Is Outsourcing Bookkeeping More Cost-Effective Than Keeping it In-House?

If you’re weighing your options for outsourcing your business’ bookkeeping tasks, you’re not alone. 

Bookkeeping is no one’s favorite task, and knowing who to trust with your books can be confusing. But it’s not always wise for every business owner to outsource.

5 Reasons When Outsourcing Bookkeeping Makes Financial Sense 

As CEO of The Boutique COO, I constantly talk to small business owners about outsourcing their bookkeeping. In this blog post, I’ll review the more common reasons that I believe warrant outsourcing rather than doing it in-house.

1. You’re Worried About Hiring the Wrong Talent 

I’ve seen entrepreneurs hire someone in-house only to find that that person isn’t as qualified or reliable as they thought before hiring them. 

If you’re not a bookkeeper yourself, it can be challenging to determine whether the person you hire is trustworthy and experienced enough to handle your financials. 

By outsourcing your financials and bookkeeping, you can screen the quality of your support through reviews and references and avoid taking the hiring risk yourself. 

2. You Need to Keep Hiring Costs Low

On top of outsourcing the risk of hiring a bookkeeper in-house, you can also outsource the hiring cost. 

Hiring someone in-house comes with the cost of benefits, vacation days, and managerial overhead. 

When you outsource your bookkeeping, you get that all handled by the agency you hire. 

Here at The Boutique COO (TBC), we include high-quality management, quality control, and continuity planning if your bookkeeper is out of the office.

Not to mention, we handle the whole hiring process. 

READ MORE: What Makes Our Bookkeeping Services Different at The Boutique COO 

3. Your Business’ Bookkeeping Has Slower Seasons

Outsourcing your bookkeeping can also give you much more flexibility for your bookkeeping needs. 

Say you have someone doing your bookkeeping in-house; you’ll likely pay them the same amount weekly. This means no matter how much work there is to do, you’ll be spending the same amount of money. 

The same is true for most traditional bookkeepers. You pay a flat rate every month for the service, even if it only takes them a handful of hours in your slower season. 

If you outsource bookkeeping to TBC, you’ll only pay for the necessary hours. 

Many companies don’t have consistent bookkeeping needs, so having the flexibility to increase (or decrease) your support hours is a great reason to outsource.

4. It’s Important to You to File Taxes Quickly 

If you hire an in-house bookkeeper, they’ll process your bookkeeping at the same pace as they usually work. 

But when bookkeeping and financial reporting needs ramp up in busier periods like tax season, you’ll likely find that the delivery of your financials to your CPA can be delayed.

Business owners who want to file their taxes quickly and not have to worry about filing an extension benefit from outsourcing bookkeeping because they can access extra hours around tax season.

5. You Need a Financial Expert to Review Your Financials

If your company continues to grow and undergoes changes like a merger, partnership change, or sale, your in-house bookkeeper likely needs to gain the skills to handle them.

This means that besides paying for your full-time bookkeeper, you’ll need to hire someone who knows financials to a senior executive level, such as a Chief Financial Officer (CFO).

Each full-time hire is expensive, and increasing your needs rather than taking big jumps for each in-house hire can help you manage your expenses and financial risk. 

Should you have partnered with TBC for bookkeeping, you can simply ask your main contact to put you in touch with our fractional CFOs. We’ll help you access CFO hours fractionally rather than recruiting and hiring that expert yourself. 

Considering outsourcing bookkeeping but not sure where to start? 

Outsourcing your bookkeeping allows you to access expert support without taking on the hiring risk, hiring costs, and unnecessary hours.

Book your intro chat to learn what outsourced bookkeeping can look like and if it’s a cost-effective decision for your business.

Schedule your free strategy chat here.