Outsourcing is the movement of a workload to another source which can assist in that area for an agreed price either as a one-time service or as an ongoing complementing service. In doing so, the principal company can effectively save time, and get the staff to be more committed and speedier work results.

The essence of outsourcing is simply engaging the services of an individual or organization outside your full-time staff to handle certain aspects of your business plan. These aspects may be public relations, marketing, clerical and administrative functions, or IT management. In fact, with today's virtual environment, there is no part of the business that cannot be outsourced effectively. Of course, the big question is whether there are any benefits to outsourcing, especially for persons who are building their business on the Internet.

There are several good reasons to outsource certain functions. Often, an Internet business is set up with a shoestring budget and one person doing all the work. As the business grows, it is easy to get caught up in dealing with general office functions, such as answering emails, handling correspondence and maintaining client lists.

By outsourcing your clerical support needs, you can spend more time focusing on the expansion of your business, not the day-to-day details of running it. Second, promoting your online presence is a full-time job all by itself. You can hardly manage that and still be involved in making the big decisions that impact the overall operations of your company. Using outside agents to promote your presence and stimulate sales makes it possible for you to do what owners need to do, which is to grow the company's roster of goods and services.

Last, outsourcing allows you not to get bogged down with employee taxes, withholding and providing a benefit package. When you outsource to an agency or another individual, they will not expect a benefits package to go along with their pay.

You will save a great deal of time and money on accounting functions; these savings can be pumped right back into your business and used for expansion. Outsourcing is a great way to expand your online company without undue stress on your resources. Why not look at your present situation and see if you would benefit from outsourcing a function or two?

Outsourcing: Now or Later?

If you have a business, there are probably several day-to-day functions that could be outsourced to great advantage. Here are a few examples.

Outsourcing your sales efforts can be great for your business on several levels. First, by outsourcing to independent agents, you do not have to worry about salaries, benefits packages or taxes. Structure the agent program properly and you will not have to pay commissions until you receive payments from the customers your agents bring into the fold.

Everyone knows that the invoicing process can eat up a lot of resources. Outsource your invoicing to an independent firm that specializes in doing the billing for small businesses. Make sure they use a program that is compatible with the software you use to track your average revenue and average production reconciliation, so you can upload everything into your system when they close out a billing period. You can also get the service to handle the distribution of invoices to your customers.

For a modest fee, they will even handle emailing your invoices as PDF documents or print and mail them for you. You can use the electronic files you get at the end of the billing cycle to upload into your system and then post payments as you receive...