The Task of "Task Carving" You Must Do Before Outsourcing Back-Office Operations

Data shows that 50.1% of accounting staff at small and medium-sized enterprises feel that their accounting departments are understaffed (Bill One, "Survey on the Actual Conditions of Accounting Staff"). What is surprising is not just that figure, but the fact that about 90% of those people feel the situation is "serious."

So, what is the first solution that many companies think of? It is likely "hiring." Posting job advertisements, conducting interviews, and spending recruitment costs to find people. However, there is one task that must be done before that. That is "task carving."

The structural problem that causes back-office operations to be "put on the back burner"

Why is it that back-office departments like accounting and general affairs tend to have their staffing shortages left unaddressed? The answer lies in the structure.

From a management perspective, the decision to concentrate recruitment resources on "departments directly linked to sales," such as sales and manufacturing, seems rational. As a result, securing talent for the back office is put on the back burner, and before you know it, you fall into a situation where "there is only one person in charge of accounting."

In fact, according to a survey on the actual number of accounting staff in small and medium-sized enterprises (Money Forward), it has been revealed that 58.2% of companies have a one-person accounting system. It is difficult for a one-person accounting staff to take paid leave, and there is also a risk that operations will stop if that person resigns.

In a January 2025 survey by Teikoku Databank, 51.6% of companies felt that they were "short" of full-time employees, exceeding 50% for the fourth consecutive year. This "labor shortage" is not a temporary economic fluctuation, but a structural problem caused by population decline and changes in industrial structure. The era when you could solve problems just by hiring is over.

So, what about the idea of "if you can't hire, outsource"? Certainly, outsourcing (BPO = Business Process Outsourcing) is an effective means. However, there is a pitfall here that many companies stumble into.

Outsourcing only works for "organized tasks"

There is also data showing that 90% of companies that have introduced BPO responded that "management efficiency has improved" (Bellsystem24, "BPO Actual Conditions Survey").

However, when asking about failure patterns in the field, a common issue emerges. These are comments like "I don't know what to outsource" or "I outsourced it, but it was different from what I expected."

Why does this happen? The cause is trying to outsource without organizing the work first.

For example, even if you think "I want to outsource accounting work," if your company's accounting work is not organized in terms of "why, who, when, and in what form it is done," there is no information to pass on to the outsourcing partner. In a state of so-called "personalization," where the workflow exists only in the mind of the person in charge, outsourcing cannot even begin.

According to a survey by Keiri Plus, 49.5% of back-office staff spend more than 10 hours a month processing paper documents. I understand the motivation to reduce this time. However, if that work is not organized in a "form that anyone can reproduce," the outsourcing partner will not know how to proceed.

There is one thing that companies that have successfully introduced BPO have in common. They properly perform "task carving" before outsourcing. In other words, they visualize their own company's work and clearly separate the "parts that can be outsourced" from the "parts that require internal judgment."

What becomes visible from task carving

Task carving is, in short, "the work of putting into words the tasks we are doing." I believe that while this may look plain, it is actually work that is close to the essence of management.

I sometimes hear managers say, "Our accounting is complicated, so it can't be outsourced." But when I listen closely, in many cases, it is not the work itself that is complicated, but it just looks complicated because the work is not organized.

For example, if you write out the flow of "monthly invoice creation -> payment confirmation -> journal entry processing -> trial balance creation," you can make the judgment that the first two steps can be outsourced, but the latter journal entries and trial balance creation should be done in-house because they involve management decisions. This is the true meaning of "carving."

Does your company's back-office work stop the moment someone quits? If so, it may not be a "labor shortage" but a "problem with work design." Before hiring or outsourcing, please try to create an opportunity to put your work into words.

Summary

As long as you think of solutions to labor shortages as a binary choice between "hiring or outsourcing," the fundamental problem will not be solved. There is a risk of falling into a vicious cycle where new hires do not stay, or outsourced services do not perform as expected.

The first thing to tackle is to "properly visualize your current operations." Only then will it become clear whether you need to hire, whether you can supplement with outsourcing, or whether you can replace tasks with AI (automation using artificial intelligence).

In companies where back-office operations are not running smoothly, both the president and the staff are chased by immediate tasks, cutting into the time needed for essential management decisions. The first step to changing that situation is not an expensive system or recruitment costs, but starting with an inventory of operations—in other words, "writing down what you are doing."

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ShakeHands LLC
A business partner that organizes labor shortages from a structural perspective
You are short on staff. But "hiring" is not necessarily the right answer.
ShakeHands LLC is a partner that faces the labor shortages and business expansion challenges of small and medium-sized enterprises, organizes the options of hiring, outsourcing, and AI utilization, and designs the optimal strategy.
We think together about choices as management decisions, rather than making proposals just to sell.