In recent years, many more CPA firms have been turning to offshore accounting: a process involving the outsourcing of certain accounting responsibilities to a qualified, professional third party who operate outside of the country.
With significant cost savings to be made, as well as the expertise of skilled professionals to benefit from, offshore tax preparation can be a fantastically effective strategy for CPA firms in terms of managing their taxation and accounting responsibilities more effectively.
If your CPA firm has been considering the possibility of offshore accounting to improve its cashflow and save money, the following short guide may prove helpful:
What exactly is offshore accounting?
As touched upon briefly in the introduction to this piece, offshore accounting involves companies situated in overseas countries, working on financial transactions and statements on behalf of other businesses.
The kinds of services offered by offshore accounting firms, include tax planning, tax preparation, and tax filing, as well as bookkeeping and financial reporting.
How does offshore accounting benefit CPAs?
There are a number of advantages that offshore accounting can bring to a CPA firm:
Cost
The cost of labor is much lower in some countries such as India and the Philippines, which can help CPAs using offshore accounting companies, to save money, particularly when you look in detail at the costs associated with hiring both temporary and permanent staff.
Although it varies from country-to-country, generally speaking, CPAs can save as much as 50% on the cost of labor when using offshore services.
Talent
With a shortage of accounting professionals still an issue across the United States, accessing talented people to fill essential roles, is becoming increasingly tough. Offshoring, however, gives CPA firms access to talented accountants and tax experts from around the globe, which makes finding the right people for the job, that much easier.
Efficiency
When you use the services of an offshore accounting firm, you’ll find that one of the first things they’ll help you do, is to be more efficient. Through the streamlining of essential processes, automation of everyday tasks, and use of the latest technologies, your company can enjoy newfound levels of productivity and efficiency, making it easier to cope with the demands of existing clients, and easier to attract new ones, too.
Scalability
If your CPA firm wanted to scale up but didn’t have a big enough team or enough services to do so, working with an offshore accounting firm can make it happen with ease. Simply add new staff as and when you need them, pay only for the work they do for you, and you’ll find that adding extra services as per the demands of today’s clients, is simple, cost effective and sustainable.
Customer service
With an offshore accounting team of professionals at your side, every inquiry, issue or piece of feedback from clients or potential clients, can be dealt with immediately, and professionally.
CPAs can also use offshore bookkeeping services to help give their own teams more time to focus on additional, higher value services, while knowing that all of the essential but time consuming bookkeeping, is being expertly taken care of. In short, offshore accounting and bookkeeping is a great way for CPAs to save significant amounts of money, and give themselves a much healthier cashflow, while never having to compromise on quality.
