Like all CPA firms would do, this firm too started their journey with offshore staffing with a lot of caution. They were skeptical about it. But now, three years later they have their feedback to share in the community.
Our clientele includes several CPA firms from California. Although this is a story of just one of our client firms, but as we revisit this (success) story, it keeps coming to us that there is at least one thing common between this firm and dozens and dozens of others, that is, all of them were not sure whether they want to add offshore staff to their team. They were very skeptical and fearful to say the least.
When we first got in touch with this firm* it took us several meetings and calls to help them understand the process, working, benefits and several other questions. Honestly, it was nothing to get us unnerved. In fact, it’s just as common to us as to sending emails everyday.
Most accountants start their journey on the note of cautiousness or apprehension. We can understand the dilemma they were having prior to working with us, as this was the first time they were trying something like offshore staffing.
So, three years ago before they started, the first thing they asked for was a virtual tour of the facility, etc, subsequently an interview and then a couple of other common questions. Gladly, at least they decided to give it a shot and hired their first offshore staff with Entigrity in Jan 2018.
They started with 3 tax pros. Then they quickly grew to about 6-7 staff for tax work and 3 bookkeepers. Now they have an entire full-time team over here and they were really satisfied with the services. Recently they were approached by another CPA firm who was as curious as they themselves were three years ago and the owner was kind enough to write a long email in reply to explain everything.
Here are excerpts from the email response:
Feedback
On work & staff quality
“The quality of the work is above-average to excellent. Their attitudes are simply amazing! No complaints, no arguing, no excuses. They simply want to turn out great work and keep us happy.The back-end support is fantastic (thanks Mukund).”
On data & information security
“They have water tight IT security systems and protocols in place”
"There was one security breach and it was quickly dealt with (on both sides). No harm done. It just freaked everybody out a bit. It was a warning shot to make sure everyone has water-tight IT security systems and protocols in place. We are not sure where it originated, but the timing was coincidental.”
Time Zone Advantage
“Our office is now “open” 24 hours a day. Meaning, our remote staff gets to work about 11:00 pm our time and wraps up about 10:00 our time. So, we can assign work at the end of the day and it is “magically” completed by the time we wake up.”
Experience
“Skype calls are the key to interview your staff and get them trained. Once they ramp up, the calls drop way off. When we speak to our teams now, it is really only just to say hi and talk to them personally. They really do feel like family. We genuinely care for them and their families. Most coaching is now by email.”
Advice
“When interviewing our remote staff, mastery of the English language is key for us. Our remote staff do not speak to our clients (but they do email them every day), but our local office needs to be able to speak to them and understand them easily. We look for skill level first, then English proficiency second. We have passed on some highly-skilled workers who we could not understand. That was a shame. But the team we have now is great and most candidates speak English fairly well.”
Team Culture
“The Indian culture and remote staff is very Westernized. This was a pleasant surprise. They are all very aware of what is happening over here in the US, on top of social trends, etc. We all watch Netflix shows at the same time, etc. and talk about that.”
“They all have a GREAT sense of humor. Another very pleasant surprise. That makes it even more fun. We laugh a lot.”
“Our Accounting is owned by me and my wife. She heads up our tax division. She handles all the onboarding and training of the tax pros, the majority of which are males. We expected some issues from the men taking orders from a woman. That never happened!!! The level of respect and professionalism is simply outstanding. Besides the skill level, that was the factor that put my wife over the top and made her a true believer.”
Caution
“We have invested tons of our own time training our remote staff to help them be better at their jobs. We also have systems and protocols for them to follow. All tools are in the cloud. This is one reason we have them all full-time. We do not want to see all of our hard work and training benefit some other company who might hire them away from us”.
As you must have read the email, it was not just everything sugar coated. No words were minced when it came to highlighting the parts of concerns.
They do not want to see all of our hard work and training benefit to some other company who might hire them away from us, if they are on part-time contracts. This happened once already and they were quite upset about it.
They only interviewed one (high-end) remote candidate who was not a great fit. He ended up taking a job with another firm but they were not going to offer the position to him anyway. But to be fair, he was simply an ass to everyone. He acted like he was from Jersey (too cool for school, gold chains, rings on every finger, no eye contact, etc.). It was very out of place, but kind of funny.
Transformation
“For us, it has completely changed our business model. We keep about 7 full-timers now with both tax and bookkeeping team leaders. The quality of work, responsiveness, attitudes, etc. are all quite impressive. Plus, it brought back so much balance for our office and restructured the workload of our local staff. We still have 8 of us here full-time. We can now work 9-10 hour days instead of 12-14 at reduced stress levels.”
They loved our services, and have even left us a 5 star review on Google. Here it is:
Just like this firm, it’s mostly about setting the wheel to roll once and get offshore staffing embedded into your systems. Every month 30 new accounting firms select Entigrity to hire offshore staff and build an offshore team of skilled and experienced professionals.
Note: *For the sake of confidentiality we have hidden the name; however if you would like to have reference of the said firm, feel free to reach to us on patrick@entigrity.com
Entigrity™ is a trusted offshore staffing partner to over 500+ accountants, CPAs and tax firms across the US and Canada. Our flexible and transparent hiring model gives helps firms of all sizes to hire staff for accounting, bookkeeping, tax preparation or any other task for 75% less cost. As a firm 'run by accountants, for the accountants', Entigrity captures the hiring needs of accounting firms most precisely, providing staff that works directly under your control and management, still you are left with least to worry about compliance, payroll taxes, overheads or any other benefits.
About The Author
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Christopher Rivera
Christopher Rivera, Chris serves as a Director of Client Relations and Business Development at Entigrity. He is an expert at leading and managing teams actively from the front. His expertise in sales, training, coaching, mentoring and influencing combined with his competitive nature makes him a strong leader. Chris has traveled through the length and width of the country and has spoken with more than five thousand CPAs, understanding their challenges and limitations. On the grounds of that, he can now easily provide opinions and solutions that can be immensely helpful to the professionals. He has also represented Entigrity at a number of major accounting conferences and networking events.
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