How can modern accounting be organized?

The concept of outsourcing can be easily found on the Internet, this term is not legally approved, it is borrowed from the English language. The literal translation of the term outsourcing is "the use of other people's resources". Why choose this method of accounting? Everything is known in comparison. Operating with the statistical data of our practical work, we can identify a limited list of resources used for accounting. They serve as an alternative to outsourcing accounting and tax accounting. We will take them for analysis and the formation of an answer to the question, why choose accounting outsourcing?

Accounting is kept by the incoming accountant

Maintaining accounting records of the organization by the incoming accountant has undoubted advantages. Among them:

1. absence of costs for the payroll fund;
2. savings on staff training;
3. there is no need for specialized software and its maintenance.

Of course, an accountant only comes when you need to. As a rule, the cost of such services is not very expensive. The customer of the services does not pay sick leave and vacations to such an executor. At the same time, a priori in the mind of the main person of the enterprise, certain questions always arise.

• If the visiting accountant is your friend, and you have known her for a long time, cherish friendship, is there any hope that you trust her as yourself?
• If there are no penalties, does this mean that everything is done "perfectly"? Are the words of the accountant himself about his professionalism enough?
• You can evaluate the quality of work only subjectively. The customer of services does not see how much time the incoming accountant spends on the support and maintenance of his legal entity or individual entrepreneurs. He does not know for sure that a person does not work on the residual principle.

99% of clients who come to us for service say that the accountant does not always promptly provide the necessary information, there are incomprehensible fines, and sometimes even "the accountant suddenly does not get in touch anymore." When asked where your accounting base is, the client answers: "An accountant who does not have one." Control over the quality of work of such an employee is practically absent.

Accounting is maintained by a full-time accountant

The most common type of payment for such an employee is a stable predictable salary. We can say that savings are even possible here. For example, on the secretary of a small office: the accountant will cook coffee, and prepare ordinary documents, and organize the work of employees. Confirmation of work experience can serve as an entry in the labor book. Such an employee is always "at hand" and at the first request will provide information, make the analytics or those documents that you need as the owner.


If an accountant has been working for you for a long time, then confidence in reliability and loyalty gradually arises, an employment contract and a confidentiality agreement have been concluded with him. He cherishes the company, almost a friend and collaborator. You are calm, your accountant is the center of responsibility, he controls all accounting and document flow, there are no complaints about accounting statements.


But we're all human. It happened that the accountant fell ill, went on vacation, and the accounting at this time is not kept. 

 

Who will replace him? 

Will the owner solve all the problems in accounting? No panic! In the case of fines, you can deduct part of the accountant's salary as a repayment, it is he who abandoned you to the mercy of fate. You are the owner, you will figure it out if necessary, although it is not always clear where you can get the necessary document, what kind of archive you need, in which folder the necessary registry is.

In such a situation, an unpleasant feeling of dependence on the accountant, who has become a key employee, may come. As a rule, key employees do not comply with corporate standards, the accountant can quietly go about his business. For example, to say that she went to the tax office, and she herself – on her own business. Due to the specifics of the accountant's activities, it is difficult to understand whether he works or depicts a flurry of activity.

It seems to you that her professionalism allows you to simply resolve all the issues that arise, without bringing them to their logical conclusion. At some point, conflicts arise, and firing such an employee seems like the right decision. However, this is not in a hurry. The loss of a valuable employee can have a negative impact on the work of the entire enterprise.

The owner himself is usually not an expert in accounting, he will not be able to check the quality of accounting, so it remains only to hope and believe. During the downturn of the business (the workload of the accountant), the salary does not decrease. I would also like to note that when hiring a chief accountant to the staff, the costs of the payroll fund, the workplace, the improvement of his skills and software (software) increase.

Accounting is kept by the owner himself

A frequent situation, many of the owners are proud of this state of affairs, because there are no costs for the payroll fund with all the ensuing consequences. And it seems that the owner is aware of all the affairs. And since you do everything yourself, all the information is always at hand. Absolute guarantee of confidentiality. Complete self-control, you know exactly what you did and when.

But the biggest disadvantage with all this: all accounting activities take a significant chunk of time away from working with clients. The owner has a huge number of tasks, there is catastrophically little time for registration, which will definitely affect the quality. There is no one to delegate accounting tasks. There is such a time time that sometimes there is no time to submit reports on time. What can we say about the quality of accounting and security?

self-accounting

Records are kept by the owner's wife

The dream of a real thrifty businessman: no salary. If you work from home, you don't need the cost of a workplace in the office, a family business in fact. The wife, she is also an "employee", is always nearby, at the first request will give the necessary information and documents. 

She can combine this work with other family tasks. She is always in plain sight, it is clear what she is doing. Since there are common interests in the family, you can be sure that the information is under lock and key, you will make joint decisions on how to keep records in the future. Together it is easier to survive difficulties, joint responsibility, you are responsible for mistakes together, moral support.

But here not everything is as rosy as it may seem at first glance. Record keeping can be determined by relationships. 

 

We quarreled – "well, I won't do anything!". 

 

In case of violation of the law in such a situation, damage to business can be caused, errors in accounting can destroy not only the business, but also the family. It happens that the wife keeps records just to make life easier for her husband, but if she is not a professional, then the quality of accounting will be low. 

If you decide to strongly control your wife in her accounting activities, then a scandal is assured. There are examples of how global quarrels arise, as a result - revenge, "leaking" information, blackmail, etc.

Why choose outsourcing?

Let's sum up some results. Why, after all, do they choose outsourcing? The answer is simple: you do not depend on the circumstances that may develop when working as a full-time or incoming accountant, especially on the relationship with your wife. Our clients are confident that the process of accounting for their company is continuous. When concluding an outsourcing contract, we recommend paying attention to a number of important points that can guarantee confidence and relieve the "headache" about the accounting, tax support of your business.

The contractor of outsourcing services must:

• provide you with access to the database, in which records are kept 24 hours a day, from anywhere in the world;
• prescribe the conditions that you will pay only for the work done, the price should be transparent.
• Guarantees must be prescribed:
• safety of the accounting base (supplement the contract with a clause that a backup copy of the database should be made and stored on the contractor's server);
• confidentiality;
• financial responsibility for mistakes made by the outsource.
• If we compare over a decade, the outsourcing service sector has now stepped forward a lot. Now, along with record keeping, you can get software, consulting support, connected electronic reporting to government agencies and electronic document management as part of services. As a service, it provides setting up automatic download of statements and "payments", system notifications about the work performed.

In addition, information is sent out on legislative innovations at both the federal and regional levels, a group of accountants is assigned to the customer enterprise for several areas of work, courier delivery of documents is organized and much more. If you decide to switch to outsourcing, then it is worth taking the time to monitor the proposed service, choose a service company and organize work on the project.