In business, proper bookkeeping and accounting is an integral factor for success. But aside from employing the right people with the best qualities, few challenges to face are the limited pool of talent in the F&A market and the expensive labor cost in employing them. But we know that having a bookkeeper in a company is important because they sustain and keep the business’ financial records on track by enabling owners to make informed decisions on expenditure and investments, and controlling cash flow. This is why hiring the right bookkeeper in your team is important.

To help you out, here are some traits and qualities that you should look for in a good bookkeeper:

Professional Competence and Experience

For your company to avoid heavy losses and other complications, your bookkeeper should have a technical knowledge of the industry. This involves not only organising and maintaining your accounts but also being familiar with tax laws such as GAAP and Sarbanes Oxley and doing their utmost to keep your accounts compliant with them.

A title of Certified Public Accountant (CPA) is not required, although it would be better to hire a bookkeeper with one. It’s more important to thoroughly check on their accounting and bookkeeping knowledge as well as experience in working in the industry. Ideally, a bookkeeper who has expertise in your field of focus is a better choice since they can offer sharper services with a more informed approach. They can also provide reports on how your business is performing month-to-month, and have an idea of what success metrics look like in your industry.

Transparency

Bookkeepers make the financial side of the business much easier to handle, which saves you time to focus on more important things. However, in turbulent times, they should also be able to be honest and transparent in advising you of the consequences and opportunities in the situation at hand.

It is not the bookkeeper’s job to make decisions for business owners, but they can give them the complete details of the issue as well as the stakes and recommendations that can help them take the next steps moving forward.

Accessible and Client-Focused

This is not to say that only those who answer concerns and inquiries in the wee hours of the night are good bookkeepers; this only means that with the advanced technology in communication that we have today, a good bookkeeper should be visible to the client and prompt when it comes to responding to messages especially when these are deemed urgent. 

Being present shows that the bookkeeper is focused on the needs of their client, which is another trait that you should look for when hiring for the job. They should be attentive to the specific needs of the client and be proactive enough to advise them on the opportunities and risks that they are exposed to. Basically, more than just getting paid, a good bookkeeper values the success of their client.

Why Outsource?

Outsourcing your bookkeeping operations may be more beneficial for your company than you think. For one, it cuts on costs of both hiring full-time workers and investing in bookkeeping tools. 

It also provides you the ability to scale your operations depending on the work demand, and most importantly, it gives you access to F&A professionals and specialists that have the traits mentioned above and no longer need to be trained, saving you time and money.

When outsourcing, the right partner can build your dedicated team of well-trained F&A professionals, tailored to streamline simple to complex accounting functions. They can meet your goals, whether they be growth, improve productivity or simply bottom-line cost savings, and exceed your expectations. With access to highly-skilled experts who use cutting-edge technology, you will have more time and freedom to focus on your business’s core competencies.

The right outsourcing partner ensures:

• Access to talent through their A+ recruitment process
• Cost saving of up to 70%
• Adaptability in technological advancement
• Established Information Security

The major net results of partnering with the right company are:

• Operational excellence
• Having a great F&A team
• Operational cost savings of up to 70%
• Accuracy and quality
• Timeliness in submission
• Information and data security
• Sense of security and peace of mind

Partnership with Infinit-O
Infinit-O’s mission is to create endless opportunities for your company to realize your full potential.

Infinit-O Key Benefits:

We can build you a great, high-performing F&A team! Here are some examples below:

Let’s work together to build a great Finance and Accounting Team.

Start small. Exceed expectations. Think infinitely. Think Infinit-O.

