Survey: Accountants are burning out

Feeling burnt out? You're not alone. Virtually all accounting professionals are reporting experiencing at least some level of burnout, significantly so in some cases.

A recent survey from automation solutions provider FloQast found that 99% of accountants polled reported feeling at least some level of burnout. Broken down, the survey found 8% had "low" levels of burnout; 39% had "medium-low" levels; 29% had "average" levels; 20% had "medium-high" levels; and 4% had "high" levels.

While there were some demographic differences in who is feeling burnt out, they are not very large. For instance, 47.4% of men said they were experiencing burnout versus 42.2% of women; meanwhile, 45.3% of parents said so, versus 47.1% of those without children. There were similar small differences between those in their early, mid, and late careers: 44.2%, 47.3% and 44.1% respectively. The most significant differences came from where the company was in its IPO development. Startups reported the highest levels of burnout at 52.8% versus those who'd recently had an IPO, 43.8%.

A large source of this pervasive burnout is the monthly close, according to the study. It found that 81% of accountants reported the month-end close disrupting their personal lives at least once in the past year; most commonly, it happened about two to three times, according to 41% of poll respondents. A very unlucky 2% said the close had disrupted their personal lives 12 times over the past 12 months. Overall, 63% of those reporting high levels of burnout said the close conflicted with their close relationships.

The survey noted that people feeling burnt out don't produce the best work, pointing for evidence to the fact that 85% of participants reported having to re-open the books in at least one month during the last year to fix errors and almost half (49%) of respondents had to re-open the books in three or more months.

“Considering the importance of the close in the accounting industry, its impact on employee mental health and wellbeing, and the consequences burnout has on its accuracy and reliability, these findings clearly show that it’s time for a massive shift,” says Mike Whitmire, co-founder and CEO of FloQast, in a statement. “We believe improving the close is one of the key changes to be made and our results support this. In fact, 57% of the accounting professionals we surveyed agreed that the monthly and yearly close is in desperate need of modernization.”

The report recommended introducing integrated solutions when possible, implementing better training processes for existing tools, and reducing the number of tools used.