Knowing it’s time to outsource your back office function

With increased billings and healthy profit margins many recruiters are seeing their agency’s growth plans being realised sooner than at first predicted. But as your agency grows, so will the increased responsibilities of payroll, invoicing and other back office functions which detract you from the single duty that impact your bottom line more than any other – selling.  

So how do you know when it is the right time to outsource your back office operation to an external partner? Here are some of the telltale signs 

Your business is growing quickly: Taking on a new client with lots of contract roles will certainly raise a smile on the faces of most recruitment business owners. But the bigger your business gets, the more time-consuming and complex it becomes to manage your back office on your own.

You’re still acting like a sole-trader: Your business depends on sales to grow and by continuing to do certain administration functions yourself you are eating into your primary profit-driving activity – selling – and costing your business more than what it would to outsource these things in the first place.

You’re making costly mistakes: From compliance to payroll, invoice chasing to dealing with HMRC – there are many new skills that need to be learned, but they can take time to master. Outsourcing to an external provider to look after all of this ensures your finances are kept up to date and that your business remains compliant.

You’re fire-fighting all the time: Have you noticed that the number of new business meetings you are attending have fallen in recent months, with growth (and profits) slowing also down? Chances are this is because you have started to lose focus in the core of your business and are spending more and more of your valuable time on performing various payroll, HR and compliance activities.

The office is split between consultants and accounts: Office space does not come cheap, yet if you find that half your office is made up of consultants bringing in the money and half is made up of the accounts team, have you got your priorities in order? Imagine if your entire office was made up of consultants that are earning you money not costing you money, what impact could this have on your annual profits?

The most successful business leaders always say that one of their greatest strengths is in choosing the right people to work around them – could that be you?

If you think that your agency may be in a position to consider outsourcing its back office function, please call the Simplicity team today on 01594 888518 or email sales@simplicityinbusiness.com