Outsourcing Controller Services and What You Should Know
Time is Money
If you’re like most business owners, you’re trying to scale up, while keeping focused on your customers like never before which means having less time to worry about the financials. If you feel like you cannot trust your financial reports to be accurate, then this article is for you.
Outsourcing controller services like payroll, financial reports, bookkeeping, taxes, accounts payable and receivable, and other tasks can help you manage a growing workload, eliminate capacity constraints, improve efficiencies, and scale your business more effectively as you keep your team focused on more strategic efforts.
There are 4 main reasons to hire an outsourced controller:
- Budget – Hiring and training a full-time controller can be expensive and doesn’t necessarily ensure quality and efficiency. According to com, the national average salary for a controller is $93,829 and can climb to $146K or more depending on location and expertise. Outsourced controller services average $2500 a month, or $30,000 a year — a third or less of the cost of hiring a full-time on-site controller. At any rate, outsourcing a controller will be less expensive than hiring a full time in-house controller.
- Confidentiality – Fraudulent activity is a constant concern for all business owners and all employees require oversight, but the financial health of your company demands supervision against fraudulent activities. Although it might seem like hiring invested people would decrease the likelihood of fraud, outsourcing can actually catch more errors. Outsourcing provides a new set of eyes that can identify risks, compliance issues, or human errors. Plus, it’s not a bad business practice to have one set of hands on the books and another set on writing the checks.
- Turnover rate – Why do many companies seem to have regular turnover in the bookkeeping, accounting or controller positions? Because it’s not a core competency of the management team. GrowthForce shares this case study where high turnover and low bookkeeping performance were holding their client’s business back. Outsourcing controller services can help consolidate tasks, increase efficiency and produce more accurate results for your business.
- Access to tools – Instead of investing in the costs of implementing and updating special software, outsourcing allows access to numerous tools that provide:
- Management of accounting and bookkeeping processes
- Efficiency and improvements of reporting
- Budgeting and forecasting
- Cash flow management and projections
- Job costing and inventory tracking
- Payroll management
- Key metric benchmarking
- Audit preparation and advisory services
- Financial applications and platform integration
In the end, the main reason a small to medium sized business owner decides to outsource controller services is simply because they do not have the time, desire, or need for a full-time controller. The company may be so small that it doesn’t yet need a full-time controller or even an accounting department. It may be expanding rapidly, but it may not yet need to hire a full-time controller. In some cases, there are confidentiality concerns when it comes to the accounting work that needs to be done, such as the business leader wants another layer of confidentiality between him and his outside CPA or in-house management team.
One8Solutions has what it takes to serve as your outsourced controller service department. We provide exceptional client service with a U.S. based team of bookkeepers, staff accountants and a hands-on CEO who provide the expertise and oversight you need to run your business. Grow your business with our expert financial team! Schedule your initial complimentary Zoom consultation today to see if outsourcing your controller services is right for your company.
