accounting Firm Needs a Good Organisational Restructure

Whether you’re a neophyte or a veteran accounting firm owner, assessing your current accounting firm structure is part and parcel of your duties and responsibilities. An organisational restructure is crucial for your accounting firm to stay competitive and efficient in today’s rapidly changing business landscape.

With the right approach to firm restructuring, your team is better able to ferret out workflow issues, enjoy streamlined day-to-day processes for maximum productivity and efficiency, and benefit from optimal resource allocation.

Furthermore, company reorganisation can help align the firm’s goals with its internal structure, ensuring that all departments are working towards a common objective. It’s imperative that accounting firm owners get more involved and study some restructure best practices for a competitive edge that cuts across industries and position their practice for longevity.

5 Possible Reasons Behind Organisational Restructure for Accounting Firms

There are many factors that come into play behind any accounting firm’s organisational restructure. It can range from management to company finances to findings from research. Below are the top reasons behind major changes in your accounting firm structure.

1. Reducing Operational Costs

Organisational restructuring can be due to a company’s need for cost reduction. To optimise your firm’s financial resources, a good organisation restructure typically undertakes certain measures to be executed properly. This can include downsizing, removing redundant roles, or improving business processes to optimise costs.

With proper planning and implementation, an organisational restructure can lead to cost savings, increased profitability, and a more agile response to market demands.

2. Change in Management

For accounting firms like yours, changes in management most likely also bring about changes in business processes, especially your accounting firm structure too. May it be the reshuffling of team members or changes in who a team reports to, there is always a possibility of organisational restructuring taking place.

3. Merger or Acquisition of Firms

When accounting firms are merged or get acquired by a bigger company, an organisational restructure most likely follows. This may or may not involve consolidating departments, reassigning staff members to different roles, implementing new technology systems, or even downsizing in some cases.

4. Wanting More Efficiency

Knowing and targeting the bottlenecks in your accounting firm’s daily processes eliminates unwanted inefficiencies. Organisational restructuring means implementing changes to address these inefficiencies so that accounting firms like yours can better meet client demands, adapt to shifting accounting market trends, and overall stay ahead of the competition.

5. Corporate Social Responsibility

In line with initiatives by nonprofits like B Lab (who also closely partners with the UN to implement its SDGs), some cases of company restructuring are due to mandates for aligning your accounting firm’s goals with the corporate social responsibility or CSR business model.

Joining movements for environmental, philanthropic, ethical, and economic responsibilities helps promote a positive brand image for any accounting firm, including yours — and if this entails an organisational restructure, then firm owners are urged to get involved.

What are the Secrets to a Successful Organisational Restructure for Accounting Firms?

An effective company restructuring strategy significantly improves team productivity and performance, enhances collaboration among different silos in your firm, and encourages clear and precise communication among team members. While there is no one-size-fits-all formula for organisational restructuring, there are some foolproof factors that increase your firm’s chances for a successful business restructure.

1. Accurate Research and Data Analysis

To maximise your organisational restructure, you have to address the issues at hand in the accounting industry. After all, it’s been proven time and again that there is an accounting talent shortage, which is evident in cases of capacity crunches and shrinking talent pools across the country.

But with thorough research and accurate data analysis, you can pinpoint what most of your clientele is having trouble with and offer them viable and practical solutions to boot. Overall, findings that are realistic and backed by tests and analyses maximise the effectiveness of your corporate reorganisation and restructure strategy.

2. Well-calculated Risk Analysis

For a successful company restructuring, you must identify and evaluate potential risks and uncertainties that may arise during your organisational restructuring process. Your practice should come up with strategies to mitigate these risks for a smoother transition to a different accounting firm structure.

Risk analysis also takes aspects like financial stability, operational efficiency, and compliance with regulatory requirements into account. These pieces of information enable your accounting firm to make informed decisions that minimise negative outcomes and maximise positive results in your organisational restructure.

What are the Secrets to a Successful Organisational Restructure for Accounting Firms infographics

3. Coordination and Communication

Especially when newly merged or acquired, the transition of accounting firms from one structure to another isn’t always smooth and seamless — no matter how skilled or experienced its employees are.

There are differences in visions and directions that need reconciling, which is why firm reorganisation in cases of mergers need the right amount of give-and-take, while the organisational restructuring among accounting firms that have been recently acquired will most likely follow that of the company who acquired them. However, this still largely depends on what was agreed upon in the merger/acquisition.

4. Adjusted to Modern Frameworks

Whether it be the management methodology, the tech stack, or the vision statement, your accounting firm should undergo a company reorganisation that accommodates modern frameworks. While there are time-tested elements to company restructuring, it still pays to adapt to current times and incorporate newer, fresher concepts, ideas, and systems into your existing ones.

Adjusting to modern frameworks makes your firm’s daily processes more efficient, allows your workers to maximise their productivity, and keeps your clients happy and satisfied with the results they’re getting. There are but a few reasons not to adopt modern means and methods, so ensure that your accounting firm’s organisational restructure includes brand-new elements — those that work better than the old accounting firm structure.

The Main Ingredient to a Successful Organisational Restructure

Our opinion? The openness to adopting a new business model is the secret to a foolproof organisational restructure: particularly, the outsourced accounting model. As mentioned, there has been a decline in interest in the field of accounting, which makes most accounting firms short-staffed and drowning in tasks.

When you choose to outsource, you get to work with accounting professionals across the globe that don’t cost as much as an in-house team, utilise updated tech stacks, take pride in their excellent cybersecurity practices, and are less prone to burnout due to good work ethic.

However, the more accounting firm owners delay adopting a much-needed company restructuring, the more their system will suffer, and the more likely their firm is to collapse. Unautomated processes become unnecessary bottlenecks, and the accounting staff shortage will inevitably lead to burnout for current employees. In comparison to other practices, your old accounting firm structure leaves your firm outdated and left behind.

At this point, it’s clear that embracing outsourcing gives you benefits that you won’t get from an in-house team.

But as a firm owner who’s only known how things are done traditionally, where do you start? This is where TOA Global comes in.

Want to Change Your Accounting Firm Structure?

Whether it’s advisory services for company restructuring or some extra pairs of professional hands after an extensive firm reorganisation, you’ve come to the right place.

TOA Global is your partner when it comes to maximising your organisational restructure. With TOA, your firm gains access to elite outsourced accounting professionals like bookkeepers, payroll experts, and tax specialists. By outsourcing, you prevent capacity crunches, unwanted bottlenecks, and significantly reduce costs while still working with top talent.

Escape the talent crisis that’s plaguing the accounting industry. Book a chat with us today.

About the Author
Content Writer
Sharlene Kate Piamonte is a highly skilled content writer and editor with expertise across industries like accounting, healthcare, real estate, fashion, and beauty. Having earned her bachelor’s degree in sociology from the University of the Philippines Diliman, she graduated cum laude and is currently taking up her master’s in clinical psychology in the same university. Outside of work, she enjoys creating mashups, traveling, and collecting all things pink.