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May 2020

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Australian accounting tax Outsourcing: ” The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten”

By: Odyssey Outsourcing
Tags: Australian Accountant, Compliance Work, Outsourcing potential risk, Price, Quality

More than ever Australian accounting firms are looking at utilizing offshore resources to assist with their compliance work, and in this unsure age where the SME client numbers are unstable, more Australian accounting firm owners are looking to ad-hoc resource suppliers, just in case the workload increases significantly beyond inhouse capacity.

At the same time, the complexity of the recent and significant stimulus, alongside the need to work from home, has meant Australian accountants have now less time than ever to attend to their compliance workload.

Here are some of the mistakes Australian accountants are encountering:

Risk 1: The Australian accounting firm opted to ask for a price for the work, and jumped on opportunity with a low cost provider without consideration of outcome, and the consequences of tidying up mistakes. Increased time spend on review of poor quality work chews up valuable internal staff. And inconsistent quality means every job needs to be carefully scrutinised.

Risk 2: The Australian accounting firm did not perform any significant research or due diligence, or agree/specify the process and the quality level of the completed work.  This one again is on the Australian accounting firm. Check that the skill level of the supplier is consistent with the output required by your firm.

Risk 3: This one is on the Outsourcing supplier, but the Australian accounting firm is complicit by not monitoring the work as it progresses. The Outsourcing supplier over sold their capacity, oversold their competency level, or sold a fixed resource that wasn’t actually available and switched them during the provision of services.  More frequently it is a mix of all of these items that unfortunately lead the Australian accounting firm down a path of disconnect between value and cost.

What to look for in a full service Outsourcing supplier:

To avoid this risk, the Australian accounting firm has to monitor the communication:

  • look at an establishment client take-on by the outsourcing supplier,
  • look for good systems for job acceptance,
  • good systems to keep you informed of job progress,
  • high quality queries,
  • low numbers of queries (ideally just one set of queries),
  • a professional set of working papers,
  • and good administration communication.

All of these will save additional unexpected costs for handling completed work received back inhouse. Your clients will be appreciative of guaranteed quality and return times, your staff will be happy they are not bogged down with a low quality provider, and your practice will be well oiled.

If you need assistance with your outsourcing, then please reach out to Odyssey for your ad-hoc compliance work.

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