Accounting

Unless you are a qualified accountant or a clerical whiz at balancing the books, you should outsource accounting to an accountant.

A good accountant can actually save you money, so it’s worth the investment.

In any event, doing the accounting side of things yourself can take up valuable time. There may also be a regulatory need to appoint an accountant, especially if you are operating as a limited liability company and your accounts need to be certified.

Social Media Management

If you are marketing online and using social media, this can be a massive time suck (not to mention a huge distraction). It can be easy to lose time on social media platforms, even if you initially intended to post news about your business or the latest offer.

If you are not a social media maven, it’s a good idea to outsource this if you can.

A social media manager will be aware of the algorithms of each platform and know how to tweak your message accordingly, saving you oodles of time. They can also create the content for you, including posts, videos and visuals.

Payroll

If you run a payroll, even for a few employees or just to pay yourself, outsourcing the payroll to a professional can save you time and ensure you are up to date with changes to taxation legislation, pension rules, etc.

It can be challenging to keep up with changes to financial legislation, and personal taxation and social security obligations can and do frequently change. Furthermore, there may be specific formats for how payslips are laid out in your jurisdiction, so it makes sense to outsource this relatively mundane but nevertheless important task.

Invoicing

Getting paid is great, but invoicing clients when you’ve got lots of other pressing things to do, not so much.

This can be a tedious chore, but it absolutely needs to be done if you want to get paid on time (or at all). Why spend hours compiling invoices, tracking hours or inventory and emailing clients when you could simply sign up for free invoice software and get it all done at the click of a button?

Invoice Ninja is a leading free invoicing software for small business invoicing, online payments, tracking expenses and billable tasks. It also includes attractive, professional invoice template designs you can customize with your logo and brand colors.

Try it for free here.

Website Management

If you have a website, you can outsource the day-to-day management, covering security updates, plugins, moderating blog comments, checking for bots, phishing, spam, etc.

If you have a lot of traffic to your website, this can be time-consuming and potentially costly if you do something wrong.

If you only have a one-pager or a website that doesn’t take up a lot of time or energy, then it might not be applicable, but if you doubt your tech skills, it’s safer to put this task into a ‘safe pair of hands’.

Copywriting, Editing, & Proofreading

If you have any written communications at all, you should ensure that what you put out to the general public is correct, on-brand message, and puts you in the best possible light.

If you are not a professional writer, hiring a copywriter for your marketing material and website copy makes sense.

Likewise, a good proofreader will save you time and potentially costly errors. Even professional writers often employ proofreaders.

Blogging & SEO

Blogging and the related SEO and research can be incredibly time-consuming.

However, it’s a really great way to market your business and get your ideal clients to find you by optimizing your content and answering their most pressing problems with your educational and informative blog posts.

Outsourcing this task to a professional can save you lots of time and, when done right, over time, can actually make you money.

In short, it’s another string to your client acquisition strategy bow.

VA Admin Support

For general admin support, consider hiring a Virtual Assistant (VA), as they can be worth their weight in gold. A VA can be hired for pretty much any admin task, and some specialize in specific areas.

A VA can be hired to help manage and schedule your calendar (helpful if you have lots of sales meetings and calls), email inbox management, transcription, translations, and much more.

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The above are just some areas you might want to consider outsourcing. Naturally, what you decide to delegate, outsource or automate will depend on your specific business, areas of expertise and budget, but we hope this has provided you with some decent food for thought.