How Accounting and Tax Firm Owners Can Prevent Burnout

By Jackie Meyer, CPA

Recent research has found that 99% of accountants experience burnout, which as personally disturbing as it sounds, can ultimately impact your bottom line. In this article, I plan to dive into how you can not only prevent burnout, but increase profit in your firm.

In the accounting world, burnout is especially common during tax busy season. A survey by FloQast even found that nearly all accountants they asked felt some level of burnout, with about one in four experiencing it at a medium to high level.

What is “burnout” and how common is it for firm owners?

So what exactly does “burnout” mean? According to the American Psychological Association, burnout is when you feel overwhelmed and worn out from too much stress over a long period. It’s not just about being tired; it’s a deep exhaustion that affects you emotionally, physically, and mentally.

Signs of burnout can include feeling constantly tired, changes in your relationships, having a hard time focusing, and, sometimes, turning to things like medication or, in severe cases, substance use to cope. It’s tough on both the person experiencing it and the quality of their work.

What is the cause of busy season burnout for firm owners?

Tax season often feels like a “necessary evil” for the success of your firm, bringing with it a lot of stress. It’s tempting to think that this stress is just part of the job or blame it on demanding clients.

But in reality, a lot of the “overwhelm” comes from not having strong enough plans, boundaries, or systems in place. It’s important to realize that you’re not at the mercy of these stressors. By stepping up your planning and management game, you can take control and make tax season more manageable.

This not only makes life easier for you and your team, but also improves service to your clients. With some smart adjustments, you can dial down the stress and even prevent burnout.

Keep in mind that it’s all about perspective and focusing on what you can change. Sure, you can’t stop tax season from coming (and let’s be honest, you probably wouldn’t want to since it brings in a lot of extra revenue), but you can definitely change how your firm handles it.

Now let’s quickly explore some of the main reasons why burnout is prevalent in tax firm business owners today:

High workload: Tax season can be particularly stressful with long hours and high client expectations. This can lead to a heavy workload and increased stress levels.

Complexity of tax laws: Tax laws and regulations are complex and constantly changing. Keeping up with these changes can be challenging and time-consuming.

Client expectations: Clients often have high expectations and meeting these can put a lot of pressure on tax firm owners.

Lack of work-life balance: During tax season it can be difficult to maintain a healthy work-life balance which can lead to burnout.

Technological challenges: Adapting to new tax software or dealing with technical issues can also contribute to stress and burnout.

Tax preparation vs. tax planning: Probably the most important reason why so many tax professionals experience burnout is because they are not offering tax planning and are only focusing on tax prep and bookkeeping. Once you move to tax advisory services, you can start offering high-ticket services which will increase your revenue without increasing the hours you have to work. In fact, you only need one tax planning for every 22 tax prep clients! And business owners that do tax planning can see a 30%-plus year-over-year average revenue growth as compared to tax preppers at only 9%.

Less burnout = more time = higher-paying clients

Now, let’s talk a bit more about how reducing burnout can lead to higher-value clients and, thus, help to scale your business.

One of the biggest benefits of reducing burnout is that you have more time to pay attention to tax planning strategies and can charge higher rates for less work. In short, you can work less hours, make more money, and create a better quality of life for yourself. I know, because I was a victim of burnout as well.

I ran a full-service accounting firm for six years. I had built my firm to $350,000 in revenue with four contractors on staff but was still working 60 hours per week. Over time, I was getting burned out and felt I wasn’t providing the value I really wanted to my clients. I knew that in order to get out of the hamster wheel of tax prep and bookkeeping, things had to change.

I started to offer tax planning and advisory services, and soon realized that manual tax planning is HARD. There are so many strategies to memorize, calculations to perform, and presentations to build in order to show value to the client. And it could take days to put all of this together for just one client!

But when I presented the results to the client saving them tens of thousands in taxes, it was all worth it. We found that even with all of the manual tax planning work, my firm started changing. Clients were over-the-moon happy.

The firm’s revenue started a steep climb and I was able to work less hours and generate more revenue with fewer clients. And I got to spend a lot more time with my family, which was the ultimate goal. My firm had grown to $900,000 in revenue with 10 part-time staff, and I was working just four hours per week! And guess what? You can do the same. But not without the right tools and planning to help you easily stay ahead and serve your clients at the highest level.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Jackie Meyer, CPA, is founder and president of TaxPlanIQ, a provider of tax planning software for accounting and tax firms.