As companies scale up and take on more staff, the amount of administration and bureaucracy can also spiral upwards, putting pressure on business owners. So instead of concentrating on tasks that will boost revenue, they’re bogged down in red tape and spreadsheets.

For many, outsourcing admin, executive assistants and functions of the finance teams makes sense, but a growing trend is doing the same for the increasingly cumbersome compliance obligations.

“Most small or medium-sized businesses can’t afford for their execs to be spending hours every week making sure the company’s adhering to all the relevant legislation, changing codes of conduct and the expectations of stakeholders,” Admin Army CEO Irene Bennetts says. “Compliance has become more important than ever, so requires specialist knowledge and the ability to stay up to date with any new laws or protocols.”

Outsourcing time-consuming functions such as annual financial statements, tax returns and other aspects of compliance will certainly free up key staff, but there are several steps a company must take beforehand to make the transition as seamless as possible.

Embracing automation

The move towards digitalisation gains momentum each year as inefficient manual processes are ditched in favour of holistic software that provides a single source of truth.

Bennetts says there are two questions that should be asked at that stage:

1. Are all internal, cloud-based systems easily accessible remotely? This is essential with staff or contractors working remotely.

2. Will you want outsourced teams to interact with those on the ground? If so, facilitating things like screen sharing, Slack accounts and off-site network access are vital.

“Tech in the accounting space is developing all the time and firms who outsource are likely to be early adopters. This is essential with staff or contractors working in multiple locations.”

Align the board and c-suite

Errors are inevitable if not everyone follows agreed procedures or shares their data in the same way.

“I’m always amazed when I’m working with a firm and realise that each partner operates with a different set of formatting requirements! Usually there’s a ‘Well, it’s always been done this way’ attitude, which can be dangerous when there are multiple sources of the same information.”

A virtual assistant can help the process by policing internal compliance, which is essential in the run up to delegating tasks to a third-party provider. Luckily, the top outsourcing companies can suggest improvements and identify outdated processes.

Staff buy in

“Outsourcing isn’t about removing jobs, it’s about increasing capacity and letting team members concentrate on high-value work. Communicating this and establishing points of contact and workflow is vital to engage the staff and keep them motivated.”

“Outsourcing isn’t about removing jobs, it’s about increasing capacity and letting team members concentrate on high-value work.”

Bennetts advises companies to involve an outsourcing specialist such as Admin Army early on in the process to they can learn the corporate values and internal pain points, and contribute solutions.

“The external resources become part of the company and work harmoniously with teams so everyone feels a sense of liberation from those dreaded repetitive tasks!”

Find out more:

Visit https://adminarmy.co.nz/accounting-practice-support-caanz/ for more information on the exclusive pricing available for CA ANZ members.