What is the Turnaround Time for Vietnamese Accounting Translation Services?

The accounting principles, reporting requirements or tax laws vary greatly from country to country. If you are conducting businesses in the Vietnamese market or your clients are based in Vietnam, don’t forget to adapt your documents to abide by the country’s rules. As the accounting industry places a high value on accuracy and regulatory compliance, we recommend you always use professional Vietnamese accounting translation services instead of handling translations yourself or assigning the task to a bilingual employee. Because even your employee is fluent in Vietnamese, there’s no guarantee they understand the accounting laws and practices of Vietnam, thus, making mistakes are unavoidable.

Besides quality, turnaround time (TAT) is an important factor you need to consider. How long does it take to translate a Vietnamese accounting translation project? Knowing the answer to this question will help you make a good plan to avoid rush translation which costs 10-200% more than regular translation. Although there is no one-size-fits-all timeline for every project, you can still have an estimation by considering some key factors that determine the turnaround time of Vietnamese accounting translation services as we suggest in this post.

At the end of the article, you will find some helpful tips to reduce the turnaround time for your Vietnamese accounting translation projects.

What affects the turnaround time for Vietnamese accounting translation services?

Numerous factors are accountable for how long or short the turnaround time of a translation project is. In this post, we will focus on 5 core factors that have the most influence on your Vietnamese accounting translation projects’ delivery time.

#1. Project Volume & Content Repetition Level

The turnaround time is proportional to the number of words that need translating. The higher the volume of your project is, the longer it takes to get your accounting content translated into Vietnamese.

However, it does not mean that two projects with the same number of source words will have the same delivery time. There is always a certain level of repetitive words in your accounting documents, whether they are terminologies, phrases or sentences. When you work with a translation agency, they will make use of CAT Tools which have the translation memory to restore all previous translations. CAT Tools will automatically use the stored translations for repetitive words, which means less work for translators. The turnaround time, therefore, will be lessened.

With the same number of words, which project has a higher level of repetition will have a shorter turnaround time and vice versa. When you use Vietnamese accounting translation services from professional agencies, they will use tools to analyze how many new words and repetition words are there in your files to give you a better estimation of delivery time.

#2. Translators’ Metrics & Translation Agency’s Capacity

A translator’s metric is the maximum number of words one translator can handle a day. For example, the average metric of a Vietnamese translator at GTE Localize is 2,500-3,000 words per day. This number depends on the translator’s work efficiency, experience, speed, and work attitude as well as some external factors such as:

• • Language pairs – The metrics might be different for translators working on different language pairs. If the source language and Vietnamese have a lot in common in terms of origin, vocabulary or grammar, the metrics are likely to be higher and vice versa.
  • CAT Tools – The UI and features of CAT tools also affect the work speed of a translator. Some CAT tools lack functions such as “replace all” or do not allow multiple users to work on one file at the same time, making it more time-consuming to complete a project.

If you are using Vietnamese accounting translation services from language agencies, the turnaround time will be calculated based on their translation capacity. For high volume or rush translations, more than one translator will work together. The total number of words they can handle a day is called translation capacity. To guarantee the consistent quality of your accounting documents, only a limited number of translators are assigned to the task (normally 2-3 translators).

Below is the GTE Localize’s daily capacity for some Vietnamese language pairs for your reference. Following this table, if you have a 15,000-word accounting document, the turnaround time will be about 2-2.5 business days.

#3. Levels of Services

Most translation agencies offer three main levels of Vietnamese accounting translation services:

• • Translation Only (TO) – Only one linguist translates and then self-reviews their own translations.
  • Translation + Editing (TE) – One linguist and one editor.
  • Translation + Editing + Proofreading (TE) – One linguist, one editor, and one proofreader.

The higher the level you choose, the more steps there are. Thus, the time it takes to get the translations done will increase accordingly.

#4. Content Complexity

Accounting and financial documents are complex with high content of numbers that must strictly follow the requirements of the local authority. That means linguists need to do extra research during the translation process to make sure everything is following the laws. Compared to general content, accounting translations have a longer turnaround time.

List of complex accounting content that needs to be handled carefully:

#5. File Formatting

When translators receive editable source documents in MS Word, Excel or PowerPoint, they can start translating right away. However, when the files come in a bad scanned PDF format, translators will have to retype the whole source documents before they can start translating, resulting in a longer delivery time.

Must-avoid mistakes to reduce the turnaround time for your translation projects

To reduce the time you have to wait for your Vietnamese accounting translation services, you should avoid some common mistakes below:

• • Poor-written content – A file with multiple writing styles, incorrect typing rules (wrong coma position, double space. etc.) or inconsistent writing format will be challenging for translators to handle as they have to make a lot of edits to guarantee the documents’ consistency.
  • Too many graphics – Graphics in documents are time-consuming to handle. If there is a lot of text in images, translators will have to use image-editing software to add the new translations into the photos. Sometimes, translators have to find new images to replace the originals which are considered inappropriate in the Vietnamese culture.
  • No translation tools – Manually translating all words in your accounting documents is not a good idea if your time is limited. Making use of CAT Tools will boost the turnaround time while guaranteeing the consistency of the content.

Choose the right Vietnamese accounting translation services

GTE Localize is a professional translation agency with a core focus on Vietnamese accounting translation services. Having an office in Vietnam, our team has the advantage of understanding deeply the country’s language, culture, and laws. We know where to find the best native Vietnamese translators who specialize in accounting and financial content at a reasonable price.

Book a 1:1 consultancy with localization experts and let us help you effectively communicate with your Vietnamese clients through our high-quality Vietnamese accounting translation services.