Small Business Finance Site

Small Business Financial & Accounting (f&a) Offshore Outsourcing Cost

Fortune 500 companies have been off shoring the financial and accounting business processes (BPO) to countries like India, Philippians, China, etc. These companies have big budgets and a big team of consultants who analyzes the total cost and ROI of sending their financial and accounting work to the service providers in offshore locations. Though smaller companies have started off shoring their financial and accounting work to offshore locations but like big corporations small businesses do not have huge budget to hire consultants to identify the total cost of off shoring their financial and accounting work to offshore locations. But small businesses can still perform their due diligence in calculating total cost of their offshore engagement and gain critical knowledge in finding ROI of sending their financial and accounting work to offshore locations. In this report we will go through all of the hidden costs of offshoring financial and accounting business processes.

1. Different Costs of Offshoring Financial & Accounting Work

Small businesses mainly consider offshoring their work, they will consider only the hourly rate they need to pay to the offshore vendor for various accounting works like bookkeeping, accounts payable, accounts receivable, etc. There are several other additional hidden costs small business have to face in their offshore outsourcing engagement. Typically a small business goes through following offshore accounting work cycle in their offshore engagement:

• Selecting an offshore accounting vendor

• Sending the work to the offshore vendor

• Answering questions for the offshore vendor

• Receiving the finished work from the offshore vendor

• Verifying the finished work from the offshore vendor

• Monitoring the quality of the finished work from the offshore vendor

2. Cost of Selecting offshore accounting vendor

The cost associated with selecting an offshore accounting vendor will be small compared to other costs. Most of the time small businesses can find a qualified offshore accounting vendor simply by searching in Google or by contacting other small businesses those who are already using an offshore vendor, for detailed discussion on this topic read Offshore Accounting Success. This cost is the one time cost and it will be similar to selecting an onshore vendor.

3. Cost of sending the work to an offshore vendor

Small businesses must consider various types of cost like Scanner, High speed Internet, Backup Server, etc, to send their financial and account documents to an offshore vendor, but the good news is that it will be a one time investment and most of the small businesses will have these in place already. There are three different offshore accounting models you can use to send your accounting and financial work to the offshore vendors and for these you will incur following one time cost.

3.1. Scanner & Scanning software

Most of the accounting and financial data will be in your accounting software like QuickBooks, Peachtree etc, but there will be other documents like Bills, Checks, Invoices, Goods received notes, etc will be on paper and these should be digitized using a scanner and a scanning software to convert it into PDF documents which will be stored in your computer. Once the documents are in your computer then you can give access to the offshore vendor to view the PDF documents or they can retrieve it from your computer to perform their work in the offshore location.

Most of small businesses already have a scanner, if not a scanner (scanning software comes with the scanner) can be purchased for less than $1000.00. The cost of the scanner will go up based on the volume of accounting and financial documents to be scanned in a given day. It will be a one time cost for the small business and also by scanning all their paper based accounting documents; you can improve the efficiency of overall accounting process.

3.2. High speed Internet Connection Cost

You need to have high-speed Internet connection to send and receive the work to and from offshore location. Again all most all small businesses already have DSL/T1 Internet connection if not they can get a DSL Internet connection for $60-100/month.

3.3. Secure FTP software

If small businesses are using Application Service Provider (ASP) like Quickbooks online, cpaasp.com, etc, then it is possible for offshore vendors to directly access your accounting data directly from the ASP vendor. In this case there is no need to use secure FTP software.

3.4. Backup Server

Once small businesses start digitizing their accounting documents for their offshore vendors, they need to start planning for the backup server to backup all their accounting documents. Most of the small businesses will have this feature already, if not it is a good investment to have a backup server to backup all their accounting and financial data from their main computer to the backup server. For any business “Business continuity” is a vital task and the backup server will help the small businesses to recover all the accounting data in case of main computer failure.

3.5. Additional Accounting software License cost

Small businesses use various accounting software packages like QuickBooks, MYOB, Microsoft Office Accounting etc, for doing all their accounting and financial work. When they offshore the work the offshore vendor will use the same accounting software to do the work. It is very difficult for the small businesses to find an offshore vendor who already owns the licenses for all the accounting software. As described in the offshore accounting models if small businesses decides to use Remote Server or ASP then there is no additional cost for small businesses. On the other hand if the small businesses decided to use Secure File Transfer then small businesses needs to buy additional accounting software license for the offshore vendor to use. Small businesses will incur this cost even if they outsource the work to onshore vendors. This cost is truly soley based on the accounting software package used by the small businesses. Accounting software packages comes with various flavors types of software licenses like concurrent users, fixed number of users, CPU based, Network based etc., Some times small businesses can completely avoid this cost altogether.

