3 Fears That Keep Firms From Offshore Bookkeeping

And 10 years of experience that addresses them

I returned from the LA Finance and Accounting Expo (Thanks Terrapinn!) a couple weeks ago. On the plane back, I reminded myself to write up the three most common fears folks have about outsourcing. If we could get past these fears, most firms would enjoy seeing their firms thrive and grow.

TL;DR short answer: Because there is really no difference between onshore and offshore when it comes to doing process driven work, except massive savings you’ll enjoy (more on that at the end).

Longer answer: These are the three common objections or fears that keep firms from offshore bookkeeping. (Have an objection I haven’t addressed or would like help on let me know here).

1. Is it safe? Will my client data be secure?

Are your current processes and solutions secure? How do you know? These are good questions to ask.

Today, borders don’t exist because of the internet. I just was with a company in Miami that found out their employees were emailing bank reconciliations, credit card info, and other internal financial documents to their personal Gmail account.

They were sending the work to themselves so they could work on it at home. They explained they couldn’t email the massive files out of their work email because of restrictions work servers had on those file transfers.

Data is only as secure as the partner or employee you can trust. In fact, that’s true for everything in life.

Yes, there are tools to encrypt, secure, and store data. That’s a given, but we also need to address the security measures as well. At Dinamis facilities, we restrict internet access to only work related sites for our clients. No email clients can be used. No thumb-drives, phones, cameras, or other electronic media can enter the workspace. Also, no paper can leave. We have everything under CCTV 24 hours a day as well. So the physical security layer is well implemented.

But the weakest link in the chain is human. It’s not all malicious either. It’s failure to follow a process (i.e. don’t email credit card data to your Gmail account).

Is your partner or employee trustworthy? Yes? Because the data you are entrusting to them is important.

2. How can I be sure of the quality?

Well, our experience is we have a less than 2% error rate. That’s pretty darn good. In fact, the CEO and COO of one of our fin-tech clients told us that the work done in our office offshore is better quality, done on time, every time.

What makes good quality? Good processes. Again, it’s like the above. The quality of your product is only as good as the quality of your processes. The number one way to improve quality according to Entrepreneur: document your processes.

Like they say: “Documenting your processes is not glamorous work, but quality improvement requires that things be done consistently.”

So document your processes so anyone can follow them – onshore or offshore. It’s really that simple.

3. How can I control something that far away?

Geographically, it is far away. Our firm is in Indonesia, on the island of Java, next door to Bali. (fringe benefit of working with Dinamis is visiting the offices then a few days in Bali ? For those interested, here is a good list of things to do)

However, it’s not geography that creates control in your business. In fact, most of America is moving to a remote workforce as it is. Remember, there is no “onshore vs offshore” when you have remote workers.

But you are right, control is important. However, it’s not control of resources that is most important. It’s control of your cash flow, margins, and company growth.

What offshoring does is return control of your margins, cash flow, and company health to you. You can save upwards of 65% of your labor costs. Additional savings can be found in operational cost (lights, desks, computers) and your time spent managing the team. See our case study of one of our amazing client’s who is growing like crazy as a result of a Dinamis team.

Have questions or would like us to guide you through the offshore solution? Let me know here.

About the Author

Dusty Gulleson is Chief Executive Officer and has built Dinamis from a one-man consulting firm into a thriving competitor in the Outsourced Bookkeeping and Software Development market.

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