The Guide To

OUTSOURCING
Your Bookkeeping And Accounting
 Table of Contents

Challenges of Small Business Financial Management 3

Why Companies Outsource 4

Benefits of Outsourcing Your Bookkeeping & Accounting 5

Different Needs in different stages of the Business Lifecycle 7

Types of Outsourced Bookkeeping & Accounting 8

The Power of Real-time, Full-Service Accounting

Client Accounting Services 9

Management Accounting 10

Best Practices in Small Business Bookkeeping and Accounting 11

Choosing an Outsourced Partner 12

Why GrowthForce 13

THE GUIDE TO OUTSOURCING YOUR BOOKKEEPING AND ACCOUNTING 2

 The Unique Financial Management
Challenges Of Small Businesses

Small businesses and organizations struggle with growth.

As you increase sales and add employees your infrastructure and back office become
increasingly important. Your bookkeeping, accounting and financial operations, need
to move from compliance to a platform for financial intelligence.

Many small businesses suffer from challenges in these four areas:

Accounting Cash Flow

Systems Issues
Inefficiencies

Risks of Profitability
Fraud Challenges

It’s hard to hire/train/manage staff that can provide the level of expertise that is
needed in early and growth stages of a business. The good news is that outsourcing
has changed the playing field, and there's significant benefits to outsourcing all or
part of your business's bookkeeping and accounting. As a result, outsourcing
gives you the ability to focus on core activities as well as the financial intelligence you
need for better decision making to help grow your business.

THE GUIDE TO OUTSOURCING YOUR BOOKKEEPING AND ACCOUNTING 3

Why Companies Outsource
A 2016 Deloitte Survey reported:

59% 57%
of businesses cited say that outsourcing
cost-cutting as the enables them to focus on
primary reason for core business functions.
outsourcing.

47%
of businesses adopt
outsourcing to solve
business capacity
issues.

Cost Cutting Tool 59%

Focus on Core Business 57%

Business Capacity Issues 47%

Improve Service Quality 31%

Critical to Business Needs 28%

Access to Intellectual Capital 28%

Manage Business Environment 17%

Drives Broader Transformational Change 17%

THE GUIDE TO OUTSOURCING YOUR BOOKKEEPING AND ACCOUNTING 4

Benefits of Outsourcing Your
Bookkeeping & Accounting

TIME SAVINGS
Not having to recruit, hire, train, supervise and manage bookkeeping or
accounting staff is a huge time saver and headache reliever. Outsourcing can help
you regain valuable time so that you can put all of your effort and energy into
growing your business and increasing profitability.

COST SAVINGS
Employee expenses including hiring, benefits, overhead, training and costs of
turnover waste funds that could be applied to growing your business.
Outsourcing eliminates:
• Costs associated with recruiting, • Software licenses, office
training and benefits supplies and utilities
• Paying sick and vacation time • CPA cleanup

EXPERTISE
A highly trained, fractional share of an accounting department provides
access to expertise most small businesses can't afford. From compliance, to
industry experience to management reports, outsourced accounting can
provide peace of mind, eliminate worry and drive growth. Outsourcing
could also help increase the ROI of your knowledgeable, existing back office
staff by moving them into revenue generating positions.

THE GUIDE TO OUTSOURCING YOUR BOOKKEEPING AND ACCOUNTING 5

 Benefits of Outsourcing Your
Bookeeping & Accounting (cont.)

FLEXIBILITY
With outsourcing, accounting staff expenses become a variable cost.
Services and expertise are available on-demand vs. the fixed costs of
hiring staff. If you have an employee out of the office on maternity leave
or vacation, you can temporarily add services, such as payroll or billing, to
make sure the position is covered until your full-time employee returns.

SCALABILITY
Growing businesses are dynamic, not static, and as a result, accounting and
bookkeeping requirements fluctuate. Throughout the lifecycle of your
business you can access the exact bookkeeping and accounting services you
need, and pay for nothing more.

ADVANCED REPORTING
Unlock the power of customized financial intelligence, a powerful benefit of
outsourced accounting. You’ll get access to timely and accurate financials,
and most importantly, actionable management reports which will help you
make the decisions that increase profits.

THE GUIDE TO OUTSOURCING YOUR BOOKKEEPING AND ACCOUNTING 6

Your Accounting Needs Change
As Your Business Grows
Businesses have different financial management needs as they move through
their lifecycle stages. Your needs can fluctuate between basic bookkeeping
and advanced management accounting.

