This is a guest post from our partner BlackLine, examining the drivers behind the mass exodus in accounting roles.

Like everything else in accounting, the numbers tell the story.

The profession is experiencing a steep decline in qualified personnel, as many trained accounting professionals are choosing to leave their careers for another line of work. According to the Wall Street Journal, more than 300,000 U.S. accountants and auditors have left their jobs in the past two years, representing a 17% decline.

While the timing of these numbers makes them easily dismissible as yet another fallout from the 2-years long battle against COVID-19, the trend actually began before the global pandemic prompted so many people to re-evaluate their lives and their work. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics reveals a trend of departure that started in 2019, well before the pandemic began.

In a related pattern, recent grads with accounting degrees are having second thoughts about the profession, and many of these would-be accountants are choosing to go into a different line of work before they even get started. Furthermore, fewer college students are enrolling in accounting programs to begin with.

The number of U.S. students who completed a bachelor’s degree in accounting declined nearly 9% to about 52,500 in 2020, down from almost 57,500 in 2012, according to the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants (AICPA).

Both trends lead to fewer qualified candidates entering the field. AICPA data confirm these trends, showing notable declines in recent years both in the number of students completing a bachelor’s degree in accounting and of candidates taking the CPA exam. 

Why Are Accountants Quitting?

The reasons for this decline are many and varied. Long, grueling hours, especially during month- and year-end close top the list. While standard 40-hour weeks are the norm for most accountants, that figure can go as high as 70 to 80 hours per week during certain periods.

Repetitive work can also wear on those who have spent time in the profession. Many accountants feel bored, tired, unchallenged, and lacking growth opportunities in their positions. It can take up to 15 years to become a partner in larger accounting firms—that’s a long time to endure the demands of the job. Many feel that they have learned all they can from their jobs and are looking for a new challenge.

Another factor is contributing to the decline in the number of accountants in the U.S. As it has for so many other industries and professions, technology has drastically altered day-to-day jobs, and many accountants cite technology as a reason for leaving the profession.

Accounting professionals’ relationship with technology is complex. Some don’t want to learn new technology while others feel that technology has made them irrelevant. Finally, some feel that their employer has not embraced technology enough, or has not provided them with adequate training, leaving them to toil in the manual dark ages or fumble with a software platform they don’t know how to use properly.

Enter Accounting Process Automation

Good news! Technology doesn’t have to be the bane of accounting or of those who have made it their profession. In fact, it can be a resource to make the profession more productive, efficient, and fulfilling.

Accounting has traditionally been a process of manual data entry, review, and revisions, which can be tedious and time-consuming activities.

With the advent of software as a solution, much of this process can now be done with the aid of computers, which can receive and store data, perform financial calculations, and produce balance sheets and other closing reports. A more recent development, artificial intelligence (AI) further simplifies data capture, reduces error, and minimizes repetitive manual tasks.

With the right approach to automation, businesses can reduce and even eliminate activities in the closing process that traditionally rely on manual steps. They can reduce risk, error, and fraud by strengthening controls and improving accuracy. Businesses can become more strategic, holistic, and forward-thinking.

All of this leads to improved productivity. Instead of overburdening employees, it frees them up to perform more high-level and high-valued tasks. It allows them to participate in more strategic and analytic thinking. This makes them more engaged and fulfilled in the job.

Employees who are involved in the process of change and improvement that technology has to offer feel more vested in their work and the results.

Far from alienating or overburdening employees, these improvements can help increase retention by making the closing process more efficient and enhancing the value of the employees involved. Employees feel like they have gained a new set of skills, elevated their level of work, increased their importance to the organization, and improved the process which they administer.

A Smart Approach to Accounting Software

Adopting accounting automation software is not a simple task, but it doesn’t have to be overwhelming either. True, if done improperly or in haste, it won’t be effective, and employees can feel alienated. The process requires its own unique approach that involves thinking, strategy, and evaluation. Each business is distinct, and the successful adoption of software will reflect this truth.

As an industry leader in financial close automation, BlackLine has taken steps to help businesses transition to automation by developing a Modern Accounting Playbook (MAP) for steering finance through the Great Resignation. This expertly curated strategic framework helps organizations modernize their accounting and finance functions by establishing a deliberate and stepwise process for the adoption of software solutions.

Businesses start with core functionality to help automation address some of the basic elements of their close process. Improvements include a central workspace with automated trial balance import, standardizing reconciliations with automation, rule-based transaction matching for bank files, and other changes.

Building on these improvements, they can expand adoption in alignment with other elements of their business strategy with such enhancements as direct ERP journal posting, automated flux analysis with proactive alerting, and complex matching scenarios.

