Getting your small business, and your big business idea, off the ground is always an exciting and intense time for any entrepreneur. Still, most early-stage startups are under-staffed, or lack time or know-how to complete necessary day-to-day tasks. A perfect solution, in that case, is Startup Outsourcing. Essentially, outsourcing allows you to cut expensive staffing costs by designating some of that work to outside experts. This relieves you, and your core team, of the burden of running back-office operations, cuts staffing costs, and leaves more room to focus on gaining leads, generating income, and growing your startup. Start early, and make a plan of which functions of your startup you should outsource, which can benefit your company.
Administrative Tasks
As a startup CEO, you should focus your attention on key processes that enable your business to grow and generate revenue. However, running a company also requires hundreds of small, daily tasks to be completed, which can side-track you from your main goal. Hiring a virtual assistant helps you handle back-office tasks, eliminating the time you waste on scheduling meetings, booking travel arrangements, responding to e-mails, and numerous other repetitive tasks you can delegate to that person.
Hiring
When it comes to hiring your staff, you want to find reliable and quality employees that fill the positions you are offering. However, you don’t want to spend valuable time going through applications, narrowing down the shortlist of candidates, or arranging and attending each interview. Even though you might have an in-house HR expert, hiring new staff still isn’t a job for one person, especially with pending day-to-day tasks that need to be completed. Outsourcing to a talent acquisition agency, or hiring a couple of freelance HR specialists is a great time-saving solution, as they do all the legwork until the final candidates are selected. Then, it is up to you to choose the ideal person for the job.
Accounting
Even though you might be tempted to take a hands-on approach to this segment of your business, you should seriously look into hiring experts in professional accounting services. Outsourcing to a bookkeeping agency or a certified professional is actually a much cheaper, time-saving and more effective way of managing your company’s assets. It allows you to systematically keep track of all transactions, giving you a complete insight into profit margins, and control over short and long-term expenditures. Having your balance sheet information on demand makes for better decision-making, as it allows you to make better budget estimates and investments, and have a better judgment when determining your company’s future path.
Payroll
According to a study, multitasking accounts for a 40% decrease in productivity, and with so many payroll regulations and tax laws, you want to minimize the margin for error as much as possible. Similar to accounting services, outsourcing your payroll duties frees up your itinerary, but also helps you avoid expensive mistakes. Improper filing and payroll entry omissions can spark tax audits, which penalize companies with hefty fines. Likewise, having the right calculations every pay-day keeps your staff satisfied. Thus, for a fraction of your budget, in the long-term, you actually save money and avoid unnecessary costs until your company grows and you can hire an in-house payroll manager.
Keep in mind, outsourcing doesn’t make these or any other internal operations disappear. Instead, you outsource to complete necessary operations and reduce expenditure, so the experts you hire should always keep you well-informed about the work they are doing for your company. By gaining this outside support to your company, you are allowing the core of your startup to focus on growing your business and taking it to the next level.
