The work culture has been rapidly changing all over the globe in many business industries. Today, business organizations are looking for innovative and effective ways to increase the capacity of their business. Especially, in the Accounting and Finance Industries where competition is very high, EA and CPA firms need to adopt cost-effective methods to increase their capacity.
There are multiple steps that accounting organizations can undertake to uplift their productivity level, but the foremost step is to have efficient and cost-effective staff. For Staffing, CPA firms, Accounting firms, and enrolled agents have two options – hire remote staff or appoint local staff. Employment cost is the biggest cost and most crucial to control to run a successful CPA firm or Accounting firm.
It is a very crucial decision for CPA firms to select one from remote staffing and local staffing because each one has its own set of advantages and disadvantages. That’s why at CapActix, we suggest our clients understand the individual impact of the remote staffing and local staff in the context of accounting firms before making a final decision.
Local Staff
In local staffing, CPA firms have to offer the confined space of the office to the accountants and auditors wherein activities can be performed. Moreover, a considerable amount is required to be expended on the Infrastructure and amenities to be provided to the staff. According to Global Workplace Analytics, out of the over 120 million US office workers less than 3% work remotely. The traditional accounting firms always believe that physical monitoring makes the employees more productive and efficient. Local staffing can be useful in the following circumstances–
- Where execution of work required traveling to the client’s place
- Where there is a limitation for the availability of technology such as the Internet, cloud access, etc.
- Where physical examination and audit required at the client’s place such as Stock Audit, Cash Counting, etc.
Local Staffing isn’t Sufficient anymore
The benefits offered by local staffing were sufficient in the earlier accounting business environment, but not anymore as the competitors’ level has been increased and local staffing can’t offer the desired level of cost-effective productivity anymore. Today, to survive in the over-competitive work environment, CPA and EA firms need the constant supply of accounting and financial experts who can churn out the high quality of work for a short duration of time at affordable rates. This isn’t possible through local staff unless accounting organizations invest a large number of resources which is highly inappropriate for small CPAs.
Remote Staffing
For CPA firms and accounting firms, to increase capacity with cost-effective measures, remote staffing solutions emerges as a revolutionary solution. In this style of staffing, accounting firms can hire the remotely working team of the accounting professionals who can perform all the tasks for the CPA firms at a much lower cost than what their local staff offers. The benefits of remote staffing for CPAs firms are as follows –
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Cost-Effectiveness
The remote team offers the reliability of established teamwork exclusively to the accounting firms without paying the large overheads for the office space. Accounting companies can make themselves cost-effective by hiring a remote team as they won’t have to pay rent, electricity, furniture and other overhead costs to run their office anymore.
Moreover, CPA firms can also take advantage of Trade-off between different price levels and Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) of different regions. For example, the cost of leaving in India is lower than the USA. This leads to a lower wage rate in India compare to the USA. Therefore, hiring your remote staff in India will help you in saving tons of dollars in your Employment Cost. This is the reason why Big CPA firms including big 4 and multinational companies such as Microsoft, Shell, Amazon, etc. have opened their accounting back offices in India.
High Efficiency
With the remote staff working on different time zones, a highly efficient work environment can be created where work is being done around the clock. Thus, there will be lower idle time for the execution of work and use of equipment. For instance, when US-based CPAs hire remote staff from India, then they can create a powerhouse of efficiency that works around the clock due to the massive time difference. This could be a revolutionary step for providing quick customer support to your clients. CPAs can increase their work capacity to its optimum limits by using the power of the remote accounting teams.
Real Efficiency
When a remote team is working, then they are working. Whereas your local team might take frequent breaks or leaves. That’s because the remote team is getting paid according to the work completed by them and based on real delivery of completed work. This compels then to utilize their minute effectively.
The pool of Talent
In local staffing, firms can only hire the locally available talented people and they have to limit their number of accounting professionals. But, in remote staffing, companies have a large talent pool in front of them to select highly competent professionals to work on their different accounting projects. Like, they can use the expertise of tax professionals to create errorless tax reports.
At a company like CapActix, where different accounting experts are working as remote staff for various CPA firms from the same space, the faster rapport and collaborative work environment can be established. This leads to an increase in the power of solving problems and finding solutions at very effective and creative manner.
Scalability
A remote team can bring scalability into your accounting business as you don’t have to undergo the fluctuating trend of the demand, revenue and other hurdles no longer stop your growth. The scalability brings reliability, fastness, and development in the accounting business.
Which One is Better?
Well, we can’t comment on which option is better between the remote staffing and local staffing because both contribute to a positive impact on the growth of the accounting firms. But, if we honestly say, then the remote staffing has a little extra edge over the local staffing that’s because remote staffing offers most of the solutions provided by local staffing with some extra benefits of its own. The remote team understands the workflow of the accounting firm and offers the solution to increasing its capacity.
So, if you are looking for a remote solution to increase the capacity of your CPA firm, accounting firms or tax firms, then you can check out the services offered by CapActix and increase the capacity of your firm. To inquire more about our remote staffing solutions, you can email us on biz@capactix.com. or can call us on +201-778-0509.