19

Sep 2019

the-fastest-accountant-in-the-world

The fastest accountant in the world

By: Odyssey Outsourcing
Tags: Australian tax compliance, Outsourcing

We complete some 50,000 Australian tax, accounting, bookkeeping and sundry compliance jobs annually.

It’s interesting when we get a new client, that sometimes they ask about the hours we’re charging. Of course, it’s a great discussion, and allows us to break down what we were doing on the job (we have some excellent inhouse built systems), to explain the process.

Normally this leads to a positive discussion. Sometimes the client wasn’t aware of the changes in their client’s situation, which would have required a larger accounting/tax bill. And sometimes it leads to a modification in the way we work with our clients, through adjusting our specific client procedure.

From time to time we do get the comment: “My fastest accountant would do this job quicker”, and yes maybe so.

However,  as we explain to the accounting firm owner, there are a lot of factors involved in the discussion.

Firstly, not even your fastest accountant can return 100 Superfunds in 5 days. Odyssey’s capacity is pretty strong, and we’re currently shoveling superfunds back at around 5 days. And we have plenty of capacity. So the discussion should be with your client about getting their compliance work in ASAP, so the accounting firm owner can move onto other important things. Whether it be more golf, working on the business, a holiday, spending time with the family, or doing good in the community.

Also, your fastest accountant is probably a lot more expensive than the services you are engaging over at Odyssey. We’ve seen lots of variations on this argument. One client changed the hourly rate we charge up to $350 per hour, then by the time the WIP was ready to be invoiced they had lost $500 on the job (according to their wip), so while they had $5,000 in the bank less the Odyssey $400 for the tax work, their WIP was showing $5,500 or a $500 loss. Wait, yes, they really had $4,600 profit, but the WIP showed a $500 loss.

The fastest accountant you have, is probably your most expensive. And using them on compliance work is not good business sense, and isn’t future proofing your firm. Your fastest accountant should be looking at new cloud offerings, talking to clients, and working on the future of your business.

They are probably not best utilized by doing speed tests with the Odyssey staff.

Odyssey has built a compliance business over 15 years that completes over 50,000 jobs. We can assure you our CEO does not work on compliance jobs.

If you’d like to talk about Odyssey can give you some breathing space to work ‘On your business” them drop us a line.

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