When you outsource with a conventional accounting services firm, you know what to expect — monthly expense reporting.
But when you work with Weekly Accounting as your trusted financial partner, you can expect more than just monthly financial updates. We pride ourselves on providing our clients with weekly financial reports, enabling business leadership to view data closer to real-time and make informed decisions.
What Outsourced Accounting Actually Means (And What It Doesn’t)
So just what is outsourced accounting? Simply put, it involves collaborating with an external partner to manage or support the financial operations of your business, while ensuring compliance with relevant financial regulations. However, a truly value-added financial partner does more than just basic bookkeeping; they serve your organization more strategically. A good partner can perform financial modeling, track key KPIs, and help your business scale and reach its full potential. At Weekly Accounting, we strive to be more than just basic bookkeepers, but a true extension of your business.
The Fatal Flaw of Traditional Outsourced Accounting Services
Why monthly financial reporting is the norm, it’s not always the best. It can present old data and mislead leadership, potentially resulting in poor decision-making or reactive financial performance rather than proactive action. It can also miss trends and opportunities for growth, which can stall your business’s ability to scale. Finally, monthly reporting might focus on the wrong key metrics or present KPIs without the proper context, which can also be problematic. Furthermore, these monthly reports can continue to compound, potentially leading to even more severe problems and delayed financial statements.
Why Engineers Make Better Outsourced Accounting Partners Than CPAs
At Weekly Accounting, we take more of a systems-thinking approach rather than a transaction-focused mindset. This means that we take a holistic view of your company’s data on a weekly basis and build out forecasts to help leaders run it effectively and efficiently. We crunch unit economics and create a feedback loop that’s formatted the same week after week to help you progress faster and smarter. In practice, our outsourced accounting team operates inside your accounting department to push your business forward with tighter financial management.
We’re more than just accountants, but accountants with the mindset of an engineer. By delivering the right data, we can empower you to make proactive decisions that drive progress.
Why Weekly Outsourced Accounting Beats Monthly Reporting
Faster identification of trends. Better overall analysis. Accelerated correction of financial issues.
The increased granularity and frequency of the feedback loop create a true mathematical advantage, enabling improved application of core concepts for decision-making purposes.
52 Feedback Loops vs 12: The Math of Better Outsourced Accounting Decisions
Weekly feedback loops can help identify issues up to four times faster than monthly feedback loops. It can also help your business lean on more relevant and timely data when making decisions. Take it from Katie Nicosia, Co-Owner & Detox Program Director at Recovery Works NW:
“The Weekly Accounting System has made looking at spreadsheets fun (yes, words I never envisioned saying). The team has patiently taught me how to approach data from a more executive mindset. Our Weekly Meetings have guided me towards more data-driven operational changes, which have led to more profits, all while respecting our organization’s mission.”
Monday Morning Metrics in Outsourced Accounting That Drive Action
When you work with Weekly Accounting, you can expect real-time insight every Monday. These “Monday Morning Metrics” deliver clear and near real-time insight into key metrics and KPIs, such as:
- Customer acquisition costs
- Revenue and collections
- Unit economics tracking
- Cash flow forecasting
Our Monday Morning Metrics data points offer significantly more insight than conventional metrics and KPIs, which are often not grounded in context.
Real Outsourced Accounting Services That Matter
While basic bookkeeping is important for any business, there’s a lot more that an accounting professional can bring to the table to drive significant growth. Modern-day outsourced accounting firms tend to focus more on strategic financial guidance and data analytics, rather than merely recording transactions. This can drive significantly more return on investment for client partners and drive business growth.
Unit Economics Tracking in Modern Outsourced Accounting
Two key unit economics that we’re certain to track at Weekly Accounting are Lifetime Gross Profit (LTGP) and Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC). Both of these matter significantly to your business and its growth potential.
LTGP is especially crucial for SaaS businesses, as it represents the total profit you can expect over the entire course of a customer relationship. CAC is the total expense your company incurs to gain one new customer, with expenses including marketing, sales, salaries, software and any other overhead related to converting leads into customers. The LTGP/CAC ratio measures profitability and scaling, indicating the ratio of revenue generated to the cost of acquiring a new customer.
Revenue Engine Instrumentation Through Outsourced Accounting
Weekly Accounting’s services encompass more than just simple bank transactions; they also involve leveraging a data warehouse to centralize your financial information through automated data collection and real-time integration. We can seamlessly integrate your company’s financial data with the industry’s leading financial platforms, including QuickBooks, Xero, NetSuite, SAP, Oracle and more, so your accounting department runs on unified financial processes.
Integrated Financial Modeling in Outsourced Accounting
You can only learn so much from basic bookkeeping projections, which tend to be straightforward estimates of future revenues and expenses based primarily on historical data and expected charges. These models tend to be simple, static and limited in scope.
