TOA Global, which specialises in finding outsourced accounting talent to help companies to grow sustainably and manage costs better, has developed a checklist of 88 time-consuming accounting firm tasks that are most easily outsourced.

The checklist aims to discover tasks that can be easily delegated to an offshore team, allowing firms to reduce the compliance work for their best people and put them back in front of clients, providing them with solutions and adding value.

To place the checklist in context, TOA Global first examine the three steps of the Practice Growth Cycle™:

• Step 1: create capacity in your firm to create the breathing room for profitable growth
• Step 2: harvest opportunities created by your new-found capacity
• Step 3: expand capability by planning and executing quality growth

Identify tasks you can outsource

The best way to assess which tasks accountants are doing which they shouldn't be is to ask your team. Each member should be asked to work out their hourly billable rate, make a list of every task they do and place it into one of three buckets:

1. Tasks that could be outsourced and done by someone whose billable rate is lower
2. Tasks that add value and are in line with their charge out rate (and couldn’t be done offshore for a lower rate)
3. Tasks that are taking up the most time

The checklist of tasks to be outsourced falls within four broad areas:

• Accounting and bookkeeping tasks
• Financial planning tasks
• Mortgage broking tasks
• Support and administration tasks

Once you have identified a list of tasks, you can calculate the hourly savings that outsourcing these tasks to global team members would give your onshore team every month.

This time can be reinvested into responsiveness, servicing demand or growing your business without the concern for hiring, training, managing or deploying resources, especially in a highly competitive market for talent.

Find the full checklist of accounting firm tasks most easily outsourced here.