An Outsourced Financial Controller

Over many years of our interaction with Clients, we have noticed that the outsourcing of accounting services is known to most businesses, even though it was not the case a dozen or so years ago. In addition, more and more individuals in charge of businesses intuitively understand whether this kind of service will work in their organisation. As for the outsourcing of financial controlling services, we are still at the beginning of the road, which means that enterprises are not aware that such a service can also be successfully entrusted to a third party. Of course, it will not be an ideal solution for every organisation, and, based on our experience, we are able to indicate where outsourced financial controlling will work best:

• Businesses that regularly analyse their financial data and budgets, for their own use or for group purposes. If accounting data are used only to pay taxes, the outsourcing service does not make much sense.
• Businesses in which controlling requires the employment of 1 controller at most, and there is a belief in the organisation that he or she does not have enough tasks for the entire working month. This is one of the model examples where outsourcing will work because:
  • we minimise the risk of employing someone with inadequate competences;
  • we optimise the use of such a person – we do not have to hire an individual needed for only a few days per month and bear the costs of his or her idle time;
  • we have a scalable solution: when more hands are needed, we can temporarily increase the number of hours available in a flexible way;
  • we are not dependent on a single person’s holiday leaves, sick leaves, etc., which are natural of course but, on the other hand, make it difficult to manage the process;
  • we do not have to manage another person or plan their training, career paths, awards, etc.; we have a professional and readily available service;
  • we gain access to multiple specialists and we can draw from their experience;
  • we gain access to the knowledge of the organisation and its resources, and thus we can take advantage of its experience in the implementation or streamlining of various controlling models and controlling systems. We can confront our expectations with practical examples derived from decades of experience – which, by trial and error, would take years for one business and a single person.
• Businesses where the controlling department consists of a maximum of 2-3 people; most of the arguments presented above are also true for such a structure, and it is worth considering whether to build this department within the structures inside the organisation.

In the case of larger controlling departments, due to the likely number of specific issues and tasks within a given organisation, as well as risks being mitigated by its scale, the discussion on the outsourcing of controlling services is probably limited to the issue of cost optimisation.

As part of the outsourced financial controller service, the scope of activities and functions is always customised to the Client’s needs; most frequently, it includes the following:

• preparation of the budget;
• comparing the budget with the actual data;
• verification of deviations;
• consolidation of financial statements;
• reporting to a group;
• ongoing reporting.

Ask about the full range of our services

We are looking forward to working with you. Feel welcome to take advantage of the support offered by the MDDP Outsourcing experts. Our specialists in Katowice and in Warsaw will be more than happy to answer your questions and present our offer.