The MAP allows businesses to adopt technology in a strategic, forward-thinking approach by helping them identify their most pressing accounting challenges. Software is applied in a way that suits their needs specifically.

This sets the stage for future growth and integration of the technology into the close process. This thoughtful approach enables businesses to close faster, increase efficiency, reduce risk, and continuously improve their closing process.

Get your copy of this playbook to learn how to win the new war on retaining and attracting talent. You will learn five strategies to reimagine F&A for the future of work, including how to:

• Design a digital hybrid workplace that Accounting will love
• Equip your organization to fight digital burnout
• Automate away the soul-sapping work that makes accountants leave

This blog post was originally published on the BlackLine blog.

Read more about Financial Close & Consolidation:

Continuous Accounting vs The Risk of Doing Nothing

Revenue Cycle Management

BlackLine Demo: Bank Reconciliations

This is a guest post from our partner BlackLine, detailing the results of its annual survey of global F&A leaders.

War in Eastern Europe. Global inflation. Ongoing supply chain issues. Just one of these is enough to cause serious impacts on business—and currently, the world is enduring all three, along with countless other local and regional economic disruptions.

While Finance and Accounting (F&A) has a reputation for remaining calm and pragmatic in a crisis, it can be overwhelming for these departments to help steer their organizations through difficult times while keeping up with their day-to-day work. BlackLine wanted to hear directly from F&A professionals on how they’re feeling about these issues and more.

Survey Results of F&A Executives & Professionals

In a survey of 1,483 C-suite executives and F&A professionals in medium and large companies around the world, BlackLine discovered not-so-rosy outlooks and insights including:

• Nearly two thirds (63%) of all respondents said they expected a worldwide recession within a year
• Almost all (95%) expect rising interest rates to have an impact on the way their business operates
• More than six in ten (62%) C-suite and F&A professionals predict that their companies’ financial reporting will come under increased scrutiny over the next year

Whether or not these results surprise you, they beg for real solutions and actionable ways to address them.

Trust (or Lack of) in the Numbers

Since 2018, our surveys have shown C-Suite trust in the accuracy of the financial data at their companies has fluctuated from a high of 71% in 2018, dropping to 58% in 2022. In addition, in our 2022 results, nearly half (48%) of overall respondents indicated they do not have complete confidence that their company’s financial data is accurate.

The top three reasons given for this mistrust were:

1.     Some or all of my team are working from home—making it difficult to know if the right processes are being followed

2.     Data from too many sources—making it difficult to know if all data is being accounted for correctly

3.     A continued reliance on clunky spreadsheets and other outdated processes that leave finance teams in the dark until month-end

As previously noted, most of the C-suite and F&A professionals we surveyed this year are braced for recession. They are also concerned that rising interest rates will push up the cost of company borrowing and mean that their customers will have less to spend.

As a result of relative mistrust in numbers along with these other external factors, the accuracy of companies’ financial data is expected to come under more scrutiny. And, outside of this survey, there have been other developments, such as the SEC’s new clawback rules, which bring even more importance to certainty in financial numbers.

How Financial Automation Helps Increase Confidence in the Numbers

The various factors discussed in the survey expose a weak link in many F&A departments: manual, error-prone, and outdated processes.

And consider this—nearly two-thirds (62%) of our respondents agreed that the ability to view their companies’ financial data in real time will be a “must-have” for business survival over the next 12 months.

How can F&A departments solve for archaic processes and gain real-time visibility? By employing the intelligent use of automation.

Leveraging a solution like BlackLine to automate end-to-end accounting processes—including the financial close, accounts receivable, and intercompany—helps reduce manual errors and increases the quality of your numbers.

In addition, automating manual, transactional work frees up capacity for F&A teams, so more time can be spent on proactively identifying anomalies in the data and ensuring the integrity of the financial reporting. And it allows for earlier views of the financial reports to proactively tackle issues—this directly addresses the concern of 62% of our respondents!

Of course, technology and automation are only part of the solution—they cannot reduce economic uncertainty. However, employing solutions like BlackLine can help companies become more efficient, reduce errors in financial data, and provide visibility so F&A departments can make faster, smarter, and more informed decisions.

Get your copy of the full report Eye of the Storm: F&A’s Role in Responding to Instability & Volatility to understand:

• Who is responsible for steering a business through a recession?
• F&A’s role in responding to global instability and volatility
• The top challenges and pain points, such as intercompany transactions
• The importance of cash flow in turbulent economic period

This blog post was originally published on the BlackLine blog.

Read more about Financial Close & Consolidation:

Ventana: Continuous Accounting Helps Companies Close Faster

Revenue Cycle Management

Continuous Accounting vs The Risk of Doing Nothing