Outsourcing IT Support for Accounting Firms. — When Should You?

For Accounting firms, deciding when to outsource IT support can be a complicated decision driven by various competing factors. These include the size of your firm, internal capabilities, needed expertise, and others.

However, with the right information, you can determine your needs and make the right decision. Here’s a look at some of the factors to consider before outsourcing to IT services firms.

The Case for Outsourcing IT Support for Accounting Firms

Outsourcing your IT work comes with three main benefits: cost-effectiveness, deep expertise, and ongoing availability.

The question then becomes, should companies outsource at all? Wouldn’t an internal team handle IT support for an accounting business better and on-site?

First, outsourcing your IT help is far more cost-effective than hiring an internal team. For each new in-house hire, you pay a basic salary and incur recruitment costs, training, and benefits such as health insurance, life insurance, meals, medical and dental plans, disability coverage, etc. Outsourced IT services generally come in well below the salary level of a similar internal role. As such, outsourcing wins on cost.

Outsourcing brings broader and deeper expertise. With an internal hire, you only get the expertise of an individual. However, no single person can be an expert in Cybersecurity, business continuity, cloud-based systems, VoIP communication systems, etc. In contrast, an outsourced IT provider gives you the expertise of an entire team.

Third, outsourcing IT offers better availability. Unlike internal hires prone to absenteeism, medical issues, family issues, etc., outsourced IT services for accountants ensure that you get the help you need when you need it. Working as a team also eliminates knowledge silos.

Two scenarios make outsourcing become even more advantageous:

1. Accounting organizations should outsource IT support when the lack of internal IT resources threatens to stall business processes

How often does your organization deal with downtime? If you’re a growing firm, that happens pretty often. In most cases, you have a staff member who also doubles up as “IT support” – perhaps the office manager. Alternatively, you may be working with an IT provider on a break-fix basis (requesting assistance when needed and paying by the hour).

However, all growing organizations finally reach a limit. There’s only so much your IT support person can do before becoming overwhelmed. IT management becomes too complex and time-consuming without a designated team to handle issues. Ultimately, it ends up costing your firm in downtime and lost productivity.

In such situations, outsourcing becomes the smarter play.

When you’re constantly experiencing downtime, computers become slow. You get virus-laden emails landing in your inbox or have misconfigured computers. Cybersecurity and compliance cannot be mishandled! All these incidents are red flags. It’s time to call in the cavalry because your current IT solution does not proactively protect your network or empower staff to focus on their mission.
2. Accounting firms should outsource IT support when they need to supplement internal expertise

Organizations run on expertise. Firms with robust, dedicated IT teams in place may still encounter instances where it’s more beneficial to outsource some IT support aspects.

Take these two scenarios, for example, where outsourced IT support can supplement internal IT.

Supplement tactical support. The bigger your firm, the more tactical support you need. For instance, implementing a VoIP system may dramatically increase the level of support required over the short term. Or a growing staff number may increase support tickets to a level your internal team cannot support.

Either way, you need support to handle issues. Outsourcing can be a cost-efficient solution. Helpdesk support ensures all problems are handled quickly, freeing your internal team to focus on critical areas.

Supplement strategic expertise. As mentioned already, no single individual has expertise in all IT areas. As such, your internal team may require assistance in areas where they lack strategic expertise.

More often, accounting organizations don’t have the budget or internal expertise to gauge a potential hire’s technical qualifications. In these situations, outsourcing makes sense as a cost-effective solution and a way to get much-needed expertise.

Are you ready to outsource your accounting company’s IT support?

Hopefully, these insights have been helpful as you consider outsourcing IT support for your accounting organization.

If you’re ready to learn how outsourced IT solutions could benefit your accounting firm specifically, Alavanca Systems is here for you. Get in touch with us today.

We’ve found that costly downtimes not only impact your bottom line, they also affect staff productivity and, by extension, your client’s satisfaction.

Don’t let lagging systems or shoddy IT support hold you back. Let’s talk.