From the early 1990s, the F&A BPO outsourcing market (Finance and Accounting outsourcing market) has been increasing. However, earlier, only the companies in the United States went to an F&A BPO company.
Now, as more companies realise the benefits of outsourcing F&A services, more people are looking for BPO companies.
What do you mean by outsourcing F&A services?
Outsourcing F&A services means the company is handing over some of its finance & accounting functions to a specialized third-party provider.
Companies do this because they can save time and money by doing this. It also gives them more time to focus on their essential operations, ultimately improving efficiency.
Choosing your outsourcing partner is the most crucial decision you make for your Finance and Accounting (F&A) department. Generally, Finance and Accounting Business Process Outsourcing is considered a long-term relationship, and the teams work hard with full commitment to continue with the trust. When choosing an F&A BPO service provider, companies go through various facts like those discussed below.
Why opt for Finance and Accounting BPO Services?
- CFOs in organizations across industries are constantly under pressure for value propositions driven by cost savings and efficiency. It makes them find an outsourcing partner. CFOs have been ready to outsource multi-process Finance and Accounting (F&A) functions for more complex processes like treasury, tax strategy, and financial planning as the business grows.
- Also, a sudden outbreak of the COVID has transformed business processing worldwide in function, scope, reach, and application. It has led more organizations to implement Finance and Accounting BPO services.
Significant Benefits of Outsourcing F&A
More and more organizations that are looking to expand prefer outsourcing mainly to access the vast range of its benefits.
BPO companies invest in capabilities and automation that reposition them from just a delivery model service for transactional activities. These providers have numerous advantages, mainly: economies of scale, large volumes of transactional data, and global access to digital talent.
- Fast-track to future-ready finance operations
- A simplified and harmonized process with automation
- Cost-efficiency
- Improved productivity
- Greater focus with specialized teams
- Higher quality and standardization
- Competitive advantage
Key Inclusions to Decide on a Finance and Accounting BPO Partner
Following factors are the critical inclusions to the things that a company should consider while choosing an F&A BPO partner:
- Quality of Resources
An organization should look at the skillset and technology with the outsourcing company. Your BPO partner should have access to better talent and advanced technology so that F&A processes can be completed timely and more efficiently. BPO providers automate data entry to increase accuracy and efficiency. If you think that the partner can meet the quality you require, you should go ahead with it.
- Security
Outsourcing to a third-party service provider means you are sharing sensitive financial information of your company with the provider. Thus, make sure your financial records are safe with them. Any security breach can cost you hugely.
- Agility of Team
Changes are constant even in businesses. Your F&A BPO provider should be adaptable to changes promptly when you are scaling your business. It should continue providing high-quality services.
- Stability and Continuity
As outsourcing is considered a long-term relationship, companies should look at the stability of the outsourcing company. You may be apprehensive that your service provider might change management that affects the terms or duration of the contract. Most organizations prefer large BPO service providers with a large scale of operations as their scale and experience can offer them a better quality of services continually.
- Cost-Effectiveness and Capability
Cost-saving is the primary objective of an organization associated with outsourcing decisions. Cost-effectiveness is highly dependent on the efficiency of the services provided. Outsourcing F&A services can help a company reduce its overhead costs such as training, insurance, health cost, etc. This is because outsourcing helps to employ people from countries where the cost of living is low.
- Government, Risk, Compliance
Regulations, tax policies, and accounting rules can change with political disruptions or in order to meet the growth prospects in different outsourcing countries. Your F&A BPO partner, whether offshoring or nearshoring, should be able to make you compliant before alarming irregularity.
- Experience
An organization should look at the track record of the outsourcing provider. Look at the clients it has served, its present clients, and the success rate of its previous contracts. You can look if the former clients renewed their association with them.
- Adherence to SLAs
A service-level agreement (SLA) is a contract between a service provider and its customers that states the service provider’s services and what service standards the provider has to meet.
At some point in time, there might be disagreements between the BPO firm and the client. This could be due to misunderstandings in the requirement of the contract.
Thus, it is very important that the client signs an SLA with the BPO firm so that both parties are aware of their roles and responsibilities.
Make sure you pay for the quality services only.
Leading Industries in Outsourcing F&A Services
For the F&A outsourcing market, Gartner forecasts that 40% of finance organizations may outsource to a single BPO service provider for all F&A operations by 2023 (24% in 2019). The largest industry sectors for F&A outsourcing are:
- Telecom, software, and high tech
- Manufacturing
- Utilities and Energy
- Financial Services
F&A Functions to Outsource
To drive functional transformation, organizations consider a range of F&A processes, including:
P2P, O2C, R2R, FP&A are amongst the Finance and Accounting Digital outsourcing services that many organizations prefer for digitization and process improvement. One of the leading Finance and Accounting outsourcing companies is ARDEM enabling their clients to leverage technology for F&A processes.
ARDEM assist companies looking for F&A outsourcing USA to:
- Enhance General Ledger
- Improve Cash Management
- Manage Fixed Assets
- Streamline Cost and Inventory
- Improve Financial Reporting and Analysis
ARDEM provides Business Process Outsourcing and Business Process Automation Services to established companies to help them improve operational Efficiency and Reduce Costs. For more information please reach out to us at pricing@ardem.com or call us at 908-359-2600.