Business Lifecycle
Stages

Startups focus more on

compliance. They need
to keep overhead costs In growth stage
low to invest as much as businesses, strategic
LY
possible into the decision-making and cash
business.
GR

flow management are

R
EA

OW

critical to surviving.
Business leaders need to
TH

manage cash flow, make

data-driven decisions to
facilitate strategic growth.
AT
M

U R IT Y

During the maturity stage businesses should

focus on consistent, predictable profits, push for
further expansion, or prepare for an exit.
Depending on direction, businesses may choose
to scale back or expand their outsourced
accounting departments.

THE GUIDE TO OUTSOURCING YOUR BOOKKEEPING AND ACCOUNTING 7

Five Types of Outsourced
Bookkeeping & Accounting

Outsourcing your financial

Web based,
operations can take many SaaS tools with
forms, from basic transaction service overlay
processing to outsourced A good solution for micro or smaller
Controller and CFO functions. businesses. Features intuitive User
Interfaces but lack the power and
scalability of an accounting package
The accounting industry calls like QuickBooks or Xero and the
real-time transaction service overlay is usually minimal. Part-Time
processing through
Bookkeeper
management reporting,
Typically perform basic
"Client Accounting Services," bookkeeping compliance
or (CAS). Quality providers in duties. Low cost option but
this space will deliver a level of needs to be supervised and
management accounting that is managed. Also is a single
hard to create on your own. point of failure.

Full-Service
Accounting Department Local
Client Accounting Bookkeeping
Service (CAS) Service
The most comprehensive offering
Additional expertise than a
including dedicated teams and part-time bookkeeper, but still
latest technology. There are lacking accounting skills and
differences in scope of services, CPA Firm with still need to be managed.
accounting platforms used, Bookkeeping
and flexibility.
Capabilities
Many CPA firms offer
bookkeeper services, but it's
usually not their core focus.
They do it as a compliance
service but do not provide
management accounting.

THE GUIDE TO OUTSOURCING YOUR BOOKKEEPING AND ACCOUNTING 8

The Power of Real-time,
Full-Service Accounting
Full-service accounting allows your company to leverage the knowledge and
expertise of a team of trained financial professionals. When routine bookkeeping and
accounting tasks are managed, you can focus on doing what you do best –
running your business. In addition, full-service providers offer management
accounting, delivering actionable insights into your company’s finances.

CLIENT ACCOUNTING SERVICES (CAS)

With recent advances in technology, the accounting industry now offers Client Accounting
Services, a service model which provides automated technology and affordable accounting
guidance to businesses of all types and sizes.

Unlike with part-time bookkeepers, local bookkeeping services or even CPA firms offering
bookkeeping, businesses that employ Client Accounting Services receive a fractional share of a
professional accounting department.

CAS delivers as-needed expertise across the spectrum of financial

management, so businesses don’t have to hire, train or manage
hard-to-find accounting staff.
Client Accounting Services firms do come in several varieties. Some provide basic bookkeeping,
while others provide advanced management reporting and advisory services. It's important to
sort through the offerings and find the scope of work best suited for your business.

Read More: Client Accounting Services

- A New Way to Outsource Accounting

THE GUIDE TO OUTSOURCING YOUR BOOKKEEPING AND ACCOUNTING 9

 Management Accounting

A full-service outsourced accounting department should be able to provide

management accounting in addition to financial accounting. Management
Accounting enables management reporting that helps your business
improve strategic decision-making to drive growth and profitability.

Management Accounting Management Reporting

provides the processes and includes reports, KPIs and scorecards
procedures that create reports to used by management to monitor
aid management in strategic performance, track against plans and
decision-making. make decisions to increase profitability.

Management accounting can be described as cost accounting. You need job costing to
see your unit economics. Since payroll is your biggest expense, its important the
outsourced firm you choose implements time-driven activity based costing (TDABC) as
a best practice to allocate your fully loaded labor costs.

Management Reports Provide Answers To Questions Like:

• Are you pricing your jobs right?
• Which clients are most profitable?
• Where should I spend marketing dollars to grow my sales?
• How much can I afford to spend on customer acquisition?
• How can I improve operations to reduce expenses?

Empowered by answers, you can make data-driven

decisions with confidence and enjoy the positive
results: significant financial savings and reduced
business costs.