Every business owner knows that finance and accounting is essential not only in keeping finances in check, but also in making sure that the company survives and even thrives amid potential financial risks and challenges. There are a lot of factors to consider when it comes to finance and accounting, and these require expertise in a lot of areas–areas that may spell the difference between a successful business and a struggling one. Below is a list of finance and accounting roles and how they can help your business rise above the rest:

1. Bookkeeper

A bookkeeper, as the name implies, is the keeper of financial records. Accurate financial recording helps organisations keep track of their income and expenditure and makes sure that they stay within budget, says Oxbridge Academy. Financial record-keeping is done on a daily basis, and this includes keeping a record of all receipts, payments, and other financial transactions; filing source documents; and preparing cash flow statements and financial reports. Bookkeepers are also responsible for issuing invoices, paying accounts on behalf of the company, performing payroll administration duties, and filing tax returns. These responsibilities make bookkeepers essential in business recovery as they ensure that your employees are getting paid on time and that your expenses and income are tracked properly even amid crisis. 

2. Accountant

Like a bookkeeper, an accountant also keeps track of financial records, but what makes accountants different from bookkeepers is that aside from financial record-keeping, they also interpret financial information. According to Northeastern University, accountants can perform functions similar to bookkeepers, but they are also in charge of evaluating financial operations to recommend best-practices, identify issues and strategize solutions, and help organizations run efficiently; offering guidance on cost reduction, revenue enhancement, and profit maximization; and conducting forecasting and risk analysis assessments. By analyzing and evaluating your company’s financial situation and helping you identify and address crucial financial struggles, accountants help ensure that you have the right set of tools to recover business operations during and after a business crisis. 

3. Financial Risk Managers

Financial risk managers take financial analysis to the next level. In a recent article, Investopedia states financial risk managers help identify threats to a company’s assets, a company’s earning capacity, and a company’s overall success. Furthermore, financial risk managers “determine risk by analyzing financial markets and the global environment to predict changes or trends. It is the FRM’s role to develop strategies to counteract the effects of potential risks.” This means that aside from interpreting the finances of the company, financial risk managers take a look at the company’s overall financial status and situation within a wider context, and this ensures that the company is more prepared for any possible financial risk that may threaten it. What’s best about financial risk managers is that they can help you come up with a business continuity plan that would not only help you avoid or manage business risks, but would also help your business quickly recover and continue providing its vital services during or after any economic crisis. 

Build a Great Team with the Right Partner

Overall, these three roles enable your company to obtain data that is necessary for maximizing profit and curb fraudulent practices. However, due to the rapid changes in the industry, with more and more companies choosing to do their finance and accounting in the digital world, few are able to keep up and stay on top of the many news and trends as well as the corresponding training and skills update needed. Online tools have been made available in recent years to help companies adapt, and these include accounting softwares, expense trackers, and billing tools, but many employers are now outsourcing finance and accounting roles, as outsourcing can be more cost efficient with up to 70% savings on operational cost and can help a company focus more on its operations, especially if they’re composed of lean teams.

With the right partner, they can build you a great F&A team that ensures:

• Right partner, right team ensures
• Access to talents
• Cost Savings
• Accurate financial recording 
• 95% team productivity 
• 90% Timeliness in accounting submission 
• Quality of finance and accounting output

Support from the right outsourcing partner allows you to fortify your company’s finance and accounting processes despite the limited talent pool and a very high priced job market. The best partner will scout finance and accounting specialists and match them to your unique needs to help you focus on achieving your business goals and the following benefits:

• Operational excellence
• Having a great F&A team
• Operational cost savings of up to 70%
• Information and data security
• Sense of security and peace of mind

Partnership with Infinit-O

Infinit-O’s mission is to create endless opportunities for your company to realize your full potential.

We can build you a great, high-performing F&A team composed of:

Let’s work together to build a great Finance and Accounting Team.

Start small. Exceed expectations. Think infinitely. Think Infinit-O.

Strategy and planning are crucial in ensuring that your corporate accounting firm can operate without any hiccups. And the formula for fruitfully navigating a business towards success is by effectively managing income and expenses and having a great finance and accounting team. As a result, unexpected financial downturns can be easily circumvented because without a strategy, it would be like leaving the performance of your company to chance. Generating business strategies and contingency plans can also be designed more effectively through a well-established F&A process and skilled domain experts team.

