How to Use Offshore Employees for Accounting Firms

A guide to the technology, workflow, and processes that are needed to make the most of your global talent pool

Accounting firms are always looking for ways to reduce costs, increase productivity, and expand their services. One of the strategies that many firms have adopted is to use offshore employees, or workers who are located in different countries and time zones. Offshore employees can offer many benefits, such as lower labor costs, access to a larger and more diverse talent pool, and the ability to provide round-the-clock service to clients.

However, using offshore employees also comes with some challenges, such as communication barriers, cultural differences, and security risks. To overcome these challenges, accounting firms need to have the right technology, workflow, and processes in place to ensure that their offshore employees can work effectively and securely with their onshore counterparts and clients. In this blog post, we will discuss some of the key elements that accounting firms need to consider when using offshore employees, and provide a table or chart with the recommended technology, workflow, and processes for each element.

Offshore OperationTechnology

Technology is the backbone of any successful offshore operation. Accounting firms need to invest in reliable and secure technology that can facilitate communication, collaboration, and data sharing between their offshore and onshore employees and clients. Some of the technology that accounting firms need to have in place are:

• Your firm must be cloud centric and this includes applications and documents. Your accounting and tax preparation applications must be in a cloud infrastructure. Company documents also need to be stored in the cloud.
• A video conferencing and messaging tool that can enable real-time communication and collaboration, such as Zoom, Teams, or Slack.
• A project management and workflow tool that can track and assign tasks, deadlines, and progress, such as Asana, Trello, TaxDome, Canopy or Basecamp. Using a project management tool is a requirement for a successful implementation of offshore labor.
• A cyber security awareness training program that can educate and test the offshore employees on the best practices and policies for protecting the firm’s and clients’ data, such as the one offered by Plus 1 Technology.
• Cybersecurity protections on their computers and enabled on their accounts.

The table below summarizes the technology that accounting firms need to have in place for using offshore employees, and the benefits and challenges of each technology.

Technology	Benefits	Challenges
Secure cloud platform	Allows easy and fast access to accounting data and documents from anywhere	Requires reliable internet connection and bandwidth
Video conferencing and messaging tool	Enables real-time communication and collaboration between offshore and onshore employees and clients	May encounter technical issues, such as poor audio or video quality, or connection problems
Project management and workflow tool	Helps to track and assign tasks, deadlines, and progress of the offshore employees	May require training and adaptation for the offshore employees to use the tool effectively
Cyber security awareness training program	Educates and tests the offshore employees on the best practices and policies for protecting the firm’s and clients’ data	May require regular updates and reminders to keep the offshore employees informed and vigilant
Cyber Security	Expand cybersecurity protections used by the company to the offshore employee devices and accounts to ensure protection.	Monitoring and management on accounts may need to be adjusted to allows from international employees to use tools

 

Offshore and Onshore Employee Workflow

Workflow is the process of how the offshore and onshore employees work together to complete the accounting tasks and deliver the services to the clients. Accounting firms need to design and implement a clear and efficient workflow that can optimize the performance and productivity of their offshore employees, and ensure the quality and consistency of their work. Some of the workflow elements that accounting firms need to consider are:

• The scope and expectations of the offshore employees, such as the tasks, responsibilities, goals, and standards that they need to follow.
• The communication and feedback channels and frequency, such as the tools, methods, and times that the offshore and onshore employees need to communicate and provide feedback to each other. Will the offshore employees be communicating with clients and if not, how does that impact the client relationship.
• The quality control and assurance measures, such as the tools, methods, and frequency that the offshore and onshore employees need to check and verify the accuracy and completeness of the work.
• The performance evaluation and recognition methods that the offshore and onshore employees need to measure and reward the performance and achievements of the offshore employees.

In addition to the communication, quality, and performance aspects, accounting firms need to establish some other processes to properly use offshore talent. These include:

To summarize, using offshore talent can offer many benefits to accounting firms, such as cost reduction, increased productivity, and access to a larger pool of talent. However, to make the most of these benefits, accounting firms need to implement some best practices and processes to manage the offshore and onshore employees effectively and efficiently. These include setting clear expectations and goals, establishing regular and transparent communication and feedback channels, ensuring quality control and assurance measures, evaluating and recognizing the performance of the offshore employees, allocating and delegating the tasks appropriately, providing training and development opportunities, and integrating and valuing the cultural diversity of the offshore and onshore employees. By doing so, accounting firms can leverage the offshore talent and achieve their strategic objectives.