REMOTE STAFFING FOR ACCOUNTING FIRMS: DOING WHAT BIG 4 HAVE DONE

As the group of largest accounting firms in the whole world, the Big 4 need no further introduction. Their combined revenue of over US $125 billion in the year 2017 just rivets their position and justifies the name given to them. They have provided massive employment and career development opportunities to accountants and auditors around the world.

What they have also done is setting up multiple offshore offices in various parts of the world and acquired global talent to carry out their work. While the Big 4 are at it, the small and mid-sized accounting firms have struggled to find and retaining quality staff for a number of reasons. So much so, that according to PCPS (Private Companies Practice Section) survey by AICPA**, staffing has been named the number 1 challenge for the small and mid-sized accounting firms.

Definitely, these firms can’t spend fortunes after establishing offshore offices due to several reasons, few of them are:

Lack of scale: Small firms do not have a large number of clients and amount of work that may be enough to keep a bigger staff strength up to 80% busy throughout the year. Although during the tax season there is a surge in the workload that is again not for more than 6 months if we are being generous about over duration. That is the reason why having too many human resource and related infrastructure is not something to consider about.

Short in strength: Overstaffed accounting firm again somewhere means to have idle resources for the major portion of time and understaffed firms bring tremendous burden at times. Things could go south when some employee takes a sabbatical or leaves the organization just at the onset of the busy season. Attrition hurts, and very badly at that. Sometimes upcoming clients too could get nervous after they discover a scarcity of staff at their CPAs.

Smaller in revenue: If ever hiring enough staff was the only solution, it comes at a cost. But the sad part is a lesser number of clients means smaller revenues for any organization. Small and mid-sized accounting firms may lack enough profit generation to simply afford that many staff. There are not just the salaries that they have to pay, but there are so many related costs including those of benefits and infrastructure. Hence the profits may not support enough CTC or cost to a company for so many employees.

Hiring and training cost: Hiring a new employee isn’t a free lunch but does involve time and money. There is still a risk how about the new employee doesn’t settle well. What if he too leaves anytime soon or isn’t as efficient as he was expected to be. Time to train new recruits is also something which can’t be ignored. The small and mid-sized firms thus are stuck into a bottleneck. And to get over the situation many find themselves swing between hire or outsource decision. Outsourcing definitely saves cost but has its own set of limitation that backfires at the most critical times. We know a number of clients who have been stung by the bee.

But for some, it becomes more than a one time adventure as the staffing challenge is imminent and overhanging. But we always suggest them, why outsource when you can hire your own resource? Hire a Remote Staff. It is the solution for small and mid-sized accounting firms. In recent years, the way how accounting firms hire resources has changed a lot. Hiring a remote employee is a win-win situation for the employee and employer both. A remotely working employee is your own employee with equal knowledge and experience, directly and completely working under firm's control, follows the protocols of a firm and is available to work at a considerably lesser pay without any in-house benefits. And to say the least, you get to select someone from a wide global talent pool.

Hiring an in-house employee might also require expansion of infrastructure and thus growing overheads for you. Instead of that, remote staffing is the best solution to save time and cost. And when we say that he/she is equally knowledgeable we mean it, they are capable of performing almost every task that is required by an accounting firm, except of course making you a cup of coffee which requires someone to be physical. Still, if he is working for you from a different part of the world, it is just like working from your office while without being in your office.

How Entigrity helps? Entigrity is a remote staffing company that has worked with more than 300 CPAs, Accounting Firms, Tax Practitioners and EA firms nationwide. With our deep domain expertise, we came up with our unique flexible hiring model for small and mid-sized accounting firms and helped them hire the exact person they require for their work. At the same time, we have also helped them save as much as 75% of labor their costs.

Our remote staff works from our secured remote offices based in India and we are an ISO 27001 and ISO 9001 certified organization. This means we meet the international standards of data security and quality management and are safe with the information shared with us. Remote Staffing is one solution for the small and mid-sized accounting firms that could bring a great change in the way they function and grow their profits. ** PCPS Survey 2017 by AICPA

Entigrity™ is a trusted offshore staffing partner to over 500+ accountants, CPAs and tax firms across the US and Canada. Our flexible and transparent hiring model gives helps firms of all sizes to hire staff for accounting, bookkeeping, tax preparation or any other task for 75% less cost. As a firm 'run by accountants, for the accountants', Entigrity captures the hiring needs of accounting firms most precisely, providing staff that works directly under your control and management, still you are left with least to worry about compliance, payroll taxes, overheads or any other benefits.