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- Your company takes in $100k gross a month, what is your actual operating profitability before EBITDA?
- Do you have both financial and managerial (reports you can actually understand) reporting?
- Are your company’s finances and accounting getting hard to handle?
Congratulations, these are a sign of a successful and growing business! Now you can hire certified accountants working remotely or in our facility to save time, money, and get those finances under control.
Here at Clark Staff, we believe that growing your business should be a painless process. We help find our partners the best candidates that fit both their business and culture.
Take a look at the accounting services that we regularly provide here at Clark Staff!
Clark Staff provides world-class services and staffing solutions at competitive price points. Accounting is necessary for business, you might not need an entire department when you start, but once you start to grow and your responsibilities spread out thin, you’re going to need dedicated individuals to help manage your money. At a minimum, you’d need a bookkeeper or a CPA, for larger businesses specialized accounting staff will make your life even easier.
Having remote accounting staff isn’t as intimidating as it sounds, in fact, with all the accounting software available now, there’s not much difference between remote staff and onsite staff. Communication levels go up when remote staff is involved as the primary communication method is through online channels. It might be an adjustment for you or your manager, but you will have to get comfortable with using team chat applications such as Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Skype, Slack, etc. These programs will be your primary method of communication with your remote staff. Text, voice chats, and emails are also used to communicate with your assigned account manager.
In terms of schedules, your accounting staff should be working during your business hours. Essentially you want your remote staff and your onsite accountant(s) to be working together, if you have a custom work schedule in mind, make sure that the schedules at least overlap. Live communication and collaboration yield better results with remote staff.
In terms of training, there are a couple of positions where special training related to region-specific laws and regulations is required but for the most part, you’re hiring experienced professionals. The tools you use should be requirements to get the job so you won’t need to train those unless you decide to hire someone without experience.
In terms of management, you won’t have to worry about the administrative side of things. Our highly trained and experienced account managers, along with our HR staff will handle that. On occasion, they will ask you permission for certain clearances, such as time off, emergency leaves, things of that nature. You or whoever you delegate as the manager will get to focus on all of the operational items. You will get regular updates regarding your staff so you will always know how your staff is progressing.
Accounts Payable
Accounts payable specialists come with a wide range of experience. The types of applicants you’ll see will vary depending on factors such as salary, shift time, expertise needed, etc. All of the candidates will have a bachelor’s degree in accounting. A large majority of them will have 1+ years of experience as accounts payable specialists, meaning they can control expenses and complete payments while keeping a record. There will be a split between people who have worked in local firms and those who have experience with remote work. If you require specific software experience, make sure to inform us, so that we may filter out those without it.
Your specialist will function like any other accounts payable professional. The big difference is you won’t be able to see them in person and your main lines of communication are through the internet. You can use whatever means of communication you wish, but make sure to check in on your remote staff, or have your point of contact check-in with them from time to time. In the case of remote accounts payable staff, they will most likely not be interacting with anyone outside of your company.
Accounts Receivable
Accounts receivable specialists have the inverse job of A/P specialists. The experience they have will mirror accounts payable, meaning most of them will have more than 1 year of working experience. Like A/P, they will all be accounting graduates. The two types of experience you will see will be people who have experience with remote accounting jobs and those trying to get into it. If you need people with experience working in a certain country, please make sure to say so when making a list of requirements for your staff.
While operational your staff will perform like any other accounts receivable specialist. Usually, they are managed by someone on your team who’s working onsite. This is usually the head of finance or some finance manager. Whoever will manage them needs to check in from time to time, this isn’t only for work matters. Water cooler style talk helps strengthen the team by creating connections you otherwise would miss if you strictly talked about work all day.
Bookkeeping
Since bookkeepers can have a wide range of responsibilities based on where they’ve worked, the resumes will encompass a wide range of experience. Some people will have experience working as remote staff for companies all over the world, while others would only have experience working for businesses in their home country. You will see CVs/resumes with A/R and A/P experience, tax experience, and payroll. People with more experience across a multitude of disciplines tend to ask for higher salaries so be aware of that.
They can easily function remotely because of the online tools that are now available. Bookkeepers should be on the same schedule as the rest of the people doing your financials. It is imperative that they work side by side, so to speak, as their work impacts anyone in their respective department. In a similar fashion to A/P and A/R remote staff, these bookkeepers will be managed by a finance manager in combination with one of our account managers and supporting HR staff.
