Outsourcing payroll/accounts-Market research

Snowdrop

I hope this is ok to post here. We do payroll,accounts etc and would appreciate some feedback from people who are in business. My question is has or does anyone here outsource their payroll, admin or book-keeping and what were the pro's & con's to you?

Also how did you find your provider and what was the most important issue in deciding to go with that provider?

If you no longer use outsourcing, why not?


Thanks in advance.

restaurants

Snowdrop wrote: »

I hope this is ok to post here. We do payroll,accounts etc and would appreciate some feedback from people who are in business. My question is has or does anyone here outsource their payroll, admin or book-keeping and what were the pro's & con's to you?

Also how did you find your provider and what was the most important issue in deciding to go with that provider?

If you no longer use outsourcing, why not?


Thanks in advance.

I think it depends on how many employees you have, plus your own experience in this arena.
I have outsourced payroll and it does cut down on paperwork.
I found it took a while to put it in place, but it was plain sailing after that.

Bandara

I outsource everything in this area, my reasons to choose my provider was size of their company (I don't want to deal with a small firm with 1 or 2 accountants and ahandful of trainees). Also how impressive the owner of the company is, he needs to be superb communicator and be able to impose himself on the banks in meeting concerning the company (I always bring my accountant to any of the more relevant bank meetings). I find a lot of accountants are the typecast dull calculator merchants, I personally can't work with someone like this.

Cost is not a huge issue (obviously it has to be within the industry norm, but it would be behind several more important priorities)

Brenda Kelly

Hammertime wrote: »

I outsource everything in this area, my reasons to choose my provider was size of their company (I don't want to deal with a small firm with 1 or 2 accountants and ahandful of trainees). Also how impressive the owner of the company is, he needs to be superb communicator and be able to impose himself on the banks in meeting concerning the company (I always bring my accountant to any of the more relevant bank meetings). I find a lot of accountants are the typecast dull calculator merchants, I personally can't work with someone like this.

Cost is not a huge issue (obviously it has to be within the industry norm, but it would be behind several more important priorities)

Hi Hammertime,
I would agree, I have recently gone out in business as a Financial Consultant (to some degree and oursourced Financial Controller, the success of my services is based on the fact that I provide a service to my clients that they don't get from your typical accountant, I work with a team of experts in each of their relevant fields, we provide that extra service that companies need in todays market, the accountant that is comfortable meeting with the bank manager, used to producing business plans the banks want. Making timely decisions that maximise profits I think a passion for what you do for a company comes across very much so, and on one occasion a client said "God you really are not like a typical accountant dull, you have a passion for what you do for the company"

I think the market is ready for outsource services but if you are to suceed
to need to go the extra mile and always be looking at how to enhance your service,

Hope this informtion is of help

Brenda

Andy_Black

Hi snowdrop,

Once my new business gets going I will be outsourcing book-keeping as soon as I can, and if I ever get employees I'd do the same with payroll !!

I've been a one-man consultancy for years, and my biggest pain is book-keeping and accounts. I've a degree in Mathematics and 15 years in I.T. so you'd think I'd be happy doing it myself, but no, I might as well pull my own teeth for the amount of fun it is to me.

My philosophy: concentrate on what you're good at and what you enjoy... outsource everything else. If you spent 8 hours a day rather than, say, 2 hours a day on what you're good at and enjoy then your business will prosper tremendously, and you'll be having a great time at work. As they say "do a job you enjoy and you'll never work a day in you life".

Spending time on something that you're bad at in the hope of saving money is ultimately a false economy. The phrase "penny wise, pound foolish" springs to mind.

Seriously, as soon as I've covered overheads and my salary the book-keeping is getting outsourced.

As to how I'd find someone to do it: I'd want someone local who I can go crying to easily, and I'd want someone who's in it for the long haul... i.e. they're not going to leave me in the lurch and give me back my shoe-box of receipts.

I hope that helps!

Andy

Grow Your Business With Digital Insight
www.digitalinsight.ie

antoinolachtnai

I can't see the future in outsourcing payroll for a company of any size. Good payroll packages are just so cheap now.

If you were sending out all your bookkeeping and didn't have any bookkeeping resources at all, i can see it would make sense.

If you are doing what Hammertime wants, which is a lot more than bookkeeping, then that's a different thing.