In the present changing workplace environment, it has been founded that working remotely has many benefits. It has been seen that remote working has reduced the stress level of employees while increasing their efficiency. Moreover, the easy availability of technology has made remote working possible easily.
Various companies are today adopting the remote working culture and accounting companies are one of the prominent ones to prepare their staff for remote working. Remote staffing for accounting firms have numerous benefits such as –
- Improved employee retention rate
- Around the clock services
- Enhanced communication
- Effective implementation of business strategies
- Elevated turn out time
- Better performance and productivity, etc.,
How to Prepare your Staff for Remote Working?
Remote staffing for CPA firms is a highly beneficial and cost-effective solution. But, the successful implementation of the remote work setup depends upon the preparedness of your workforce. If your team isn’t fully prepared to work remotely or don’t have adequate knowledge to run operations remotely, then you won’t be able to create an effective remote working culture to drive its benefits.
CapActix is one of the leading remote staffing companies in the accounting field, thus we always provide proper training and infrastructure to train our staff to work remotely. If you are just starting to set up a remote accounting team, then you have to consider a couple of essential factors before entering into the new work structure.
1. Prepare Communication Guidelines
To preserve the productivity and efficiency of your remote staff, you have to strategically plan communication guidelines. In remote setup, employees aren’t working in the parallel cubicles, thus they can’t freely communicate with one another. As we all know that effective communication set up is the key to success, you have to lay down some basic communication guidelines such as –
- Fix a time to have group meeting daily or weekly
- Introduce all the essential communication tools and virtual conference rooms to your team such as Skype, Zoom, Slack, etc.,
- Use analytical tools like Microsoft Workplace Analytics to gain insight into the productivity and efficiency of employees.
- Use different mediums of communication like video call, instant chat, secured conference calls, etc.,
2. Introduce Remote Accounting Software
For remote staffing companies, it is highly important to befriend technology to smoothly run a remote work environment. For remote accounting workers, using cloud-based technologies and mobile-friendly software is a must. Cloud-based software tools offer flexibility and accessibility to make the operations smoother for the accounting firms. Today, plenty of different accounting software is available that remote accounting staff can use to work efficiently. The common accounting software that you should introduce to your remote staff are –
- QuickBooks – It is cloud-based total accounting software that can organize all your accounting processes such as track sales, create invoices, evaluate business performance and so much more. QuickBooks makes the remote working simpler for the accounting teams.
- Zoho Books – It is user-friendly accounting software that helps in managing basic accounting processes such as creating and to send invoices to your clients. To keep an eye on your business expenses, it is nice remote accounting software for small and self-employed clients.
- Xero – It is a complete toolkit for remote accounting organization which comes with different plans. The promising features of Xero are – inventory management, assets management, payment integration, invoicing, bank reconciliation, bill payment, and so on.
- Other Software – Apart from the accounting software’s, remote staffing companies need to use some other Document and Project management software as well like G-Suite, Microsoft One Drive, CapDoc, Asana, Workplace by Facebook, etc.,
3. Check Remote Working Facilities
Remote staffing for CPA firms won’t be effective unless the in-house staff isn’t ready to adopt the new setup. Employees who are working from different places require proper tools and knowledge to coordinate with remote workers. That means CPA firms have to get the right cloud-based infrastructure not only for accounting but also for practice management, time tracking, and project management. Moreover, stable internet connection and other technology-based solutions like augmented and virtual reality are necessary to support the remote working facility.
Your work isn’t done after providing the technology-oriented tools to your employees as you have to also provide them with the training to efficiently use them. If employees aren’t familiar with the features of the advanced tools, then they won’t be able to use them properly and it will automatically impact their performance.
Also read 10 Ideal Ways to Appoint Remote Staffing Companies for CPA Firms in the USA
4. Organize Virtual Social Gatherings
Your remote team might be scattered all around the world, but you should try to bring your entire team virtually together occasionally. By letting your remote workers and in house workers connect occasionally for formal talk will helps in developing the relationship among your workers. So, that they can help each other at the time of need.
Organizing informal social gatherings, you can give a judgment-free environment to employees so that they can learn and brainstorm ideas. Plus, this will assure remote workers that they are a big part of the organization even if they don’t physically visit the office. This will boost the confidence of remote workers also.
Apart from virtual social gatherings, you can conduct these social gatherings if your team is stationed in one city –
One Day Office – You can create a plan where your employees have to at least attend office a day in the entire week. This way employee can catch up with all the office happenings and stay connected with their colleagues.
Host Social Events – If you have remote workers from outside the city, then you can host a special event for them occasionally. In the events, you can organize different meetup seasons, informal debates and other events to include remote works in the operations of the organization.
Management of Remote Employees
Remote staffing for accounting firms is a challenge in the initial stage. It is important for accounting firms to properly train and guide their employees to adopt the remote work culture before setting up the environment. You can’t achieve the benefits of remote working without the full cooperation of your employees. Thus, the foundation of a remote team is to train your employees and provide them with adequate technology tools.
CapActix offers remote staffing for CPA firms so that CPA firms can get rid of the challenges of hiring properly trained and competent remote employees. At, CapActix, we have fully trained our staff members to work remotely with the full competency and you can hire our remote accounting team by contacting on email – biz@capactix.com. or can call on +201-778-0509.