Outsourcing and accounting - what's your take on this?

Given that the tech sector has been ravaged by outsourcing and that
there's talk about doing the same to accounting and finance sectors of
the market, i'm kinda worried about getting into the field. I'm
halfway through my CPA courses and i wanna know what kind of
accounting jobs are more resistant to getting offshored? The only
accounting job that i can think of that would be hard to get
outsourced is auditing.

 

IMO.. Sooner or later something is going to spring up and bite the
firms and companies who are taking the chance to outsource. Whether
its some sort of privacy scandal or lost data, I dont know.. I do know
that we are asking for trouble when the reason why we are outsourcing
work to be done is to take advantage of cheap labor and perhaps less
strict laws and regulations.

 

CD,

Outsourcing accounting and finance is about as unlikely as anything I've
ever hear of. Good management won't do it. Morons might try.

Good managers want to know everything that is happening in the company,
the margins, the collections, the cash flow, the profitability, and on
and on. Good managers need that information daily, from someone
convenient, at their beck and call, someone that jumps when called.
That's not an outside accounting firm with a long list of clients making
similar demands on their time. If the company is small enough to be run
by the seat of the pants, it might be ok to outsource certain accounting
and tax reporting processes, but that's about it. A real business needs
on-site professional accountants. That will not change. In fact, it's
becoming more required.

The consequences of Enron include something called the Sarbanes-Oxley
act. It is a well intentioned, but terribly designed piece of #%&+*# ,
excuse me, piece of legislation, designed to burden publicly owned
companies with bureaucratic silliness beyond belief. The costs in terms
of man hours is staggering. The financial cost is onerous. Outsourcing
to an accounting firm is incompatible with the demands of Sarbanes-Oxley
because the outside firm is supposed to be watching the internal staff.
Even the outside firm must change its staff to prevent any collusion
between the two. The internal accounting staff must set up and maintain
a list of "control" procedures that were never contemplated in
accounting school, maybe in law school or in the psych ward of the state
mental hospital, but never in business. Imagine treating every
employee, officer, director, vendor, and customer as if they were Osama
bin Laden and you have a whiff of what Sarbanes-Oxley is all about.
Sarbannes-Oxley refocused business from the ultimate goal of making a
profit to a preoccupation of complying with volumes of arcane laws that
at this date not too many truly understand.

Will outsourcing of accounting and finance be a big trend? Not likely.

As to the tech sector. Their downfall was self inflicted. In an effort
to get out from under the thumbs of the tyrants of technobabble, the
brotherhood of bits and bytes, management has thrown off the chains of
the technocrats and opened opportunities to those that want to serve
instead of enslave. International competition put them out of
business. When there is a recovery, technocrats will have to learn to
speak English and communicate without condescending to lowly humans.
If not, they will continue to ask, "Do you want fries with that?"

Arnold

 

Outsourcing accounting to other countries such as India is indeed happening
now as you read. That does not mean that companies will no longer have an
accounting department. The outsourcing of accounting is happening in large,
national accounting firms, where they have such high volume of clientele.

Like many in this ng I also ascribe to the dote of "buy cheap, get cheap."

Jan

 

You're talking about sending client work overseas, right?

I doubt that will trickle down to the small and mid-size firms. It's just
never going to happen.

The "ma & pa" stores, Joe Sixpack, and other individuals and businesses want
personal attention, and personal service, which means having their
accountant down the road with all the records and resources to get the job
done. I have a PFS that needs to be done for a client by next Tuesday, and
there isn't a time budget to allow me to send it to India, have them prepare
the PFS, and send it back to me, I review it so I can discuss it with the
client in a coherent manner, and sign off on it. I might as well do it
myself.

Yes, the salary and advancement options are smaller in smaller firms, but
for many people, that's a more workable prospect than wondering if they work
for the next AA.

 

I think the jobs most susceptible to movement offshore are the more basic
accounting jobs, particularly in the financial services industry. (i.e.
subledger system to GL reconciliations, mutual fund accounting, etc.).

 

Given that the tech sector has been ravaged by outsourcing and that

It's already happening. A number of companies you talk to
are already doing it. It's not just computer customer support
now that is doing it.
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Too late. Some of our vendors already do it.

Especially since some of these vendors are owned by
coporations in various countries outside the US.

And they can get this information nicely now in many countries.
..

XXX company in the US is ownded by company yyyy in Germany. If
company yyyyy in German owns company zzzz in India nothing is
going to prevent them from funneling the work to company zzzz which
they already own.



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"Finally a member of the Jackson family finds
another young boy to victimize."
-------------------------Jimmy Fallon on SNL
referring to Justin
Timberlake

To send me e-mail exorcise NO Spam from
my e-mail address.

 

For all you folks who thought that accounting was immune from
offshoring and outsourcing, wake-up and smell the coffee! Finance &
Accounting BPO is considered on the biggest growth areas within
outsourcing this year. A significant number of companies, large, mid
sized and small are doing it/have started doing it.

