Horrors of Outsourcing Your Accounting and How to Avoid Them — Synder

Boo! It is Halloween knocking at your door, and so it is time for horror stories. If you’re an accountant or a business owner, you should know that outsourcing accounting and bookkeeping can be a spooky experience, and sometimes it can even turn into a horror movie script. So today we’re going to revisit the art of storytelling and see what we can learn from the horrible stories about mistakes in outsourcing accounting services.

Outsourcing is defined as hiring another company or an individual to manage business processes. When it comes to outsourcing your accounting processes, it’s often very popular with small firms that don’t do a great deal of payroll and don’t have many invoices to process.

People typically are divided into two groups when it comes to finance and accounting outsourcing. According to some, outsourcing means getting top-notch service for pennies on the dollar, while others maintain that there are lots of disadvantages of outsourcing and that hiring in-house bookkeepers and accountants can bring you more in revenue and savings than you end up paying. Who is right and who is wrong? I suggest you search for an answer in the horror stories below. Shhh… Let’s get started!

Jacob the Ghost

It was a cold day in October. I walked down a dark street and tried to clean up my dark thoughts. My mind was a mush because of the craziest workload I had to deal with that week. I was reminded of the time when I was a startupper. Back then, my eyes had a spark in them and my heart was passionately beating. Everything had changed since that time, and now I was dying in an avalanche of accounts and reports.

I was walking down the street to the sound of leaves crackling under my feet. Suddenly I saw something shiny on the pavement. It was a card with the fateful inscription “Jacob — a superhero for your accounting”. I thought it was fate, at least, so I called the number on the card and soon thoughtlessly gave Jacob all my books.

My business seemed to be doing well with Jacob in charge of bookkeeping. But unfortunately, this was a short-lived paradise. One day he just didn’t turn up — no notification, no call, nothing. Jacob just vanished into thin air.

I took the card out of my pocket and was horrified to read that instead of the name and the phone number, the card now read “ Superheroes aren’t real “.

I’ve never believed in ghosts. Now I know what a ghost is.

The lesson we learnt

Reliability is a treasure nowadays. But the reality is that outsourcing professionals don’t become part of your “company family”. The job market is so competitive, and stories like this one happen all the time. Our friend from the story about Jacob the Ghost learned that you should choose only those outsourcing agencies that you can trust by carefully reading the reviews and also that once you are working with an outsourcing firm, it’s always good to have a plan B.

Greedy lady

This Halloween was very important to Emma.She had to buy the prettiest costume. One day she went to the mall to buy the best one for the Halloween party. She couldn’t stop smiling as she was looking forward to a magnificent Halloween shopping when suddenly a woman stopped her. That lady was wearing a black hooded coat, from underneath of which Emma could spot a set of frightening eyes.

• Hello, beauty! It seems that you are looking for the best Halloween costume.
• Oh, yes, exactly!
• I will help you. Just look into my eyes..

Emma did that, and something unbelievable happened. Suddenly, all on their own, her feet rushed to the “All Cheap” store and her hands were buying the cheapest Halloween costume. Before she even knew what she was saying, she heard herself mouth the words:

• Thank you, kind lady! But what is your name?
• My name is Greedy lady.

When Emma came home, she opened the shopping bag and found some old smelly rags. She took it in her hand and tears filled her eyes as she read a label that said “You get what you pay for.”

The lesson we learnt

Lots of businessmen who decide to outsource their accounting meet Greedy lady on the way. Choosing the lowest bet is a huge mistake because quality is usually connected to the price. If you’re lucky and you get a quality job done at the lowest price, that’s great. But generally, it doesn’t work this way. Don’t be afraid to pay extra if that means you get exactly what you want.

Cinderella story

We all remember the Cinderella story: the wicked stepmother and mean sisters were horrible to a sweet Cinderella and forced her to do so much exhausting work that she didn’t have a leg to stand on. But what people don’t really know is that the wicked stepmother was an evil witch, she was selling death potion, magical knives, enchanted mirrors and other witchcraft online.

And as always, Cinderella got a ton of manual work. Her little rock was like a disaster of books. All day long, she tried to clean up the mess of accounting and all for nothing. The stacks of bills were getting bigger, reports lost and reconciliation turned into hell.

Cinderella was crying from helplessness and didn’t know what to do. Suddenly a bright ball of light came out of nowhere and the fairy godmother came out of it.

The fairy godmother waved her wand, all the papers blew up in the air covered with magic dust, and a few seconds later, the books flashed clean.

The lesson we learnt

Not using accounting software is a recipe for disaster. Whether you outsource or not, accounting software will make your life much easier! Moreover, app marketplaces propose lots of integrations with accounting software. The apps are aimed to meet the special business demands that can turn your accounting and bookkeeping processes into one beautiful melody!

Good example is Synder, the name of which is also inspired by Сinderella. Synder is smart finance management for online businesses. It’s a broad set of features for your accounting. For example, multi-currency transactions, rollback, Receive Credit Card payments online feature etc.

Cinderella and Synder have similar names, but different fates. She wants to marry a prince, Synder wants to bring some magic to your accounting. All I know is that dreams come true..

Conclusion

Without the dark, we’d never see the stars. Sometimes we need to make mistakes because they teach us valuable lessons and contribute to our growth. But the wisest ones learn from the mistakes of others. It seems that you are one of these people, as you’ve finished reading this article. I hope it was both fun and useful for you. Happy Halloween!

Originally published at https://synderapp.com on October 31, 2020.