New Year, Same Problems - Until Something Changes

Welcome to “The Outsource Insider”, dispatched to you biweekly by Finsmart Accounting, where we share insights, resources, and a little fun - designed for firms to grow with offshore talent.

🧭The Familiar January Feeling

The beginning of a year arrives with optimism. January, for firm owners, is almost always about that. But beneath the fresh start of new planners, new goals, and new energy is an uncomfortable truth - nothing has fundamentally changed for the business.

The bottlenecks linger on, the late nights continue, and the conversations postponed from last year are quietly carried forward.

We changed the pages of the calendar. The operating model remained just as it is.

But the good thing about January is that there is still some time to reset. As a leader, what you can do now:

🔁 The Problems Firms Keep Repeating

Every year, different clients. Same chaos.

Firms hire more people, add more tools, and push harder — yet the pressure never lifts.
That’s because most problems aren’t episodic. They’re patterns.

Busy seasons don’t create dysfunction. They reveal it.

How to avoid repeating them?

• List the top 3 moments last year when things “broke.”
  

• Identify the root cause:

  • Lack of clarity

  • Ownership confusion

  • Capacity mismatch

• Instead of labeling these as “seasonal issues,” — they’re design issues
  
  

🧠 Why Is the Cost Is Higher This Year?

One of the key problems that firm owners don’t realize they are secretly adding onto is adapting the same strategy that was relevant 5 years ago - it is not sustainable.

Teams today expect clarity.
Clients expect speed.
Talent expects balance.

The margin for inefficiency is shrinking — and leadership feels it first.

What leaders can do now:

• Identify where pressure shows up fastest:

  • Turnover

  • Missed deadlines

  • Client frustration
    

• Treat pressure as a signal, not a failure

• Ask: What is this pressure trying to tell us about how work flows today?
  
  

🧩 The Real Shift Is Structural, Not Tactical

Most firms try to fix deep problems with surface-level solutions: new tools, new hires, new targets

But structure beats effort every time. If work isn’t designed well, even the best people will struggle.

What leaders can do now

• Pick one recurring task and ask:

  • Who owns it?

  • Where does it start and end?

  • What decisions does it require?
    

• If the answers aren’t clear, that’s the work — not the execution

• Shift focus from doing more to designing better
  
  

🌍What to Change This Year: A FINSMART POV

Every business is different. So are their needs, goals, and aspirations.

But one of the most common challenges that almost all accounting firms struggle with is the conversation around Sales and pricing.

When you avoid the sales conversation or keep postponing it till you can, you do more harm than good.

They show up as:

• Clients who don’t respect boundaries

• Teams are overloaded with underpriced work

• Founders stuck in delivery instead of leadership

• Growth strategies that rely on exhaustion instead of intention
  
  

Gain complete insight into why sales talks are important and how you can integrate this into your client conversations in this conversation between Carlos M Garcia, Sales & leadership Coach, and Maanoj Shah, an offshoring expert and Co-Founder at Finsmart Accounting.

Watch the complete conversation here:

🛠️ The Practice Builder: The “Stop Doing” Reset

Growth often adds work. Rarely does it remove any.

Over time, leaders become the glue holding broken systems together — until they burn out.

This year doesn’t need more effort. It needs subtraction.

Try this out:

• Write down 3 things you personally step in to “save” regularly

• Ask:

  • Why does this need me?

  • What’s missing in the system?
    

• Replace heroics with:

  • Clear ownership

  • Documented expectations

  • Better handoffs
    
    

🌍 The Outsourcing Lens: Why Change Needs Capacity

Change fails not because leaders don’t want it, but because teams are already at capacity.

When there’s no breathing room, even good decisions collapse under execution pressure.

This is where global teams can change the equation — if done intentionally.

• Separate strategy work from delivery work

• Protect leadership time for:
  

  • Redesigning workflows

  • Clarifying roles

  • Building documentation
    
    

Know how to measure success for your offshoring teams here: https://finsmartaccounting.com/blogs/metrics-for-offshore-accounting-team-performance/

🔮 The Closing Thought

Every year brings new challenges.
But the same problems only repeat when the same decisions do.

Change doesn’t come from ambition — it comes from redesign.

What leaders can carry forward

• This year, don’t aim to work harder

• Aim to build differently

• The firms that win won’t be the busiest — they’ll be the best designed
  
  

This year, aim to plan better and succeed.

We wish you a Happy New Year!

See you in the next issue.