Home arrow Newsletter arrow VOLUME 2, ISSUE 2- MAY 2013
VOLUME 2, ISSUE 2- MAY 2013

The Upside of Outsourcing Accounting

Do what you do best and outsource the rest - That’s the latest business Mantra.

Is outsourcing accounting beneficial ?

Businesses, these days, not only look for cost-effective solutions to systematically run non-core activities like accounting and bookkeeping services, but also expect to add value in order to achieve better control and understanding of cash flow and thereby make informed decisions.

ImageAccounting services form an integral part of an organization’s operational capabilities and systematic functioning. Therefore, outsourced accounting and bookkeeping services definitely help streamline core business operations of an organization.  

Benefits of Outsourcing Accounting:  

Reduce overhead costs:
Employing a bookkeeper in-house is expensive. The cost includes not just salary but other overhead costs like payroll taxes, medical insurance plus the expense of hiring and training a new employee. By outsourcing your bookkeeping, you will be able to reduce employee-hiring costs, avoid delays and minimize staff costs associated with training and benefits.  

Focus on Core Business: Businesses normally outsource their business process to reduce expenses, and to transfer the burden of responsibility. This enables managements to concentrate on their more important business activities. Outsourcing also facilitates firms in avoiding capital expenditure. It gives you the flexibility to grow without huge investments in Human Resource and infrastructure.  

Improved Quality of Work: Typically, outsourcing companies are those which have a wide expertise in their own respective fields. Be it accounting outsourcing, or bookkeeping therefore, you can expect quality work from these companies, owing to their field of expertise.  

Flexibility in Staffing: Outsource Bookkeeping can manage your resources in sync with demand; in other words, hire the service provider when you need them. And also you can manage seasonal increase in work load by outsourcing additional work.  

Save on Technology Expenses: There is no need to buy extra hardware and software for your accounting needs when you outsource your bookkeeping. A specialized bookkeeping service provider will take care of all the necessary technology. Today cloud-based accounting applications allow both client and accountant to access records through a web browser, giving you continuous access to your data.Image  

Gaining from the assistance of experts: Outsource accounting services providers hire qualified and experienced professionals to perform accounting services. These consultants can provide professional guidance to their clients as to how to handle processes effectively. And this in turn can really be helpful for running any business smoothly.  

Up-to-date Accounting: All possible accounting information can be obtained regularly from the outsourced accounting service providers handling accounting services of the company. Advanced software can help companies look at personalized reports that can save a lot of time while making important financial decisions.  

Peace of Mind: Outsourcing your bookkeeping allows you the securities of knowing your financial records are up to date at all times and are available for tax purposes. A trusted company will provide practical, reliable information to help you keep up with changing regulations, financial requirements, and technology. You can be certain your books are correct.

With Kenserve, you have access to small business accounting expertise anytime you need it. We service small medium firms extensively, helping them leverage the benefits of outsourcing while addressing outsourcing related challenges that are unique to the industry.

Social Media as a recruitment tool

Are recruitment portals out of fashion? What’s the new recruitment tool?

Unsurprisingly it’s Social Media

With the number of social media users growing in the past three years, it is imperative that employers focus on building a strong presence on relevant social media platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook,YouTube and blogs. Image While these platforms open up huge opportunities for sourcing talented professionals, they bring some key challenges and risks…

Social media recruitment has become more popular of late due to many of the natural benefits of using these types of social services.

Just a small sample of the benefits of social media includes:  

Quick Sharing: When a position opens, posting it in a social media venue can instantly help you spread interest in the open position to those looking for jobs. Facebook has the "Share" button, Google+ has the +1 tool, and Twitter has "Retweets" – all of these social media websites have ways to quickly share the job, so that those connected to your profile can send it around to other people of interest.  

Business Fans: Loyalty is an important part of a great candidate. Companies that have developed social media profiles are often "fanned" or "liked" by those that truly like their company. This is advantageous as part of the recruitment process, because it cuts down on the number of applications you receive from those that spam their CV to anyone with an open position, and helps ensure that you're receiving applications from those that have some idea what it is your company offers/does.  

