Accounting firms are increasingly hiring freelancers to meet work demands rather than full-time employees. What makes this growing segment of the workforce so appealing?
Skills and expertise
Because freelancing offers freedom and flexibility, many people are turning to it as either their sole source of income or additional income. Therefore, the talent pool is rapidly increasing, meaning that qualified accountants from various fields are using their significant knowledge and expertise in freelancing roles.
Cost effectiveness
When firms hire full-time employees, they are responsible for providing benefits (holidays, sick pay etc.) Freelancers are free agents, not part of any firm's permanent staff, so the employer does not need to provide freelance workers with any benefits.
When freelancers are hired, firms spend less because they only have to pay the freelancer for their services. This is one of the fundamental reasons motivating firms to look into this pool of professionals.
Project-based work
Not all projects and tasks require a full-time employee. Many projects are one-off assignments that have various start and end times throughout the year. These projects may require completely different skill sets, so hiring one person full-time to complete them just doesn't make sense. This is where freelancers shine.
clockwork
Like other service industries (IT, marketing) accounting firms are being forced to move towards a more productive, profitable and agile operating model that uses a smaller core team of full time employees supported by a team of on demand freelancers. This shift is being driven by:
- advances in technology (cloud accounting);
- staff shortages;
- changes in the type of services provided to clients; and
- advent of remote/flexible working.
clockwork is the world’s first freelance platform dedicated to the accounting industry. Driven by our own freelance management software, clockwork allows accounting firms to:
- hire qualified accounting professionals on a project by project basis;
- manage workflow for each project;
- set individual tasks for each project;
- see the progress of each project;
- build a team of freelancers;
- directly contact their freelancers; and
- securely transfer documents
Find out what clockwork can do for your business at clockworkaccounts.com.
(This article is sponsored by clockwork.)