THE GUIDE TO OUTSOURCING YOUR BOOKKEEPING AND ACCOUNTING 10

Best Practices in Small Business
Bookkeeping and Accounting

SYSTEM OPTIMIZATION STANDARDIZATION

Leverage business process automation to Standardize weekly and monthly

eliminate double entry and wasted time. Your processes to ensure accuracy,
accounting system should integrate and sync timeliness and best practices.
all data that exists in electronic form from any Standardized policies and
system. Unlocks the potential to assess time procedures require:
data with respect to:
Documentation of all best practices
for billing, collections and cash flow
Billing systems
management

Job costing of payroll Training on best practices and

processes
Profitability reporting for all
aspects of your business Month-end checklist

REPORTING FRAUD REDUCTION

Design your reporting package with Design separation of duties and internal
the end in mind: controls including checks and balances
into your processes, policies and
What reports will help you to make
better decisions procedures. Make sure you have:

What Key Performance Indicators One person to authorize a transaction

and Scorecards would help you
increase profitability Another person to record the transaction

What types of decisions will you make A third person to reconcile the account
by looking at these reports

THE GUIDE TO OUTSOURCING YOUR BOOKKEEPING AND ACCOUNTING 11

 Choosing a Partner
Things to consider when choosing an outsourced accounting firm

Experience How long has the firm provided client accounting services (CAS)?

a. Do they specialize in CAS?

Specialization b. Do they specialize in your accounting software
c. Do they specialize in your industry?

Transitioning How do they manage the on-boarding transition process, and how long will it take?

Are they able to build or optimize your systems to automate and

Technology
integrate all your financial data?

Scalability Are they able to add, or cut back on services depending on your business needs?

Team What level of experience and training systems does the company have?

a. How many people will be on your team?

Expertise b. What are their roles?
c. Do they provide a dedicated team?
Do they provide a reporting package the includes management reports
Reporting customized to your organization’s drivers of success?

Offshore may work for large transaction heavy businesses focused on

U.S. Based or Offshore
maximum cost savings. U.S Based is best for SMBs.

Where do they work? Do their staff work in a centralized office or service center, or do they work out of
their homes?

How do you communicate with your team?

Communication Can you reach them when you need them?

Can they deliver a scope of work that matches your needs? Are they flexible?
Scope Do they offer daily/real-time service in addition to batch processing?

What are the responsibilities, deadlines and expectations of your staff, or

Your Responsibilities
any third parties, such as your CPA?

Will your business’s data be protected? (The best firms understand the importance
Security
of security. They invest and become experts in both physical and digital security.)

Shared Access to Some outsourced accounting service providers limit or restrict access to QuickBooks
Software Platform or other software.

THE GUIDE TO OUTSOURCING YOUR BOOKKEEPING AND ACCOUNTING 12

Why GrowthForce
GrowthForce bookkeeping, accounting and controller services help small
businesses and nonprofits access timely, accurate financials from a dependable team
of accounting professionals they can trust. You'll receive a fractional share of a full-
service accounting department based in the U.S. that provides customized
financial reporting and KPIs to help you drive profitability and growth through data-
driven decisions.

Over 25 Years In-Depth Catch Up Smart Back

Experience Onboarding Clean Up Office

POLICIES &
PROCEDURES

Policies & Management Scalability Dedicated

Procedures Reporting, KPIs & 3-Person Team
Scorecards

GrowthForce’s exceptional blend of team and technology sets us apart in the client
accounting industry. In addition to the core bookkeeping and accounting services we
provide, we’re experts at helping small business and nonprofits integrate systems,
improve cash flow, reduce risk and increase profits.

Now is the time to outsource your bookkeeping and accounting - get the team and the
technology that will help you drive increased growth and profitability.

Get started with a customized proposal today: Schedule a Free Consultation

THE GUIDE TO OUTSOURCING YOUR BOOKKEEPING AND ACCOUNTING 13

Outsource your bookkeeping and accounting to optimize systems,
improve cash flow, reduce risk and increase profits.

How does it work? See a Live Demo

Ready to get started? Request Customized Pricing

Call us: 877-735-7693

Email us: [email protected]

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©2018 GrowthForce, LLC

GrowthForce is not a CPA firm.
GrowthForce accounting services provided through
an alliance with SK CPA, PLLC.