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aptservices
Any kind of accounting involves sharing of data with the accountant so that he can record them and then tell you how you are doing as a business.
Normally people feel comfortable in sharing data only with people whom they trust or who are under their contractual obligation to keep the data confidential. Since employees are under contractual obligation to maintain strict data confidentiality, a business owner will have the confidence in sharing financial data with an in-house accountant.
Even with the case of an outsourced accountant, a business can trust sharing of data only when it is sure that any kind of data leakage from the outsourcer can lead to litigation against the outsourcing accountant. Since people are comfortable with the legal systems prevalent with one’s own country, a business owner would be comfortable in sharing data with an outsourced accounting provider present inside his country, after entering into a legal contract with the outsourcer.
For an outsourced accounting service provider hailing from a country different from the country of the business, it therefore becomes difficult to get lot of work since businesses in one country would not entrust data to the outsourcer of another country because of different legal frameworks governing the two countries. Why shall a businessman in US spend his time trying to understand the legal framework of the outsourcer country like India/China/Philippines?
If it is difficult for a businessman to share his data with a person providing outsourced accounting then is that the end of outsourcing? The answer obviously is "no". Outsourcing can be done with such firms as are managed by Indian CAs. There are several reasons why a business in US shall opt for CA managed firm while choosing an outsourcing partner, especially if data security is considered as a prime factor.
a) Such firm is owned and managed by a group of Chartered Accountants (Indian CPAs). As Chartered Accountants, they are governed by the strict ethical measures of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India. And one of the prime ethic considerations is concerned with data security. In fact, per the ICAI, any leakage of client’s data from a Chartered Accountant’s office will be treated as Professional Misconduct which can result in the Chartered Accountant to lose his license to practice in India. Thus, a US business can trust such a firm just as it can trust any CPA firm in US with its data.
b)Because of the strict ethical principles laid down by ICAI, such outsourcing firm in India goes that extra mile to ensure that there is no possibility whatsoever for any compromise in data confidentiality. Some of the measures taken by APT for ensuring data confidentiality are:
i. Entry of any unauthorized person into the office is strictly prohibited by use of secure access cards.
ii. In such firm, use of dual monitor systems is encouraged that ensure a paperless environment.
iii. None of the employees’ system is connected to the printer.
iv. Limited Internet access is given to employees on need basis and to ensure stricter compliance with data security, trackers have been installed on each system.
v. Individual domain accounts have been enabled on each workstation to ensure that the data is shared only within a closed group of employees who are working on the data.
vi. No access on the workstations for any external drives like CD drives, floppy disk, USB port etc.
vii. Each employee is recruited after a thorough background check is done and a clean record is obtained.
viii. Employees sign non-disclosure agreement with the firm to ensure that the employees remain liable for their actions.
In such firm in India, the belief is that the responsibility of the client’s data is entirely of the firm's the moment the client agrees to subscribe to their services. Extra precaution therefore is taken for ensuring optimum security while client's data is being transferred from client's office to the firm's office.
All the data transfer between the client’s offices to the firm's office takes place through secure servers in US hosted with IBackup in California. The technology used by IBackup is the same as used by big corporate for transferring data.
128 bit SSL encryption on transmission and 256 bit AES encryption on storage is used by such firms to ensure that the data transfer is perfectly secure. In fact, the data transmission measures through IBackup are compliant with federal mandates.
Author Resource:-
Steve is a qualified accountant (Indian CPA) and co-founder of APT Services, the fastest growing outsourced accounting service provider in India. Steve has over 10 years of expertise in audits, accounting (both US & Indian GAAP), payroll and tax preparation services. For details on services provided by APT Services, log onto http://www.aptservicesonline.com
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