Subcontracting For Accountants
Providing bookkeeping services for Accountants so they can focus on providing other accountancy services to their clients.
Is This Subcontracting Service for You?
This service particularly suits Accountants that:
- Get asked by clients to do bookkeeping but would prefer to focus on higher fee earning work
- Want their time and resource to be deployed more profitably
- Want to avoid employing bookkeeping staff themselves
- Don’t want time taken up with bookkeeping queries and issues
- Can’t release their own staff to do on-site jobs for clients
- Have clients who work with a software for which they don’t have in-house expertise
- Like working with good bookkeepers as this makes their job easier at year-end
How Can We Help?
We often find that Accountants don’t want to focus on providing bookkeeping services as they feel they can add more value in other ways. Also, some Accountants who do provide bookkeeping do not always have the resource to provide on-site bookkeeping services.
Our experience is that Accountants appreciate the benefit of a company having excellent bookkeeping in place as it makes their job at year-end much easier and they also know that their client is being looked after during the year and given regular financial information to use in their business.
As busy people, often with a very diverse and/or large client base to support, your clients are needing you more than ever to navigate their way through the trials and tribulations of being a business owner and the complex financial options and issues. Spending too much time on the bookkeeping could be impacting on the operations, service and profitability of your accounting practice.
If you are looking to make changes that would:
- Make your time more profitability spent
- Provide you with an additional flexible resource
- Streamline year-end processes
- Give you and your colleagues more time to focus on higher level advisory services and add value to your customers
- Enable you not to have to worry about finding and training good quality bookkeeping staff
We can help!
Subcontracting Options for a Client’s Bookkeeping
If you want to fully outsource one, some or all of your clients’ bookkeeping, so your in-house resource can focus on adding value with other services, we have a number of subcontracting options for you for daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly bookkeeping. The options are all about looking at what works best for you, your accountancy practice and your clients.
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- 1. You may decide that you do not want to have any involvement in bookkeeping at all – in which case you can simply direct clients to us needing a high-quality Xero bookkeeping service. We will liaise with them – and if they are happy to work with us – we will engage directly with them. We will check in with you if any particular questions arise as we start working with them to make sure we are all operating consistently and in support of the client. At the year-end, we complete our bookkeeping year-end checks and hand our report over to you so that you can see exactly what checks we have done.
- 2. You may decide that you want to retain the full relationship with your client for bookkeeping and you continue to be the point of contact for them. In this case, we would operate behind the scenes in accordance with your operational bookkeeping processes and liaise with you. We bill you for our services and you then bill your client.
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- 3. You may decide that you want to introduce us as your ‘Bookkeeping Department’. We would then have direct contact with your client on your behalf for managing processes and routine queries as well as completing the bookkeeping for you. We will bill you for our services and you then bill your client.
Whichever route you choose, each client that we work with has a dedicated and friendly bookkeeper attached to them to provide a high quality and continuous service.
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Supporting Client’s with Their Bookkeeping
As an Accountant. we understand that you want your clients to have good bookkeeping practices in place as this helps them manage their finances more effectively. It is also of benefit for you at year-end to receive their bookkeeping in good shape so you can take their data and then start to add value to their business rather than having to spend time first sorting out mistakes.
Depending on the size of your team, you may not have time to support and train your clients to use accounting software so we can also help with this in a number of ways, see below:
Xero Set-Up
Xero set-up to meet all the needs of the business and the accounting requirements.
This set up includes putting on conversion balances, setting up templates, tailoring the chart of accounts and the financial settings and importing customers and suppliers information.
Xero Training
Xero Workshops
To train the business owner, staff member or bookkeeper to be able to carry out bookkeeping processes using Xero.
1 day workshop in small groups
or
3x 1.5 hour Zoom sessions individually.
Bespoke 1-2-1 Training
Bespoke Xero training (booked by the hour) delivered around the specific needs of the individual.
Xero Monthly Support
For businesses wanting on-going support and the peace of mind to be to access telephone and Zoom support during the first year using the new software to help with any issues they haven’t dealt with before and any problems which arise.
Xero Health Check
Our Xero Health Check is a bit like the MOT for a vehicle or your annual boiler service and is a way of checking the the Xero bookkeeping is being done effectively and as efficiently as possible and the Xero accounts are in good shape.
A user friendly report highlighting what has been checked and identifying any areas for action and a 30 minute phone call to go through the reports with the business in person. Further support can then be provided as requested.
Why Subcontract To Us?
We appreciate that when you subcontract your client’s bookkeeping and support you need to be confident in who you are working with and trust that they know what they are doing. Here’s some reasons as to why we think you should work with us:
- We are Xero specialists and so know the software inside out and can work efficiently and effectively to help your clients get the most from the software
- Our whole team is UK based and we can come and meet with you or your clients in person as and when needed
- We look after your clients as our own and make sure that deadlines are met and that any contact with your clients is always completely professional and helpful
- We use our own bookkeeping checklists to ensure we have checked and done everything we should – but are happy to adapt this to build in any additional requirements you have
- Each client has a dedicated bookkeeper attached to the work so that we get to know the business and so that you and the client have continuity. As a bookkeeping practice, we are able to provide backup support and cover if needed in that person’s absence
- We are always recruiting ahead of the need so that we have plenty of good quality bookkeeping resource as the work comes into the practice
- We are flexible and so if there are just particular elements or clients that you want our help with – whilst the rest is done in-house – that’s all fine too
For more information on what our clients say about us, take a read of our Testimonials.
How Do Our Fees Work?
Our fees are competitive within the UK market and we pride ourselves on the quality and efficiency of how we use Xero which means less mistakes and no wasted time. We can agree with you fixed fees in advance for particular work or we can simply bill you by the hour for time spent. All time we do is recorded on our practice management system and available to you on request. You then choose what fees you want to bill on to your clients.
Moving Forward
If you would like to explore working together in more detail, we would be delighted to meet you and explore this further. You may want to introduce us to others in your practice as part of this process as it is important for all parties that the relationships and expectations are set out from the beginning.
We can go at whatever speed you would like. Whether this is from trying us out with one or two clients to putting a strategy together for us to start working across a significant client base – whatever works for you.
We fully appreciate that having an appropriate sub contract agreement in place would also be helpful to everyone concerned but with sufficient operational flexibility there to change it as the working relationship evolves.
Email lynne@thebookkeepingdepartment.co.uk if you would like to have a chat about how we can move this forward.
If you need some help with your bookkeeping or administration to give you more time and peace of mind, please contact us today:
Saturday morning training slots are available!
If you would like to arrange a time for a call or meeting at your convenience, please click the button below to find a time which suits you.