4. Managing Financial & Accounting offshore vendor

Once you send your accounting and financial work to the offshore vendor, you need to constantly mange and monitor the quality of finished work that comes back from the vendor. Initially you may need a full-time person educating the offshore accountants and bookkeepers about your accounting process and preparing proper instructions for them to follow in their work. Once you and the offshore team are comfortable in the working relationship then all you need is to verify the work periodically. Basically you need to consider the offshore team as your virtual team and educate them in your accounting processes and procedures, once you are comfortable with their work your own employee(s) will spend less time with the offshore vendors.

5. Offshore vendor wage

For the accounting and financial work performed by the offshore vendor, small businesses will pay either an hourly rate or a monthly rate to the offshore vendor. This will be the actual direct cost small businesses will pay to the offshore vendor and all other costs are indirect cost of sending the work to offshore vendor. Typically the wage cost will be 50-70% less than the cost paid to the onshore accounting and financial vendor. For small businesses this cost savings is one of the major reasons to use the offshore vendor for their financial and accounting work.

Small businesses need to consider several costs in their financial and accounting offshore engagement. As shown in the table Small business F&A offshore outsourcing – Fixed Cost Vs Monthly Cost some of the costs are fixed and some of them are monthly expanses incurred by the small businesses. Among the monthly cost only the offshore vendor wage is the direct cost paid to the offshore vendor. While performing ROI analysis small businesses must consider all these costs to find the Total Cost of doing business with offshore vendors. As shown in the table, for certain items finding out the exact cost may not be possible and it is highly based on the individual small businesses and the type of accounting and financial work that has been sent to offshore locations. The total cost may not be a fixed amount and it can change from month to month. For example in some months there will be more questions from the offshore vendor in clarifications and in other months there will be less questions, this cost will vary from month to month.

DIY Accounting Limited Company Accounting Software

DIY Accounting produce Accounting Software for UK limited liability companies which consists of teamplates on excel spreadsheets, suitable for any small limited company aimed at automating monthly profit and loss account and a set of final company accounts with balance sheet ready for publication.

As the whole small business accounting software for a limited liability company is written on excel spreadsheets all bookkeeping transactions are visible. The excel spreadsheets have 12 monthly sheets in each work book. Prime data entry excel spreadsheets being provided for sales, purchases, cash, bank, savings account and credit card account. Financial transactions such as sales or expenses are then simply listed on the appropriate months? sheet. And changes or errors can easily be rectified by simply deleting errorsa or entering new information. This simple listing process is a huge advantage to non accountants as no previous bookkeeping or accountancy software knowledge is required.

Bank spreadsheets can be entered by listing the items that appear on the bank statement and include a box to enter the statement balance each month. The formulae within the excel spreadsheet then automatically checks that the entries made agree with the statement balance producing effective bank reconciliation. A good feature that ensures entries are recorded accurately in the companies accounts.

The simple bookkeeping entries that have been made to the sales,purchases and the bank statement is automatically transferred to the financial accounting file. In this file is a trial balance which actually automates all the double entry accounting transactions. No entries are required removing the need for users to have accounting experience. The Trial Balance is purely an accounting solution, visible and contains an audit check to again ensure the company accounts are accurate with no entries are required. The lack of entries in the area of accounting makes the product an ideal package for companies requiring a small business accounting software package.

Within the financial accounting software file is an automated monthly profit and loss account to enable limited companies to track their financial performance and very important, the package also produces a balanced profit and loss account and Balance Sheet in the correct format for submission of the final accounts. This set of final accounts automatically gathering the financial information from the basic entries made and includes the statutory notes required for a set of company accounts being published.

The package is equally suitablke for both vat and non vat registered business with vat returns produced at the touch of a button each quarter. To produce a vat return clients simply go to the vat file and select the quarter end date from a drop down menu and the figures for the vat return are automatically generated. The vat calculations can be disabled by non vat registered small businesses by simply changing the standard vat rate from 17.5 to zero making the accounting software suitable for both vat registered and non vat registered businesses.

