Alexander Nuzhny about accounting functions outsourcing – a modern and efficient business tool

Today, to be competitive in an ever-accelerating world, businesses need up-to-date information, communicated to the user in plain language, and forecasts built on this information. This significantly changes the requirements to the companies which provide outsourced accounting functions. They transform from a service provider to a client’s business partner, taking responsibility for their financial management, tax accounting and tax planning, RAS, IFRS, and financial accounting.

Over the past year, we have seen a growing demand in getting a package of services from one source, which requires from us, on the one hand, to have profile specialists in each area and, on the other, a high degree of interaction between them, to create a one-stop shop for the client. At the same time, especially in the pandemic, the need has grown for us to become part of our client’s team, to be constantly in touch and to use the same communication methods, messengers and business applications as them.

In 2020, there was a 20% increase of cases when our employee had two accounts, both as the SCHNEIDER GROUP and client’s employee. As a rule, it’s due to the client’s strict IT security rules and serves as an indicator of the trust in us as a partner.

Of course, such involvement in the client’s business requires professional knowledge and understanding of industry specifics. In addition, the employee and the client should be able to communicate effectively and freely. It is also important to constantly monitor market changes and improve our accountants’ professional competences. For example, this year many companies are preparing to apply new federal accounting standards (FAS). They are FAS 5/2019 “Inventories”, FAS 6/2020 “Fixed assets”, FAS 25/2018 “Lease accounting” and FAS 26/2020 ‘Capital Investments’. A qualified professional should be aware of the latest trends. In our company we provide trainings non-stop. For this purpose we have our own corporate academy. In addition, we regularly provide our accountants with external training.

Companies that outsource accounting functions are now looking to maximise automation and digitalisation which reduce labour costs in accounting, increase its speed and level out the human factor. Clients also expect this to reduce the cost of routine operations and data migration activities from one system to another.

In 2020, our company also took another step in this direction: it launched its own electronic HR document management platform, Client Login. Each our clients’ employee has a personal account and access to personnel documents, which they can sign and approve electronically. All employee and company interaction processes are carried according to the requirements of the regulatory authorities. The created documents can be signed with different types of digital signatures. The platform can be easily integrated with the payroll accounting system, reducing labour costs for HR document management by up to 40% in some cases. We also see a growing demand for the use of more complex accounting systems, integrating them with each other. This allows our clients to get the most advanced analytics, to follow the trends of the unit economy, and requires additional competences from the accountants who provide accounting for such clients.

Thus, accounting outsourcing today is inextricably linked to financial management, which is why quality accounting is becoming a business tool that helps clients become more competitive and grow.

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