Evaluating Outsourcing Benefits

Benefits of Outsourcing your Australian Accounting, Taxation and Bookkeeping Compliance to an Offshore provider

By: Odyssey Practice Management Series

Outsourcing is not new. It derives from the economic principle of comparative advantage. CPA Australia released several great checklists back in October 2016, with lead author by Odyssey’s David Carter. The checklists in these series allow Australian accountants looking to use or provide outsourced services to cover many of the important aspects of outsourcing. This week we look at the …

Potential Risks of Outsourcing

Potential risks of Outsourcing your Australian Accounting, Taxation and Bookkeeping Compliance

By: Odyssey Practice Management Series

In the first part of this series, we discussed the benefits of outsourcing accounting, taxation and bookkeeping compliance to an offshore provider. Understanding the risks associated with the outsourcing is as important as evaluating the benefit. Outsourcing has 3 key success factors / risks: Quality, timeliness, price. Generic business risks are generally well understood and relate to a large extent …

Outsourced Services

What kind of services can accounting firms outsource?

By: Odyssey Practice Management Series

Accounting firms normally outsource the business activities related to accounting, taxation and bookkeeping compliance. In the digital age, many firms are considering the outsourcing of other ancillary services such as marketing, sales and administration. The checklist below will help you identify which areas and which services you wish to outsource. Accounting function services Accounting compliance is the usual standard service …

Selecting OSP - part 1

Issues to consider when selecting an Outsourcing Service Provider – Part 1 of 2

By: Odyssey Practice Management Series

Maybe the most difficult decision regarding the outsourcing is to find the right OSP. It is useful to go through the checklist of issues to consider when selecting an OSP. For this post, we will look at three themes: background, characteristics of the OSP and their staff. Background on the Outsource Service Provider Many accounting firms ignore the important background …

Evaluating Technology Platform

What to Consider when Evaluating the Service Provider’s Technology Platform

By: Odyssey Practice Management Series

As we all know, technology is the backbone of the outsourcing practice. A reliable and secure technology platform of the OSP gives much more confidence for the accountants to outsource accounting, taxation and bookkeeping compliance. We will look into what criteria to evaluate the service providers’ technology platform. Internet speed and reliability What is the reputation of the Internet Service …

Assessing the Integrated Technology Platform

How well an OSP and a client work together on an Integrated Technology Platform

By: Odyssey Practice Management Series

The last post presented the checklist on the quality of the OSP’s technology platform. For this time, it is about the integrity between the OSP and you, the client. Answer these questions below to assess the integrated technology platform. Internal communication How will you communicate with your outsourced staff? Will they report to one person on your team or collaboratively …

Post-implementation review

How to conduct a Post-Implementation Review

By: Odyssey Practice Management Series

When it comes to the management and monitoring stage in the outsourcing, you should conduct a post-implementation review to assess how well the transition went. This is to measure the results of the project, identify key lessons learned and develop an action plan in accordance with the findings. The list of questions below gives you a guideline of what issues …

Evaluation of Outcomes

How to evaluate outcomes of using the Outsourcing Service Provider

By: Odyssey Practice Management Series

Following the post-implementation review step, you should now evaluate the outcomes of the project to decide your next move in outsourcing. Whether the outsource agreement should be renewed, transferred or exited depends on how you identify the achieved outcomes. You should answer 4 questions below: What was the rate of productivity improvement? Did the transition meet expectations? Were staff time …

Backsourcing services

Issues to Consider in Backsourcing Services

By: Odyssey Practice Management Series

Earlier in this series, we discussed the options available to the client when an outsourcing project is done. Among those, transition the service back in-house poses as a challenge due to the lack of capacity and expertise of the in-house staff who may have not performed the service for quite a bit chunk of time. You should review and follow …