Accountants for Solicitors: Outsourced vs In-house

Should you hire and maintain a full-time accounting team or should you outsource your law firm’s accounting needs? Outsourcing does offer a few distinct advantages, depending on your particular requirements. In many cases, outsourcing your bookkeeping and accounting functions to a team of accountants for solicitors can also allow you to access a higher level of expertise and enjoy cost benefits.

Dedicated accounting firms can provide you with experts in the field of accounting for the legal profession. They undergo constant training and are abreast with the latest trends in legal accounting and technology. This gives them an enormous edge over what your firm might have internally.

In an internal accounting setup, you will need to maintain a handful of accounting personnel who will probably be multitasking in order to finish the many tasks they need to accomplish. This may increase the risk of fraud or corruption because the separation of duties is reduced and tasks are overlapped. A situation like this can be avoided with outsourced solutions, where tasks and duties are clearly defined and isolated to keep the likelihood of fraud and connivance to a minimum—sometimes even eliminating it altogether.

Reporting and report generation will also be organized better with a specialist on hand to concentrate on the production of such requirements. These specialists also give you more in-depth analysis so you can make your data work for you. If you need advice, they can even help with decisions and policy making.

From a cost perspective, outsourcing can also give you an advantage in that you don’t have to pay salaries, benefits, and overhead costs like you would for in-house employees. Depending on your contract, outsourcing accountants for solicitors can give you access to top notch talent and may be a more cost effective solution for your accounting needs.