SLA is a common initialism that stands for “service level agreement.” Why should you know this? Because as someone who operates a business and may be looking to find professional accounting services to handle your bookkeeping, you have to find a company that offers explicitly defined SLAs. Otherwise, you could be in for a rude surprise when it comes to the delivery of top notch service. Here are a few pointers about what you should look for in SLAs offered by outsourced accounting services.
· A single bookkeeper to act as your dedicated point of contact. This one’s critical. The last thing you want is to have your account handled by a different person every day of the week. Forget security risks – think about the headache of having too many hands in the pie and not knowing who to contact on any given day. Only work with professional accounting services that spell this out as one of their primary SLAs and offer an open line of communication between yourself and your dedicated bookkeeper.
· Clear, non-ambiguous pricing structures. The best outsourced accounting services offer additional perks, like the ability to use the services of a controller. Naturally, this will come at extra cost. But it’s not the additional money you should be concerned with – it’s being given the assurance that prior to billing you for additional services, you’ll be notified in advance and will be required to give your express consent.
· Support for tax filing. It’ll do you little good to hire a third party accounting service only to have to seek out yet another entity to handle your business tax filings. Look for professional accounting services that offer state and federal business tax return assistance.
Don’t expect a third party bookkeeping company to offer auditing services, though. When you outsource your accounting, that company becomes an extension of your own, and should work tirelessly on your behalf if an audit is performed by an outside firm. If you’re not fully comfortable with the ability of the accounting service to deliver handily on all counts, do yourself and your employees a favor. Keep looking. If you want a shortcut to one of the most esteemedprofessional accounting services around, visit AccountingDepartment.com.