- Cost Comparison
The real cost stays hidden until offshore staffing arrives
Three offshore engagements broke. Skill was never the reason.
Accounting Today reported on CPA firms that tried offshoring once, called it a failure, and closed the category. The people were competent. The scopes were not. Those same firms make bad domestic hires every year and do not close domestic hiring. They adjust and go again. Three of the engagements in that piece broke in ways that have nothing to do with where anybody was sitting.
Experience in the wrong half
Accounting Today reported that one firm signed a couple of senior tax associates. The provider had promised experienced people who could start quickly. They turned out to have been mainly preparers, with very limited experience reviewing individual returns. A second firm expected its offshore manager to review complex returns. Accounting Today reported that the manager had significant experience with individual and business returns and very little with trust returns. The gap surfaced close to e-filing deadlines.
The providers oversold. Both firms have a real complaint about that. Experienced was the word used, and experienced people were assigned. A preparer with five years is experienced. Just not at reviewing. Neither deal contained a sentence describing a correct finished return. Neither named who signs it. That is the only thing separating the two jobs. A seniority label is a price band. It is not a description of work.
Forty hours, twenty worked
Accounting Today reported a third firm that committed to 40 hours a week from a single offshore resource. It averaged under 20 for an entire month. The US team assumed the provider tracked utilization. The provider assumed the US team did, since the model was staff augmentation. Two owners, which is none. That commitment sat in a contract for a month without once being cross-examined. The number was in writing. Weekly. Free to check.
Nobody was counting.
Who the hire belongs to
Accounting Today's writer puts the asymmetry down to firms treating domestic hires as their own and offshore hires as external transactional resources. That reads right to me. It shows up in the paperwork long before it shows up in the work. Offshore staffing gets one trial. Domestic hiring gets unlimited retries after identical mistakes. Sign a scope that names a seniority band, a headcount and an hours commitment, and you have described a purchase. Not a job.
The legal version costs more than a late filing. Legal process outsourcing changes the cost of producing work. It does not change the cost of reviewing it. A scope that buys production and leaves review unnamed has bought half a job at full price. Both tax firms were buying review. Neither of them wrote the word down.
Take the word offshore out of all three stories. Nothing changes.
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