The reason why you are not hearing too much about it is due to
companies not publicizing it, and outsourcing being done in phases -
low end, low risk tasks get moved first, etc. Look at the number of
companies in outsourcing, as well as in consulting, that are offering
finance and accounting BPO. On top of it, most accounting software
companies are predicting zero to low growth; why is that so,
especially as the economy turns around and more and more companies are
spending $$$.

Good accountants will always find jobs. The rest just need to work
harder and be able to compete. Or retrain. There will always be
accountants in companies, because companies cannot take it out
completely like in the case of IT. This is the impact of global
business, and we asked for it. Without a global business environment,
we will not have $30 jeans and $60 DVD players. And without global
business, US companies cannot continue to show strong growth, and keep
the folks that are already employed.

Another aspect - anybody who thinks Sarbanes-Oxley makes it harder to
outsource better think again. There is this thing called 404 or
internal controls, and if you read articles, you will learn that
companies that outsource are seeing transparency, better controls, and
better reporting. An outsourcer brings better processes, efficiencies
and best in class methodologies. So it the MORONS who are not doing
it, but the smart companies that are doing it. Ask GE, Intel,
Microsoft, McDonald's, JP Morgan, Amex. If these companies were being
run by morons, they would not be where they are, and you an I would
not be sitting here and bitching.

We thought we were the best, but now that countries like China, Russia
& India are competing, we do not want to compete, but want to
complain.

 

The bigger the company the more likely outsourcing. Remember that with the
current state of the internet answer can be instantious anywhere in the world.
Keep in mind that major auto companies, telecommunication and oil are all
international anyway. Putting the accounting department in a low cost area is
no different from putting the manufacturing department there. Oh yea the
shipping costs are less of a factor.

And don't underestimate the training or professionalism of the employee's they
are good.

Bill Couture

 

SBT Bill wrote:

....

Like here, some are, some aren't so...

Anecdotal story--my son works for a large US firm specializing in
employee pension plans (hows that for nebulous enough?). They have
begun outsourcing some data entry to India and he was requested to be
the "team leader" for the initial rollout of the concept. So far, it's
been a bust from the results side according to him--the error rate is
exceptionally high and the interfacing to resolve problems is difficult.
Consequently his team in the US is working overtime to fixup the data
every night. How it will come out in the end is still indeterminate as
it's only been a couple of months.

 

There was a chiling item on the news last week, engineering colleges
are meeting to discuss their future. Their take on this is that all
engineering jobs could easily be shipped over seas. The only
engineers that would immune would be civil engineers. Now if this
can happen to highly educated people like engineers is there any
profession that is immune?

Could be the only jobs left in the US are bagging groceries.
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"Finally a member of the Jackson family finds
another young boy to victimize."
-------------------------Jimmy Fallon on SNL
referring to Justin
Timberlake

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my e-mail address.

 

Well, I do understand that Arnold of terminator fame is advocating a
change which would permit persons born outside the U.S. could become
President. I guess that is the ultimate outsourcing solution.

Tippy

 

)

Jan

 

1. It would requre a U.S. Constitutional amendment.

2. It ain't going to happen.

3. Arnold has shown his RINO 'ness and is over.



Best Regards.

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For those who are unclear about the situation, California is the Clinton - Davis model for the rest of the United States of America.

 

Guess that means John Kerry too?

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"Finally a member of the Jackson family finds
another young boy to victimize."
-------------------------Jimmy Fallon on SNL
referring to Justin
Timberlake

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my e-mail address.

 

For those not familiar with this obscurity this
means "Repilican in Name Only."


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"Finally a member of the Jackson family finds
another young boy to victimize."
-------------------------Jimmy Fallon on SNL
referring to Justin
Timberlake

To send me e-mail exorcise NO Spam from
my e-mail address.

 

Actually, that is the reason.



Best Regards.

*****************************************
Boycott list:

Belgium, France, Germany, Finland, Sweden, Switzerland, PRC, Iran, Syria,
Hollywood, San Francisco, Massachusetts, New York City, Sierra Club, ACLU,
Movies of the first blacklist, Turner, Madonna, S. Crowe, Dixie Chicks, Cher, U2, rapp,
Trudeau, W.Miller, Disney, ABC news, CBS news, NBC news, CNN, PBS, B&H Photo Video, Heinz
Foods, Ontario & Quebec provinces,

Sometimes the only influence you have is to say, "No, I'm not buying."

For those who are unclear about the situation, California is the Clinton - Davis model for the rest of the United States of America.

 

if they can move all the engineering jobs except Civil engineers
offshore is there any field left that can't be moveed offshore?


--------------------------------------------
"Finally a member of the Jackson family finds
another young boy to victimize."
-------------------------Jimmy Fallon on SNL
referring to Justin
Timberlake

To send me e-mail exorcise NO Spam from
my e-mail address.

 

I don't see why most civil engineering has to be onshore, either,
actually, any more than other engineering.

As for a safe field, I'd say barbering...