Is your company ready to expand manufacturing operations? If so, you need a back office that’s scalable and efficient to keep up with growth.
If your back office can’t keep pace with your front-end production, your manufacturing growth strategy may not reach its full potential. That said, building out your back office can be costly, tedious, and downright frustrating.
The good news is you don’t have to tackle your back office challenges solo. Instead, you can use back office business process outsourcing (BPO) services to remove the friction from your office functions.
Not sure whether back office BPO services are a good fit for your manufacturing company? Let’s look at some surefire signs it’s time to outsource.
5 Signs That An Unruly Back Office is Derailing Growth
Outsourcing your back office is a major decision, one that will impact the trajectory of your company for years to come. With so much at stake, it’s vital that you get this decision right.
That said, you may be hesitant to outsource. After all, you prefer to manage all your business operations under one roof. That’s how you got your business where it is today, and you should be able to use the same approach to continue growing, right? Not necessarily.
If your back office is not prepared, it could actually undermine your current and future growth efforts. Here are five clear signs that you should utilize back office BPO services.
1. Your Software Costs Are Mounting
Licensing and maintaining one software platform is relatively inexpensive. But when you’re using a mix of applications, your software costs can be significant. Despite mounting software costs, you still don’t have the tools you need to manage your back office efficiently.
Sound familiar? If so, you should strongly consider outsourcing.
A good BPO services provider won’t just streamline your back office. They’ll also introduce new tech that slashes your software costs by reducing the number of licenses you need.
2. Financial Visibility Is Poor
Can you access real-time business insights whenever you need them, or does preparing reports and consolidating data take days or even weeks? When your back office is not organized, financial visibility is virtually nonexistent. You can’t effectively monitor the health of your business or maximize profits.
Getting your back office in order will shed light on your company’s financial performance. You can use these insights to identify sources of waste and pursue growth opportunities. More importantly, you can protect business continuity and optimize revenue.
3. You Need More Staff Right Away
If your back office staff can’t keep up with their current workload, your natural inclination may be to hire more people. There are a few challenges with this approach.
First, sourcing talent isn’t easy. Finding a single new hire can take weeks. Even if you vet them, there are no guarantees they’ll be a good fit for your company. And a bad hire can cause friction amongst your already overwhelmed team and cost you thousands in onboarding costs.
Even if you find the right person for the job, you’ll incur significant ongoing costs. Between benefits and salary expenses, adding even one position to your back office can be burdensome.
Outsourcing offers clear advantages, as you can access scalable support at a fraction of the cost of hiring in-house personnel. From our experience, it’s proven to be a more cost-effective approach for manufacturing companies.
4. Your Current Tools Don’t Facilitate Process Automation
Managing back office processes manually is inefficient. Even worse, manual work leaves the door open for costly data entry errors. To increase efficiency and prevent mistakes, you need to automate redundant back office functions.
There’s just one problem: your current tools may not have the capabilities to facilitate process automation. Sure, you could upgrade your tech, but who’s going to put those new tech tools to use?
A BPO services provider can help you implement new software and put those tools to work for your business. A partner like Finlyte can combine back office expertise with leading-edge solutions to modernize your mission-critical functions like accounting and HR.
5. Reporting is Fragmented
Preparing reports should take minutes, not days. However, if your back office team is overwhelmed with day-to-day tasks, the process of creating periodic reports could be very difficult to prepare.
Fragmented, incomplete, or hastily-prepared reports can lead to misguided decision-making. In manufacturing, one wrong move can cause stockouts, overproduction, and costly waste.
A great back office BPO services provider can modernize your reporting processes. They can provide the visibility you need to measure business performance, identify growth opportunities, and optimize the customer experience.
Rein in Your Back Office With Finlyte BPO Services
As an award-winning back office BPO services provider, Finlyte offers scalable back office support for manufacturing businesses. We can become your back office or augment the capabilities of your existing team.
The back office functions we can assist with include the following.
Accounting
Our accounting services bundle addresses essential functions like:
- AP processing
- Entering bills
- Approval and payment of insurance bills
- Processing yearly 1099s
- Monthly bank reconciliation
- Sales tax reporting
- Cash flow reporting
The Finlyte team can provide the financial visibility your team needs to grow. From documenting cash flow to reconciling monthly statements, Finlyte takes the hassle out of manufacturing accounting.
Human Resources
HR tasks don’t have to be a source of constant frustration. The Finlyte team can handle complex HR functions, including:
- Employee benefits
- Filing unemployment responses
- Recording garnishments
- Worker’s comp
- Allocation of benefits across locations
Finlyte’s collaborative team can integrate with your existing HR department. Alternatively, we can take over all essential HR tasks so you can downsize your back office and reduce costs.
Payroll
Processing payroll can be tedious and frustrating. With Finlyte, you can manage your payroll with ease. Whether you have 100 employees or 10,000, Finlyte has the technologies and resources necessary to oversee payrolling tasks like:
- Per-location payroll processing
- Booking applicable payroll each pay period
- Reconciliation of payroll to ensure that deductions and benefits match
- Expense reporting
Optimizing payroll visibility with Finlyte can help protect cash flow and guarantee that you have adequate business liquidity. Our outsourced services can also reduce your payrolling costs and expedite reporting processes.
Chief Financial Officer (CFO)
A chief financial officer will be instrumental in growing your manufacturing business. However, we understand that not all businesses need to bring in a full-time CFO.
With Finlyte, you can access CFO expertise without incurring chief financial officer expenses. Our outsourced CFO services are available on an as-needed basis, giving you access to the insights you need when you need them.
Finlyte’s CFO team can assist with the following critical functions:
- Economic forecasting
- Oversight of capital structure
- Partnership accounting and reporting
- Guidance on entity structure
- Developing business plans to raise capital
Whether you need a CFO, HR, accounting, or payrolling support, Finlyte is up to the task. Each set of services is available in separate bundles. This gives you the freedom to access only the services you need.
Ready to Outsource? Let’s Discuss Back Office BPO Services
Now is the time to tap into the benefits of back office BPO services for manufacturers. Finlyte offers a wide range of back office services that can be tailored to meet your unique needs. From HR to accounts payable, we’ll handle it all so you can focus on pursuing growth.
To learn more, schedule a consultation with Finlyte today. Our team is eager to help your manufacturing business continue to grow.