The fixed asset schedule is preset with the capital allowance tax rates to automatically calculate capital allowances when fixed assets are entered. Depreciation is also automatically calculated with preset percentages that can be changed as required.

The limited company corporation tax liability is also calculated automatically in such a way that all the calculations; additions and deductions are both automated and visible. Capital allowances on both existing and new assets being shown on the corporation tax calculation.

Accountancy Knowledge Required

The limited liability company accounting software is based upon single entry of transactions requiring no accounting or bookkeeping knowledge. All the accounting knowledge required to perform the double entry of transactions which is a required feature to produce a balance sheet has been automated. The company accounts package has a feature so that the previous years? figures may be entered and lists of opening debtors and creditors recorded. A minimal level of accounting knowledge is required to correctly list the closing debtors and creditors and check the totals of those lists agrees with the automated balances shown on the company accounts balance sheet

Very Low Priced

At £15 the accounting software can save many businesses exempt from a full audit the need to employ an accountant potentially saving hundreds of pounds in professional fees. Hundreds of small limited companies with up to 20 employees also purchase the DIY Accounting Payroll Software which is sold separately from £14.99 and fully integrates into the Financial Accounting Software.

Other Features

The product has a stock control feature to monitor any stock losses. The limited company accounting software contains a wages interface that fully integrates the DIY Accounting Payroll Software when those files are saved into the same folder as the accounting software files. Being written on excel spreadsheets all transactions are visible and capable of being changed by for example overwriting any errors as opposed to a database system that requires new transactions to be entered to reverse previous entries. The sales and purchase spreadsheets include columns for entering CIS tax deductions and payments and the certificate numbers. The CIS tax being then automatically entered on the self assessment tax return. As the small business accounting software is written on excel spreadsheets then it is essential that users have a version of excel from 1998 onwards installed to use the program. The accounting software also works fine with an Open Source spreadsheet package.

Conclusion: to Buy or not to Buy

Exceptionally good value, very easy to use and produces exactly what every small limited company requires in a small business accounting software package, automated accounts requiring no bookkeeping skills and no previous financial accountancy software experience with the valuable end product of a fully automated final set of accounts for the limited liability company.

Management Training Programs Information London UK

Management training should not just create good managers it should build upon existing skills with the intention of improving and enhancing those skills whilst passing on new practises. Through both management training courses and time management training courses one of the key areas managers must learn is the effective art of delegation. Delegation does not mean doing nothing yourself and abdicating work, but it does mean managing time more effectively and managing your staff.

Management training is likely to include guidance on how to communicate effectively and motivate employees, team building, and managing business meetings.To get the best management training possible you need to have a training course that is created to fit in with your business and reflect the objectives of your business and not be an ‘off the shelf’ type of training course which many outside agencies deliver to businesses. Today’s manager faces numerous and varied situations in which he or she needs to be able to react in a quick, appropriate, and confident manner.

Management training uk is a series of measure which organisations or firms can undertake in order to get the very best out of their staff. Management training may be available to you in form of in house workshops conducted by training companies, or alternatively, you may benefit from weekly/monthly training sessions conducted within your company itself.

Any good training course aimed at managers helps managers to develop effective time management, problem solving, collaboration and change management skills. Other benefits include expert handling of complaints and queries, planning, delegation, mentoring individuals or teams and other business coaching skills. An efficient management is the backbone of every successful company. Management training can help you to deal with a variety of problems in your organization and will help you to develop some key skills. Here is look at what all does it teaches you.

Both the team building and management training can be taken in the organization itself as well as at the training centers. So if you want your organization to benefit and scale new heights of success, invest some time in team building and management training. All aspects of a management training course are designed to enhance your perception, cooperation and communication skills to become a more effective manager. What you learn on the course isn’t just about what is being taught; it is about developing the correct attitude. Managers are leaders and they need to demonstrate to others the correct way to behave.

London management training can provide you with that particular skill so that you can plan, lead and control well. After completing the London management training a degree would be provided to the students that would be on the completion of professional study. There are thousands of students worldwide who apply for London management training, but only a few fortunate students would be selected in order to complete London management training programs.London management training programs are offered under different degree titles (project management, time management e.t.c) in a number of universities in and around the city. Therefore there are many good rankings universities in London that offer different courses in London management training programs.