Many businesses are now outsourcing finance and accounting making the industry huge and growing bigger every year. Because there are many outsourcing companies out there, knowing the best traits to look for before partnering is one way to ensure that you invest in the right company and the right collaboration. Allying with a third party vendor should be done carefully because it is an investment that will define the course of your business. We listed 3 traits of an F&A BPO should look for:

1. Access to talent

There is a shortage of finance and accounting professionals like Bookkeepers, CPAs, Data Entry Specialists, etc in the F&A industry. 38% of finance and accounting professionals say there is a general shortage of professional skills.  This means, as a firm that wants to hire only the best F&A accounting professionals. But a reputed finance & accounting BPO has A+ recruitment team and process that gives them access to the best talent in the F&A industry. 

This allows them to add the best talent to your workforce and build you a great team of F&A experts which in return can scale your operations on an immediate basis because their industry network allows them to source new talent quickly and effectively. A great BPO has a well-established hiring process to allow them to filter the best people for your company and make sure that they have the proper certifications and skills. 

2. Adaptability in technological advancement

Process optimisation is another factor to consider because through stricter controls, checks and balances and the use of advanced technology you are assured that your company’s fiscal requirements are met. The use of Six Sigma, Kaizen and lean management techniques ensures not only are outsourcing processes continuously improved but also that the benefit is transferred to their clients. 

Outdated tools and technology may be ineffective in the long run making it difficult to report numbers after the factual, let alone in real-time. Without updated tools and F&A technologies, your business is prone to miss deadlines, commit mistakes, devise ineffective strategies and remain in business stagnation. Having updated softwares (i.e. Quickbooks, Geneva, etc) fills up any finance and accounting requirements needed for your business to grow. Make sure to get the tools that have features fit for your current business needs.

This is another trait to look for in an outsourcing company because technology and process are ever changing and evolving. A great partner understands this need and is responsible to make sure that their clients are updated and not outdated.

3. Established Information Security

Simple firewalls and antivirus softwares as your company’s sole security measure may not be enough to outmaneuver data risks and security threats. Underestimating the importance of information security especially in this digital age can put your business in jeopardy especially your financial information. Because one of the most important and private data that should be kept secured is a company’s financial and accounting records; those that contain business assets, budget and revenue. A compromised book allows hackers to take advantage of your business’s financial assets.

A great F&A BPO is ISO 27001:2013 and ISO 9001:2015 certified and General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliant because they know the importance of data security. Aside from that, they also have internal Information Security in place to ensure that their team members and their internal processes are adhering to protecting their client’s records and books.

4. Cost Savings

One major advantage of outsourcing is its cost saving opportunities. You can cut down operational costs in recruitment and hiring, training, office space and utilities and even hardware and software needs of your business because your outsourcing partner will take care of those things at a more affordable cost with efficiency and quality in the work because they  are already experts in that trade.

Despite the cost savings, the right outsourcing partner can still build you a great team of experts because they have access to world-class talents at a more cost effective rate.

5. High Net Promoter Score

Net promoter score helps businesses gauge the quality of the customer service offered by outsourcing companies. Organizations can use NPS to assess which outsourcing service is best to partner with because this score shows loyalty trends and growth revenue outputs.

In a way, NPS represents the primary way customers survey their experience because it means that their clients are happy which results in customer loyalty and retention, making this a critical trait a BPO company should have. When used correctly, NPS (of at least 60%) can tell you how well the BPO is performing, how often they resolve issues, and if their clients are satisfied with their experience.

All these qualities and more can be found with the right outsourcing partner who can provide a customized, high quality F&A business solutions that can promise for the following:

• Operational excellence
• Build a great F&A team specifically designed for your unique needs
• Operational cost savings of up to 70%
• Accuracy and quality
• Timeliness in submission
• Information and data security
• Sense of security and peace of mind

Partnership with Infinit-O

Infinit-O’s mission is to create endless opportunities for your company to realize its full potential.

Infinit-O Key Benefits:

We can build you a great, high-performing F&A team composed of:

Let’s work together to build a great Finance and Accounting Team.

Start small. Exceed expectations. Think infinitely. Think Infinit-O.