Finance and Accounting careers at KPO’s

   India has been the outsourcing hub of the world for years. The outsourcing industry has changed the way businesses world over conduct their operations. Right from the straight forward back office work, to call centres, to highly technical Finance and Accounting, India is taking care of all the activities. Of course one cannot forget the HUGE contribution of the IT sector, and how India has become the backbone for most businesses in most of the developed as well as developing nations through its top class IT services.

However today we want to just talk about the Accounting and Finance roles that are available in the KPO (Knowledge Process Outsourcing) or BPS (Business Process Services). First of all a big myth that needs to be cleared is that not all BPS/BPO/KPO’s are about night shifts and callings. There are a big chunk of companies that provide day shits as well as non calling jobs, so do not straight away ignore the job thinking it’s a night shift job.

Secondly, though there are a lot of straight forward jobs which do not require hard core F&A skills, however in almost every company you’ll find some roles where CA/ACCA’s or MBA finance folks are working. These are typically FP&A roles also called as Financial Planning and Analysis wherein you need to do budgeting, forecasting, variance analysis. The newer trend is that more and more opportunities are coming in this space, especially with major MNC’s opening their Shared Service Centres in India.

Another set of opportunities that are there in KPO are in reporting, month end finalisation, reconciliation, return filing, payroll etc. Therefore you can always start a role in one of several processes that are always looking for people in huge numbers. Therefore the processes are Record to Report (R2R), Order to Cash (O2C) and Purchase to Payment (P2P). These are all fairly technical jobs and similar to accountancy role that you would take up anywhere in the world including India.

Lastly a lot of International banks have set up their centres in cities like Mumbai, Bangalore, and Chennai where you’re required to do fund accounting, derivatives, funds, bonds and fixed income etc. These are all jobs that were erstwhile done in these internationals banks in offices in US, UK and Australia and now have been moved to India from all over the world.

As far as salaries are concerned, you would start anywhere from 3 lacs for s new starter to 8-10 lacs for a qualified CA/ACCA with 3-5 years of experience. Also these companies provide very good growth, brilliant environment, with travelling opportunities outside India for training.

Therefore if you ever get a chance to apply for a job at KPO, don’t ignore just because it’s a call centre. These are all very good jobs and a lot of highly qualified people have switched over to these KPO’s and making brilliant careers. For more info, you can always go to ACCA Careers page where you can find jobs at shared service centres of EY, KPMG, Amazon etc.

Hope you find this article helpful. Please feel free to share your comments and if you do have any questions then please write to us.