Outsourcing business activity means getting it accomplished through an external source and not making fixed investment to accomplish the same. It helps the business organization to focus on its core activities and outsource non-core activities. It increases the efficiency, furthermore, the outsourcing agency is responsible for the word done therefore outsourcing provides better quality of work.

Now a days outsourcing business activity is being used extensively by the business organizations for various business activities like Customer services, Advertising, Human resource management etc.

One of those activities is Accounting activity. It requires highly qualified and efficient professionals for a true and fair presentation of entity’s accounts, but it is very costly to hire such professionals especially for small businesses. On the other hand you can outsource accounting activity to an accountant’s or Chartered Accountant’s firm.

Therefore small businesses often outsource Accounting activity to an accountant’s or Chartered Accountant’s firm because it is less costly and affordable than hiring such professionals.

A lot of factors should be assessed while deciding about the Accounting Firms, some of those are:

• Specialization & Experience: Specialization and Experience is a very crucial factor while deciding about accounting firm. Accountants’ industry experience should be assessed. It is very important to hire someone who is well versed in your industry and conversant with your specific requirement. You must be able to determine whether accounting firms offers the services you are seeking.
• Cost or Service Charges: Another vital determinant is firm’s billing rate or fees. Accounting firm’s charges either fixed service charges or by the hour. The offered charges must be compared by the organization’s set budget to see whether organization can afford the charges or go for a cheaper alternative. But at the end you should get what you paid for.
• Availability: You have to consider the availability of the accountants. It usually depends upon the size of the firm. Big accounting firms usually have competitive advantage over small firms in this regard, they have a diversified network of accountants.
• Ethical and Moral Character of accountants: Professional ethics must be followed by the accountants. It can be assessed by going through customer reviews, industry reports etc.
• Personal Connection: You can hire a big accounting firm, but if you aren’t feeling comfortable in discussing your queries, financial issues with accountant, you are not getting the level of services you need. It can also be assessed by going through customer reviews.
• Identify whether you are required a full time or a part time accountant: It usually depends upon the level of your operations and volume of transactions, it is an important factor because it may have large cost impact on your business.

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