Guest Contribution by Claire Jane Ward.
Software as a service (SaaS) is one of the most significant segments of the cloud market. Revenue in this industry is expected to reach 45 percent of total application spending in 2021. SaaS is expected to reach over $100 billion per year, so investing in one is essential for your business.
The rising demand for SaaS solutions is no different for accountants and CPAs. As competition is increasing though, many of these companies are saturating the market. It’s difficult to know where to look when IPOs have more than doubled in the past 12 years. As the industry matches, companies need to achieve product-market fit fast if they want to survive.
Here are some reasons you should outsource your accounting to SaaS startups.
1. Outsourcing to Startups Lowers Your Startup Costs
It’s common for SaaS companies to launch with limited budget and resources. This makes their minimum viable product (MVP) more difficult to produce without any help from outside sources. By working with a development firm, you can create an MVP without spending your entire budget. This also means you can create a better product with more features.
In the case of accounting software, you can ask for more features when the SaaS company is helping with some of the costs. If you wanted to make a web app for doing taxes on the go, testing the MVP as quickly as possible is now available to you. The SaaS company you’re outsourcing to can then roll out a prototype without significant financial risk to you. Slack did this when they started development. This risk clearly paid off as Slack now has millions of users and is now worth over 7.1 billion.
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2. Adds Experience and Efficiency to Your Development Process
Recruiting in-house developers is an often expensive and slow process. Not only this but finding a great team that works well together can be a massive headache. Outsourcing to companies that already have an excellent corporate culture filled with talent can save a lot of time.
The right team that has already worked on similar SaaS projects can also give you helpful advice if you’re looking to do anymore in the future. Search for accounting SaaS companies that have already worked on the software you’re interested in making. This expert team can provide a lot of guidance on what kind of features will be necessary for your software.
3. You Can Quickly Meet Market Demand
The ability to scale quickly is becoming more and more critical in this fast-moving world. Software companies grow at an average rate of 20 percent a year and have a 92 percent of failure. Even if your company is performing well, and manages to grow 60 percent per year, there is still a high chance you’ll never surpass 1 billion in revenue.
Therefore, continuous updates are essential to keep your company afloat for years to come. SaaS companies have to develop new features to compete with the dozens of new people who need the app. For accounting, this could mean a larger server to house more of your customers’ information. Outsourcing will give you the peace of mind that your project is moving fast enough.
4. Affordable Talent is in Reach
Being an accountant probably means you don’t know how to make your own apps, software, or websites – and that’s okay. That’s why you pay people to do it for you. SaaS team members are available to handle a multitude of tasks including, data management and automation.
If you had your own team, constant development cycles might stretch your employees too thin. This can affect the morale of the workplace as well as the product being produced. Outsourcing will ensure that key roles in the operation are filled with the best talent.
Outsourcing a team also means you can build more features, more services, and at a lower hourly rate. U.S. developers can average from $80 to $150 an hour, while overseas developers range from $40 to $70. It’s always better to get homegrown talent if possible.
As the industry continues to grow, it’s becoming more common to outsource development to another company. As an accountant, you’ll need some sort of software to make your business look more legitimate easier. SaaS companies will allow you to focus on the individual customers, while they take care of their app, website, or software needs.
