Is it possible to outsource Accontantcy work?

[Moonface]

Is it possible to outsource large portions of the general work of
accountancy to a country of cheaper labour? It seems the IT industry is
suffering from this, is the accountancy practice going to be effected at
all?

 

[Jonathan Bryce]

Is it possible to outsource large portions of the general work of
accountancy to a country of cheaper labour? It seems the IT industry is
suffering from this, is the accountancy practice going to be effected at
all?

Ascot Drummond tried that, and it wasn't very successful. It may to happen
to extent with large companies moving their back office functions abroad.

 

[Moonface]

Ascot Drummond tried that, and it wasn't very successful. It may to happen
to extent with large companies moving their back office functions abroad.

Thankfully that some areas of our economy are not going to get "outsourced"

 

[John Pointon]

Thankfully that some areas of our economy are not going to get "outsourced"

It is difficult to see how such outsourcing can work.

I was approached recently by a firm based in India telling me they
could do UK VAT returns and quarterly and year end accounts. However,
a quick examination of their website revealed it to be entirely "Under
Construction"!

I find it impossible to comprehend how a firm based several hundred
miles away can have the same knowledge as to how a client's business
operates on a daily basis and the quirks and pecularities of those
involved in it. Such knowlegde can only be obtained over many months,
if not years, in a professional relationship with a trustworthy and
reliable accountant.

But then I may be just an old-fashioned dinosaur about to find out why
he will become extinct!


John Pointon
"In business to grow your business"

 

[Moonface]

"Moonface" <moonface@donotreply.com> wrote in message

It is difficult to see how such outsourcing can work.

I was approached recently by a firm based in India telling me they
could do UK VAT returns and quarterly and year end accounts. However,
a quick examination of their website revealed it to be entirely "Under
Construction"!

From a hypothetical point of view, in laymens terms, would it not be
necessary to physically sort all the invoicesout in person, go through them
*in person*, file them and then put each amount into a box or enter it into
a keyboard......and by the sheer necessity of all those required *physical
actions* that accounts for almost 90% of the job done anyway? As one would
need to enter the data anyway in order to send it to India, so therefore is
not therefore not very worthwhile to do this?

I find it impossible to comprehend how a firm based several hundred
miles away can have the same knowledge as to how a client's business
operates on a daily basis and the quirks and pecularities of those
involved in it. Such knowlegde can only be obtained over many months,
if not years, in a professional relationship with a trustworthy and
reliable accountant.


But then I may be just an old-fashioned dinosaur about to find out why
he will become extinct!

Hmm I am not sure about that, I like to look at things from an objective
view point, and I can't see how you could do that. Besides which if it where
possible, and feasable, don't you think it would already have been done by
now? The internet has been around in a good usable form for 20 odd years,
and I think it would have happened if it was feasable.
I think those points you made are even in addition to the points I made. So
perhaps we can assume that the evidence points to "accountancy based work"
not being shipped off to third world countries, so much.
Athough probably a certain amount of "data processing" is being done in that
way...

 

[Tim]

From a hypothetical point of view, in laymens terms, would it not be
necessary to physically sort all the invoicesout in person, go through them
*in person*, file them and then put each amount into a box or enter it into
a keyboard......and by the sheer necessity of all those required *physical
actions* that accounts for almost 90% of the job done anyway? As one would
need to enter the data anyway in order to send it to India, so therefore is
not therefore not very worthwhile to do this?

Never heard of FedEx?

 

[Peter Saxton]

There are two types of accounting work really. There's the day to day
type of work for bigger companies and the incomplete records type of
work for very small companies.

The bigger companies could do the majority of the work by email,
faxing and scanning or regular courier. They could make electronic
payments from anywhere. The problems arise when slightly unusual
transactions occur. To deal with them can be quite time consuming. I'm
not sure that sufficient savings can be made for the regular
transactions to make up for the various extra costs. Added to that is
the quality of the work done. I would expect it to very low. Ignore
the marketing rubbish. I get regular letters asking for a job from
Indians and they usually try to convince me that they are an ideal
choice for running a multinational - despite not being able to spell
or notice obvious errors in their letters.

With the incomplete records type of job I think it's a non-starter.
The extra hassle needed to get the job done is not worth it. In a
1,000 pound job the bookkeeping may only be charged at 250-300 and
sorting out problems, queries, statutory accounts and taxation would
be the remainder. If you talk to an accountancy firm in this country
there's a good chance you will talk to the person who actually did the
work unless it is a very broad question. Would you transfer a client
to an Indian who may even have left the company or be busy on
something else or be in bed?

I see this concept as the idea of the sort of dreamers and
bullshitters who have "reorganised" the Inland Revenue.