Picture this: you're deciding whether to make your own sandwich every morning or grab one from your local deli. Making it yourself gives you complete control, you know exactly what goes in it, when it's made, and how fresh it is. But it also means buying all the ingredients, spending time each morning, and cleaning up afterwards. The deli option? Quick, professional, and you can focus on getting to work instead of assembling lunch.
That's essentially the choice you're facing with your back-office support in 2025. Do you build an in-house bookkeeping team, or do you outsource to specialists who eat, sleep, and breathe numbers all day?
Let's have an honest chat about both options, because the right choice depends entirely on where your business is heading.
The In-House Route: Full Control, Full Responsibility
There's something reassuring about having your bookkeeper sitting just down the hall. You can pop over for a quick chat about cash flow, they understand your company culture inside out, and there's never any doubt about who's responsible for what.
The upsides are pretty compelling:
• Complete control over every process, deadline, and priority
• Deep company knowledge that builds over time, they know why that irregular payment happens every March
• Immediate availability for urgent questions or last-minute requests
• Cultural alignment with your values and way of working
• No external dependencies or vendor management headaches
But here's where it gets expensive (and we're talking proper expensive). A qualified bookkeeper in the UK averages £25,000-35,000 annually, plus employer National Insurance, pension contributions, holiday pay, sick leave, and workspace costs. Then there's recruitment fees, training time, software licenses, and the ever-present risk that they might hand in their notice right before your year-end.
The reality check:
• Higher costs across the board, salary, benefits, equipment, training
• Recruitment headaches when you need to scale up or replace someone
• Limited expertise in specialised areas (ever tried finding someone who truly understands both VAT and CIS construction schemes?)
• Capacity constraints during busy periods like year-end or VAT returns
• Single point of failure if they're off sick or leave unexpectedly
For many growing businesses, the maths just doesn't add up. You're paying full-time costs for what might be part-time needs, especially in the early growth stages.
The Outsourcing Option: Expertise On Tap
Now let's talk about the alternative: partnering with a specialist bookkeeping service. Think of it as having an entire accounting department at your fingertips, but without the office politics or birthday cake collections.
Here's what makes outsourcing attractive:
• Cost efficiency that actually makes sense: you pay for what you need, when you need it
• Instant access to expertise across different areas (VAT, payroll, management accounts, you name it)
• Scalability that grows with your business without recruitment delays
• Professional systems and processes that are tried, tested, and constantly updated
• Backup coverage so your books never grind to a halt when someone's unavailable
• Latest technology and software without the investment headache
The financial benefits alone can be eye-opening. Instead of £35,000+ for a full-time bookkeeper, you might pay £500-2,000 monthly for professional outsourced services: and get access to senior-level expertise that would cost significantly more to hire directly.
But outsourcing isn't just about saving money. It's about accessing capabilities you couldn't realistically build in-house. At 6 4 G Ltd, for example, our clients get specialists who understand construction industry CIS schemes, VAT complexities, R&D tax credits, and Making Tax Digital requirements: expertise that would require multiple full-time hires to replicate internally.
The honest drawbacks:
• Less direct control over day-to-day processes
• Communication considerations: you're working with an external team
• Dependency on vendor performance and their business continuity
• Potential for less intimate company knowledge (though good providers work hard to bridge this gap)
Making the Numbers Work: A Practical Comparison
Let's break down what these options actually cost for a growing business turning over £500k-2m annually:
In-House Bookkeeper:
- Salary: £30,000
- Employer NI & pension: £4,500
- Holiday/sick cover: £3,000
- Software licenses: £2,000
- Equipment & workspace: £2,500
- Total annual cost: £42,000
Outsourced Bookkeeping:
- Monthly service fee: £800-1,500
- Total annual cost: £9,600-18,000
The savings speak for themselves, but it's not just about cost. With outsourcing, you're getting a team rather than an individual, redundancy built in, and expertise across multiple areas.
The Local Advantage: Why Location Still Matters
Here's something that often gets overlooked in the outsourcing conversation: the value of working with a local, accessible team. While you might save money working with a distant call centre, there's real value in partnering with a local firm who understands your market, your challenges, and can meet face-to-face when needed.
At 6 4 G Ltd, we're based in sunny Worthing, but we work with businesses across the South East and beyond. We understand local business networks, regional economic factors, and we're available for those important conversations that work better in person than over email.
The local outsourcing sweet spot offers:
• Regional expertise and market understanding
• Face-to-face meetings when you need them
• Similar time zones and working patterns
• Understanding of local business challenges and opportunities
• Personal relationships that develop over time
• Quick response times without international communication delays
When Each Option Makes Sense
Choose In-House When:
- You have consistent, high-volume bookkeeping needs that justify full-time costs
- Your business requires someone on-site daily for cash handling or immediate queries
- You have highly specialised industry requirements that need dedicated attention
- Budget allows for £40,000+ annually plus recruitment and management time
- You have the infrastructure to support, train, and retain accounting staff
Choose Outsourcing When:
- You want to focus on growing your business rather than managing back-office functions
- Your bookkeeping needs fluctuate seasonally or with business growth
- You need expertise across multiple areas (VAT, payroll, management reporting)
- Cost efficiency is important for maintaining healthy cash flow
- You want professional systems and processes without the setup investment
- Backup coverage and business continuity matter to your operations
The Hybrid Approach:
Some businesses find success with a hybrid model: perhaps keeping basic transaction processing in-house while outsourcing complex areas like VAT returns, payroll, and management reporting. This can work well for larger businesses with established finance teams who need specialist support rather than complete outsourcing.
The 2025 Perspective: What's Changed
The business landscape in 2025 has made outsourcing more attractive than ever. Making Tax Digital requirements, increasing compliance complexity, and the continued skills shortage in accounting mean that accessing professional expertise has become essential rather than optional.
Remote working has also normalised distributed teams, making the transition to outsourced support feel more natural. Your bookkeeping team doesn't need to be in the next room: they just need to be accessible, responsive, and expert in their field.
Technology improvements mean outsourced providers can offer real-time access to your financial information, automated reporting, and seamless integration with your existing systems. The days of posting boxes of receipts and waiting weeks for updates are long gone.
Final Thought: It's About Focus, Not Just Cost
While cost savings often drive the initial outsourcing conversation, the real value lies in freeing up your mental bandwidth to focus on what you do best. Every hour you spend wrestling with VAT returns or chasing unpaid invoices is an hour not spent serving customers, developing products, or growing your business.
The question isn't really whether you can do your own bookkeeping: most business owners are perfectly capable. The question is whether you should, when professional alternatives exist that can do it better, faster, and often cheaper than handling it internally.
Ready to Explore Your Options?
If you're weighing up these choices for your growing business, we'd love to have a no-obligation chat about what might work best for your specific situation. At 6 4 G Ltd, we've helped hundreds of businesses make this transition successfully, and we're always happy to share insights from what we've learned.
Whether you're convinced that outsourcing is right for you, or you're still exploring your options, a quick conversation can help clarify the practical implications for your business. We're real people (not a call centre), based locally, and we genuinely enjoy helping businesses navigate these decisions.
Give us a call or drop us a line: there's no sales pressure, just honest advice about what might work best for your situation. After all, the right back-office support should make your business life easier, not more complicated.
Ready to chat? Get in touch at https://64gltd.com or give us a call for a friendly, no-obligation conversation about your bookkeeping needs.