Debora M

Let's look at 9 such business activities you can easily outsource and make more time for yourself to focus on growing your business.1) Outsource Accounting & BookkeepingBookkeeping is like your morning exercise – no one wants to take the time out to do it but neglecting it can cause serious problems over the period of time. You always have an option to hire a dedicated person to take care of day to day accounting & bookkeeping activities but nowadays it has become practical for businesses to outsource their bookkeeping activities.
Lets first understand what is bookkeeping. According to Wikipedia, bookkeeping is an act of keeping records of all financial transactions in a systematic way. This includes recording purchases, sales, receipts and payments transactions.
There are a lot of benefits of outsourcing your bookkeeping activity. You can save time and focus more on your business, you will also save money as account outsourcing is cheaper than hiring a full-time accountant, you will have access to professionals who will ensure the accuracy and much more.2) Outsource Tax Preparation & FilingThe activity of preparing tax returns is time-consuming and requires special skill sets. You’ll easily find tax consultants who can take away the tax filing burden from you. 
Tax preparation services are pretty much standardized these days and you can easily outsource VAT, Service Tax and TDS return preparation.
 3) Outsource Payroll processingIf you have a small team, you won’t have any difficulty managing payroll in-house. But once your business starts expanding beyond 10 employees, processing monthly payroll can eat up a lot of your time. Keeping track of employee leaves, joining & exit formalities, bonuses & loan advances and applicable tax deductions can soon become a nightmare for you.
If chosen correctly, payroll outsourcing can be less expensive, simpler means of paying your employees and filing your taxes on time.
 4) Outsource Your Creative workEveryone thinks they can do their own design work, and they can, but very few can do it well. Its better to leave it to the professionals. You can get quality results by outsourcing your artwork creation. This includes designing of website images, logos, business cards, letterhead, advertising banners, etc.5) Social media marketingSocial networks are no longer limited to personal communication. More and more businesses are using sites like Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin for lead generation. In fact, the popular messaging app, Whatsapp is also being used effectively by businesses extensively. Marketing on these social networks is not easy and this activity requires a considerable amount of time. For example, our job doesn’t end with posting something on social media, we have to participate in the conversation and respond to the users.
This activity can be easily outsourced to one of the social media management agencies. They will have a team of dedicated professionals who will monitor and grow your followers. You can use tools like Hootsuite that allows you to add team members and approve what they post on your company’s social profiles.
Most of the business think that social media can be managed by spending just 30-40 minutes a day or occasionally posting few messages but if you really want to reap benefits from it, you must invest time in growing the followers. Outsourcing this activity to professionals will definitely give good returns.
 6) HiringHow do you hire new people in your organisation? Most of us post a job on our website or inform friends and existing employees about the vacant positions. If we have a good network, we slowly start getting resumes. Then we start interviewing these candidates during weekends. What follows is shortlisting, background verification, salary negotiations, and more interview rounds.
You can imagine how much time hiring can consume if not done right. You can save your valuable time by outsourcing the entire hiring process. These agencies will have a database and can quickly arrange candidates with desired skills. Some of them even offer free replacement if a new hire leaves within 3 months.7) Event ManagementPlanning to host a workshop for employees? or a team outing? or maybe a get-together party for vendors? It's better to outsource entire event management activities to an agency.
Right from planning to execution, event management can take a lot of time. If not outsourced, you will be forced to involve your employees and that will affect productivity. A good event management company can take away the entire pain and have good connections with technicians, sound providers, food caterers, and other vendors.
So the next time you think of hosting an event, consider outsourcing it and save some valuable time.8) Anything you don’t enjoyApart from my other duties at ProfitBooks, I make it a point to write this blog because I love writing. But there are a few tasks I just hate doing, for example, preparing monthly MIS. I’m sure you must be enjoying doing certain activities more as compared to other less interesting but important activities.
Doing things we don’t enjoy drain us and adversely affect our productivity. We tend to postpone such activities and normally, it takes longer to complete those activities. It's better to outsource such tasks to professionals who are good at it.
 9) Skills you don’t haveMost of entrepreneurs start their business which revolves around their primary skills. I started Profit Books because I came from an IT background. Similarly, you will most likely work in the industry you are comfortable with and which you have some knowledge about. But sooner or later you’ll realize that an entrepreneur has to wear many hats. He has to get into marketing, sales and almost every other department of the company.
I was not good at sales when we started, simply because I never got a formal education in sales. Most entrepreneurs face a similar issue and they force themselves into doing the things they don’t have an idea about. In such cases, it's wise to outsource the skills you don’t have.
For example, if you don’t know how to design a website, don’t waste your time learning it. Better, find some professionals and get it done.