The 'Do It All Yourself' Mentality Ruins Companies

'I end up doing the accounting and general affairs myself.' If you are a small business owner, you have likely said this at least once.

According to a 2024 survey on back-office operations conducted by Money Forward, 58.2% of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) operate with only 'one' person in charge of accounting. It is not uncommon for that 'one person' to be the president themselves. Issuing invoices, expense reimbursement, payroll calculation, bank transfer processing—time that should be spent on sales and strategy is disappearing into monthly administrative tasks. Many business owners are aware of this structure but have yet to take action.

(Source: Money Forward, 'Survey on Back-Office Operation Challenges,' 2024)

The True Cost of 'It's Faster If I Do It Myself'

'It's faster if I do it myself rather than asking someone else'—this is a phrase I often hear from business owners. Certainly, if you only look at the task right in front of you, that may be true.

However, please take a step back and think. What is the hourly cost of the president's time?

For example, let's assume a company with annual sales of 30 million yen where the president works 250 business days a year. At 8 hours a day, the annual working time is 2,000 hours. By simple calculation, the president's sales contribution per hour is 15,000 yen. If they spend 2 hours a day on administrative work, that is 500 hours per year. Converted into monetary value, that means 7.5 million yen worth of time is being poured into administrative processing.

Of course, this is an estimate, but it means that behind the idea that 'it's faster if I do it myself,' hidden costs are piling up. I believe that this 'how the president uses their time' is the most significant theme that determines the growth of SMEs.

In your company, what is the president's time being used for?

The 'Three Major Worries' in Accounting Departments

In a 2024 survey conducted by Miroku Jyoho Service targeting 362 corporate accounting staff members, titled 'Survey on Work Styles and Practical Troubles of Accounting Staff in SMEs,' the following results were found.

【Top 3 Work Worries for Accounting Staff】

・'Personalization of tasks' (siloed knowledge)……50.0%

・'Complexity of tasks'……43.1%

・'High volume of work'……32.0%

(Source: Miroku Jyoho Service, 'Survey on Work Styles and Practical Troubles of Accounting Staff in SMEs,' June 2024)

What is noteworthy is that half of the accounting staff cited 'personalization of tasks' as their biggest worry. In other words, operations are running in a state where 'only I know how to do it.' Conversely, this means that if that person takes a break or quits, operations will come to a halt.

This same structure exists not only in accounting but in back-office operations in general, such as general affairs and human resources. And if that 'one person' is the president themselves, it means the company carries the risk that the entire business will stop the moment the president falls ill.

'Outsourcing administration' is becoming the norm

Against the backdrop of these challenges, the movement to outsource administrative tasks to external parties is rapidly spreading among SMEs.

According to a survey by Deloitte Tohmatsu MIC Research Institute, the BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) market for back-office operations is expected to reach 577.8 billion yen in fiscal year 2024 and continues to grow at an average annual rate of 6.7%. It is projected to reach 798.7 billion yen by fiscal year 2029.

(Source: Deloitte Tohmatsu MIC Research Institute, 'Current Status and Outlook of the Back-Office Business Process Service Market, FY2025 Edition')

Furthermore, data from the matching platform 'Mitsumore' reports that requests for administrative support services have surged fivefold compared to the previous year. The top three tasks requested for outsourcing are 'payroll processing,' 'bookkeeping,' and 'attendance management,' in that order.

(Source: BONavi, 'The "Third Option" of BPO Chosen by SMEs That "Can't Retain Hires," December 2025')

These data points indicate that the conventional wisdom that 'administrative work must be done in-house' is beginning to crumble. With hiring difficult and retention low, yet work still needing to be done, outsourcing is rapidly being chosen as a third option—one that is neither 'hiring more people' nor 'gritting your teeth and doing it yourself.'

The first step is deciding 'what to outsource'

So, when you actually try to outsource administrative tasks, where should you start? This is where many business owners stumble.

'Our business is unique, so we can't outsource it,' or 'It's faster to do it myself when I consider the hassle of handing it over'—these are things I hear often. But is it truly 'unique'?

When you actually write down your tasks one by one, you may realize that a surprising number of them are things that 'anyone can do once the procedure is set.' The problem is that those procedures exist only inside the president's head.

I would like to propose the following three steps.

The first step is to 'record the tasks the president does for one week.' It doesn't matter if you use a notebook or a spreadsheet. Just record what you spent your time on and for how many minutes.

The second step is to 'extract tasks that require no judgment' from that list. Sending invoices, data entry, filing, replying to routine emails—these are 'processing,' not 'judgment.' Processing can be outsourced.

The third step is to 'try outsourcing just one thing first.' You don't need to outsource everything all at once. Even starting with just a few hours of work per month will give you a sense of how it feels to free up your time.

What is important is to know 'what you are spending your time on right now' before thinking about 'what to outsource.' The very act of organizing your tasks will improve the precision of your management decisions.

A president's job is 'judgment,' not 'tasks'

SMEs' presidents do sales, accounting, and human resources. It has long been considered normal to wear many hats—that era has continued for a long time.

However, things are different now. Options that didn't exist 10 years ago, such as cloud accounting software, administrative support services, and AI-OCR (technology that automatically converts paper documents into data using AI), are emerging one after another. The fact that the back-office BPO market is growing by nearly 7% annually is proof that many business owners are beginning to shift from 'doing it themselves' to 'delegating.'

A president's job is not to create invoices. A president's time should be spent on judgments such as 'where to go for sales next,' 'which business to invest in,' and 'who to partner with.'

Letting go of the 'do it all yourself' mentality is not a sign of weakness. It is a management decision to move the company to the next stage.

Start today by looking back at how you spend your time throughout the day.

ShakeHands LLC

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