An integrated financial model, conversely, is a much more sophisticated and detailed representation of your company’s financial situation. It’s designed to simulate various scenarios, helping your firm better prepare for what could be ahead, and tends to be as dynamic as it is interactive. One of the key benefits of integrated financial modeling is the ability to analyze various scenarios, often presented as best-case, worst-case and most likely scenarios, to evaluate a range of different outcomes based on risk. This is where a right accounting partner enforces disciplined accounting processes and hands you accurate and timely financials for decision making.
Cash Flow Forecasting in Outsourced Accounting That Actually Works
Outsourced accounting often takes cash flow forecasting to the next level by utilizing AI and machine learning to analyze vast pools of data and incorporate various external factors into projections. Good cash flow forecasting can also run complex scenarios and provide real-time, highly accurate projections to provide proactive insights for better capital management, risk mitigation and strategic planning. Overall, this can help lead to better cash flow management, smarter decision-making and improved efficiency.
Outsourced Accounting Costs: The Real Numbers
If you’re looking to hire a full-time controller or CFO, you can expect to pay upwards of $120,000 and $200,000, respectively. Beyond salary, there are benefits you’ll need to account for, as well as an onboarding process that can take up to six months. Keep in mind that turnover for financial positions is high, up to 25 percent, and any business can expect to spend as much as 20 percent of a financial professional’s salary on finding an adequate replacement. Many small to medium-sized businesses are simply unable to absorb these costs into their overhead.
At Weekly Accounting, our outsourced financial support packages start at just $1,500 per month and can scale up as needed, representing a fraction of the cost of a full-time, in-house professional. What’s more, we specialize in a prompt, four-week onboarding period so we can begin delivering value to your company faster.
Who Actually Needs Outsourced Accounting Services
Is your company’s leadership performing bookkeeping after hours to keep its financials up to date? Are you unfamiliar with some of the key metrics that matter most to the growth and success of your business? Are you seeking more financial insight into profitable and stagnant months or quarters?
If so, outsourced accounting services could benefit your business just as much as they have benefited many of our current partners. Weekly Accounting’s outsourced accounting services can help you optimize your business performance through comprehensive metrics and weekly insights, allowing for more empowered decision-making, optimized cash flow management and better overall strategic planning.
The 4-Week Outsourced Accounting Implementation: From Chaos to Clarity
Take your business from chaos to clarity in just four weeks with Weekly Accounting. Our streamlined implementation process ensures prompt integration, allowing us to deliver value to your business more quickly. All it takes is four weeks for us to connect your existing software, ERP systems and business tools with our fractional CFO services to bring more of an immediate impact to your bottom line. We’ll begin by optimizing your chart of accounts, then proceed to system integration setup, create a custom reporting configuration and conclude with team training; all within just a matter of weeks. Contact us today to schedule a consultation.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does outsourced accounting include?
Outsourced accounting involves hiring a professional to work externally of your business. While specific duties depend on the type of financial professional you partner with, outsourced accounting professionals may perform everything from basic bookkeeping to financial reporting to strategic advisory.
How much should I pay for outsourced accounting?
The cost of outsourced accounting largely depends on the level of service required. At Weekly Accounting, our service plans start at $1,500 per month and scale up from there. This represents a significant cost savings compared to the average annual salary of a full-time financial professional, which typically exceeds $120,000.
Is it worth outsourcing accounting?
Under the right circumstances, outsourcing accounting can be highly worthwhile. Outsourcing accounting services tends to be most valuable for small to medium-sized businesses that lack the budget to hire a full-time salaried position. When you outsource with the right professional, you gain expert access at a fraction of the price.
What’s the difference between outsourced accounting and bookkeeping?
Think of outsourced accounting as someone who provides strategic analysis, performs financial reporting and forecasting, and ensures compliance with industry standards and best practices. Conversely, outsourced bookkeeping involves working with a professional who handles a greater portion of the day-to-day operations. This includes tasks such as data entry, bank reconciliation, processing invoices and payments, and more.
Can outsourced accounting handle complex equity structures?
Yes, many financial service firms can pair your business with an external partner that can handle complex equity structures. It’s one of the biggest reasons to work with an outsourced professional, as acquiring this level of expertise can be difficult to maintain in-house.
Do I need outsourced accounting if I already have QuickBooks?
While QuickBooks is among the industry-leading software for managing data entry, the right financial partner can take the data that’s entered in the program and turn it into actionable insight. QuickBooks is a great tool, but an outsourced professional can serve as the ideal partner for deciphering your financial data, supporting your firm’s growth and success.
Contact Weekly Accounting Today
Are you ready to transform your accounting operations into a competitive advantage? Contact Weekly Accounting today to schedule a consultation and learn more about our 52-week feedback loop and what your first Monday Morning Metrics can look like.