Accounting & Bookkeeping & Small Business Forum

[coldcash57]

Couldn't find this topic covered in the archives.
Don't know which forum I should post it to, may be all of them, but won't.

Can we keep bookkeeping from being offshored to places like India? I've already seen companies advertising rates like $6.95 per hour for bookkeeping services.
I also heard a horror story theother day of a lady that was into legal research. Her two employees quit her, took her client list, set themselves up in offshoring legal research, and as a result the business owner lost 2/3 of her clientele because they were able to cut their prices by 2/3 and send it to India.

With Universal set up to be a business that helps ME get in business, I don't want to wake up and find out I have trained to do a job that I have to compete with people in Bangalore.

Sorry about the rant. But, how much do you think the bookkeeping industry will be affected?

Thanks in advance.

Marc

[stasia2003]

coldcash57 wrote: Couldn't find this topic covered in the archives.
Don't know which forum I should post it to, may be all of them, but won't.

Can we keep bookkeeping from being offshored to places like India? I've already seen companies advertising rates like $6.95 per hour for bookkeeping services.
I also heard a horror story theother day of a lady that was into legal research. Her two employees quit her, took her client list, set themselves up in offshoring legal research, and as a result the business owner lost 2/3 of her clientele because they were able to cut their prices by 2/3 and send it to India.

With Universal set up to be a business that helps ME get in business, I don't want to wake up and find out I have trained to do a job that I have to compete with people in Bangalore.

Sorry about the rant. But, how much do you think the bookkeeping industry will be affected?

Thanks in advance.

Marc

I understand your frustration. I do virtual bookkeeping as well as local bookkeeping and the virtual bookkeeping can be frustrating. I do manage to get jobs but it requires patience and writing strong job proposals. You are going up against others who are offering those services for $6.95 or less per hour. Now, the business owners who don't care too much for quality do pick these overseas companies. But the businesses that care about being on US Time Zone office hours and high quality service, don't mind paying US rates for a good job.

I don't know if Do Not Compete Clauses are valid outside of the US, but that lady you were talking about should have had her employees sign one. That way, she maybe could have sued them for libel. Not sure how successful she would have been at it, but you gave me an idea. When I am ready to hire additional help, I would consult an attorney and have him draw up a DNC clause.

Don't give up. Just keep plugging away at it.

[Richard Noot]

stasia2003 wrote: coldcash57 wrote: Couldn't find this topic covered in the archives.
Don't know which forum I should post it to, may be all of them, but won't.

Can we keep bookkeeping from being offshored to places like India? I've already seen companies advertising rates like $6.95 per hour for bookkeeping services.
I also heard a horror story theother day of a lady that was into legal research. Her two employees quit her, took her client list, set themselves up in offshoring legal research, and as a result the business owner lost 2/3 of her clientele because they were able to cut their prices by 2/3 and send it to India.

With Universal set up to be a business that helps ME get in business, I don't want to wake up and find out I have trained to do a job that I have to compete with people in Bangalore.

Sorry about the rant. But, how much do you think the bookkeeping industry will be affected?

Thanks in advance.

Marc

I understand your frustration. I do virtual bookkeeping as well as local bookkeeping and the virtual bookkeeping can be frustrating. I do manage to get jobs but it requires patience and writing strong job proposals. You are going up against others who are offering those services for $6.95 or less per hour. Now, the business owners who don't care too much for quality do pick these overseas companies. But the businesses that care about being on US Time Zone office hours and high quality service, don't mind paying US rates for a good job.

I don't know if Do Not Compete Clauses are valid outside of the US, but that lady you were talking about should have had her employees sign one. That way, she maybe could have sued them for libel. Not sure how successful she would have been at it, but you gave me an idea. When I am ready to hire additional help, I would consult an attorney and have him draw up a DNC clause.

Don't give up. Just keep plugging away at it.


Personally I would save my money. Non compete agreements are not worth the paper they are printed on. They accomplish only in making a profit for attorneys who write them up. However the theft of an employers asset as in this case is an entirely different story. I am of course assuming they were stolen and not transferred willingly.

[Ingmar]

What I am about to write, is based on my experience working as an asistent-accountant in The Netherlands, Europe. There we had the same problem, competing against virtual bookkeeping.
The DNC story would not have any effect there, since legally only a certain amount of miles could be set as perimeter in which such would have an effect. The perimeter there is based on the average distance the clients are away from the main office, and then adding a mathmetical formula to that distance. At least I believe it was done that way.
A country like India exceeds the reach of the DNC this way by far, and therefore would not be broken by the "virtual bookkeeper". These companies often reside in foreign countries, and therefore have to answer to a different law. The former employee that might have been guilty of breaking the DNC, will be very difficult to take down in court I am afraid.

The most valuable competing tool that we have against virtual bookkeeping, is our knowledge of the way things are done here, and the experience in problem solving we have. Competing in price is not an option, so we will have to do it on expertise.

[David]

Suggestion:

I have done this for my personal practice and for UAC:

I acquire clients.
I outsource the bookkeeping to local bookkeepers.
I pick up the work, give it to bookkeepers, pick up the files, deliver it to outsourced bookkeeper, they do the work, I check and edit the work and then I take the resulting work and reports to the client.
I bill the clients and pay the outsourced bookkeeper.

Key to this is that I have all of the client contact, no one can steal the client because the client only knows me or main staff.

[stasia2003]

David wrote: Suggestion:

I have done this for my personal practice and for UAC:

I acquire clients.
I outsource the bookkeeping to local bookkeepers.
I pick up the work, give it to bookkeepers, pick up the files, deliver it to outsourced bookkeeper, they do the work, I check and edit the work and then I take the resulting work and reports to the client.
I bill the clients and pay the outsourced bookkeeper.

Key to this is that I have all of the client contact, no one can steal the client because the client only knows me or main staff.

So what do you do with regards to QuickBooks? On the QuickBooks company file, the company information is in that file. Do you use only client numbers for the files or something like that? If your bookkeeper has access to that company info, they can still find out who the client is.

[David]

Stasia2003,

I am not trying to hide who the client is. The point is that the client knows only me, sees me, meets with me, trusts me and pays me. For the data entry person to call the client and say "Hi, you don't know me but I do the data entry and I can do a better job than so and so can even though you meet with them and they coach and advise you, I want you to leave them and come with me as your bookkeeper" won't work. I think they woudl have quite the sales job to get someone to leave you.

Personally if someone I outsource my clients to ever steals a client from me I cut them off and give all of the work to another person.

Remember that I pick work from the client and give it to them. I still have control over that info.