Collections
Collections specialists function as a bridge between creditors and consumers. The people applying to this role usually have prior experience working in a remote setup. Your applicants for this job will have various levels of education, from those without degrees but with the experience to make them candidates and those with degrees in various fields. Barring the fresh graduates who might apply, everyone applying to the job will have a minimum of 1 year of working experience as a collections specialist. This is of course unless you ask for higher requirements. Do note creating higher requirements will make the search more difficult.
This task can easily be done online and with a dialer. Since they are the line between creditors and customers, they just need to be able to work with people. In terms of coordination, they use auto-dialers to communicate with the customers and whatever method of your choosing to coordinate with your team. Having something like a text chat and a shared Excel or Google Sheet is enough for your staff to be on the same page.
External Auditing
Having programs that allow for all of a company’s financials to be shared easily over the internet allows remote external auditors to exist. All of the applicants applying will have accounting degrees. A majority of them will have working experience as an external auditor while others are trying to get their first job doing it. Depending on your requirements, these people will be filtered down to just the ones with the skills you need.
Reviewing the financial data of a company is easily done with the use of updated financial software. They will have all the information needed to find errors, signs of fraud, perform the audit, and create a report. All of this information can be sent digitally, which in turn makes communication easier as any problems can instantly be shared without the need to be in the same room.
General Accounting
Education-wise, you’re looking at either bachelor’s or master’s degrees in accounting. The people that will make it through our screening process will all have the years of experience you require for the staff, if none are specified, the minimum amount of general accounting experience we will present is 1 year. All candidates will have a strong understanding of accounting as well as great communication skills, as they will need to present financial findings to non-accounting professionals.
Having a general accountant work from a remote location wouldn’t be difficult with all the tools available today. They can look through all necessary records online as well as send and present their findings to their clients in a fast and secure manner. Reaching your general accountant wouldn’t be hard either as you determine what channels they need to be active on. For example, you could state that they need to check their Microsoft Teams chat habitually as you will be updating their daily tasks there.
Internal Auditing
Internal auditors will have an accounting degree or hold a degree in a related field. They would have taken some accounting courses as well, which is a requirement for the position. All the candidates given to you on a shortlist will have working experience. They will all have experience doing fraud audits. While these people might not be CPAs they are professionals as they have to look at everything objectively. Aside from being trustworthy, they will also have strong problem-solving skills and the ability to work with a team or independently.
Hiring someone to objectively assess and consult on ways to better the company in terms of financial accuracy, compliance, and processes might seem daunting without someone being physically in the room. With the amount of video or teleconference applications out nowadays they can still collaborate with everyone, they need to. As interviews will need to be conducted, coordination is important when setting up the schedule. Documents can be shared securely so there is no worry of security breaches. The working hours of internal auditors are chosen based on when they would need to meet with people.
Payroll and Benefits
Payroll and benefits specialists have an integral role in every company and are indispensable. The candidates presented to you will have proven experience in both payroll processing and administration, as well as knowledge in HR practices and benefits administration. If specific software experience is required, make sure to inform us so we can narrow down our search parameters to find you the right person for the job. There will be two main types of people presented to you, those with remote staffing experience and those without. Those with remote staffing experience are more likely to have experience with working in different countries which may or may not benefit you.
Although having payroll and benefits in a location other than your office doesn’t seem like it would work, with the communication and payroll software available, doing things virtually is as easy as it was in person. For those who forgo payroll software due to its expense, many payroll officers have experience using spreadsheets. Training for this position is needed as your payroll structure and benefits might differ where you are. Even if you hire a candidate who has worked in the same country as you, their previous client’s benefits might not be the same. All that being said, the training process will be easy as whoever you hire will have experience working with benefits.
Tax Preparation
All of the candidates sent to you for review will have prior work experience as tax accountants/tax preparers unless you open up your job offer to everyone. In terms of schooling, almost all of the candidates that will be sent to you will have bachelor’s degrees in accounting. If you do open up the job requisition for fresh graduates, we recommend they be given a test to see if they have the knowledge and skills you need to perform the job properly. If your company uses specific software and does not want to train remote staff how to use it, please indicate that you’re looking for someone who specifically has experience with it.
In terms of working remotely, tax accountants can do the job from anywhere. Like all the other accounting positions, technology has made communication vastly easier than before. The accounting software available to everyone now makes it easy to share information, even a google spreadsheet has enough features to do the job. Training will almost always be mandatory as tax is different in many countries, in the US for example, it’s different depending on what state and county you’re in. There are also seasonal positions for this job, the busiest time for these seasonal jobs is tax season.