Accounting Outsourcing in Tourism SMEs and Financial Risk Mitigation

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate the characteristics of outsourcing in accounting services for tourism SMEs as a choice to mitigate their financial risk. The research was carried out in summer 2022, during tourism recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, while the findings indicate that the majority of tourism SMEs choose to outsource their accounting services in order to reduce operating costs; to save their funds by exploiting a partner’s information systems; to take advantage of a partner’s accounting knowledge; to achieve greater flexibility in their core activities; and to speed up the processing of the accounting tasks in order to deal with any arising problems and/or difficulties. Furthermore, it is evident that in a constantly changing and complex tax system and a changing economic landscape, accounting outsourcing provides tourism SMEs with advantages such as already established processes, expertise, technology, consulting support, and pathways for dealing with the various accounting issues that may arise.