Personal Appeal: Social media allows you to request applications in a way that is more personal, using the social media platform rather than something more static, like a paid advertisement. It's unknown whether this helps provide you with stronger applicants, but it does give you a method of recruitment that could help improve the employee/company relationship from the beginning.  

Link to Additional Information: While social media recruitment is beneficial for companies, it is arguably problematic for applicants, as it shows their personal side – a side that is not necessarily professional. However, their loss is your gain, as you can try to get insight into their personality and character through their social media profile in a way that can help you spot potential problem applicants.  

Increases the Quality of Hire: People who frequently use social media may be considered early adopters, who are highly desirable in the job market at the moment.Image Using social media to recruit will therefore attract this group of people, who are normally more technically savvy and innovative.  

Improves Referrals: Referrals are definitely of the best kind of business lead, so why not apply the same principal to jobs? Social recruiting can help you make more people aware of your company’s current job opportunities through spreading the information through various social media means.  

Inspires Employees: Posting jobs to your company’s social media platforms is also an indirect way of empowering your employees to spread the word. Employees and followers can simply choose to share a link to another person’s profile.  

Reduces the Cost to Hire: The recruiting-related transactional cost through social recruiting is typically lower in comparison to other sources. Less money can be allocated to traditional job advertisements and put towards social recruiting strategies and implementing related tactics.  

It’s Engaging: Social media is about connecting and having engaging conversations through sharing great content. Putting together a strong social recruiting strategy will help to define what type of content you think will be valuable to share with the candidates with whom you would like to engage.

The important point to remember is that despite all the progress in technology and mobile platforms, social media is a great sourcing, long-listing and branding tool — but nothing more. The hiring process involving human interaction is irreplaceable and social media should never be considered an alternate to physically interviewing and selecting candidates.

The New Age Work Arrangements: Flexi Time

“Stop managing hours and start managing results”.

People increasingly want to work in a business that offers them flexibility to create a work life balance.

Is it really happening?

While balancing work and family has received a lot of attention over the years, the truth is there’s more smoke than fire. People work longer hours in downsized and super competitive work environments that pressure people to make family a second priority. No wonder thousands of good people leave good jobs to take lower level, lower paying, and more accommodating jobs elsewhere.

By creating a Flexible Work Arrangement, companies can keep good employees and not force them to sacrifice family life. It will help them benefit personally and professionally.

Here are some of the benefits of flexible work arrangements:

  • Provide flexibility in the employee's arrival and departure schedules or extend the time at noon around the lunch hour.
  • Increased job satisfaction.Image
  • Improved employee morale, engagement and commitment to the organization.
  • Less absenteeism and tardiness.
  • Less turnover which results in less money spent on hiring, training new employees.
  • Allows people to work when they accomplish most, feel freshest, and enjoy working. (E.g. morning person vs. night person).
  • Increased balance between work and family/personal life.
  • Costs savings related to facilities management: fewer buildings, lower utility bills, fewer employee parking spaces.
  • Fuel savings, reduced emissions, and a smaller carbon footprint for commuters.
  • If you have disability that limits mobility or lack of transport options, flexible working can enable you to increase your productivity from home, and reduce travel.
  • Provide the flexibility for staff to arrange job sharing with the understanding that the daily contacts and end product are similar to having one employee cover the job. Managers frequently notice that with shared positions the production results increase rather than decrease beyond the expectations for one person doing the job.
  • Uninterrupted time for creative, repetitive or highly detailed work.
  • More efficient use of space and equipment.
  • For Managers/Organisation, May attract a more diverse range of workers (younger-parental-older groups looking for flexibility in operational hours).
  • Can provide the opportunity to extend hours of operation when required.
  • Can be used to improve scheduling for peak workload by overlapping employees schedules.
  • Provides a low cost employee benefit which can impact positively on staff retention.
  • Overall greater productivity, higher morale, improved retention, and more effective recruitment.

    Flexibility -- In all aspects of life, the person with the most varied responses "wins." — Kelly Perdew
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