If you 'can't find an accountant,' try stopping the search

Requests for administrative outsourcing services have increased fivefold compared to the previous year. Data analyzed by Mitsumore, Inc., targeting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in seven industries facing severe labor shortages, reflects a certain shift. 'If you can't hire people, outsource the work.' This change in perspective is now spreading rapidly among SMEs.

I often hear people say, 'I want to hire an accountant, but there are no applicants,' or 'I finally hired someone, but they quit after six months.' But is 'hiring an accountant' really the only correct answer? Today, I would like to think about this question based on data.

The structural problem of 'personalization' faced by accounting staff

There is a survey titled 'Survey on the Work Styles and Practical Troubles of Accounting Staff in SMEs,' conducted by the MJS Tax and Accounting System Research Institute, a think tank of Miroku Jyoho Service Co., Ltd., targeting 362 corporate accounting staff members. What this survey revealed are the structural issues inherent in accounting work. [Survey results on the work styles of accounting staff]

・50.0% of accounting staff answered that 'personalization of work' is their biggest concern
・'Complexity of work' at 43.1% and 'high volume of work' at 32.0% follow
・The most common answer for who pays for skill-up training was 'self-pay' at 37.0%
(Source: Miroku Jyoho Service 'Survey on the Work Styles and Practical Troubles of Accounting Staff in SMEs')

In other words, accounting work tends to become 'work that only that person can do,' and companies are not providing sufficient opportunities for skill development. As a result, the burden is concentrated on the individual staff member, and the company constantly faces the risk that work will stop if they quit.

Furthermore, three factors are pointed out as the background for this personalization: 'labor shortages and hiring issues,' 'rule development issues,' and 'the competence of the staff member.' In short, a vicious cycle is quietly progressing in many SMEs: 'cannot increase staff' -> 'leave it all to one person' -> 'personalization progresses' -> 'it collapses when that person quits.'

I would like you to think about this: in your company, is there a situation where 'the monthly closing won't get done if Accountant A is away'? If so, that is not 'A's problem,' but a 'work design problem.'

Administrative outsourcing is up fivefold year-on-year—SMEs that are changing 'cannot hire' to 'delegating'

Let's take a closer look at the Mitsumore data introduced at the beginning.

[Growth rate of BPO service requests from SMEs]
・BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) services overall: approximately 1.5 times year-on-year
・Administrative outsourcing: approximately 5 times year-on-year (516%)
・Call centers: approximately 3 times year-on-year
・Accounting outsourcing: approximately 2.3 times year-on-year
・Administrative outsourcing in the medical and welfare industries: approximately 10 times year-on-year (933%)
(Source: Mitsumore, Inc. Press Release, December 2024)

What is particularly noteworthy is that the top three tasks people want to outsource are 'payroll calculation,' 'accounting bookkeeping,' and 'attendance management.' These are precisely the types of routine, repetitive tasks that are prone to becoming personalized.

Why is it growing so rapidly? The background is not simply 'because we can't hire people.' Repayment of the zero-zero loans implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic is in full swing, and SMEs are seeing their budgets for hiring and personnel costs shrink. When weighing the 'annual cost of hiring one full-time employee' against 'monthly accounting outsourcing for several tens of thousands of yen,' more companies are rationally choosing the latter.

Let's look at the specific cost difference. Hiring one full-time employee costs about 4 to 5 million yen per year, including salary, social insurance premiums, commuting expenses, equipment costs, and training expenses. On the other hand, accounting outsourcing services can be used from about 30,000 to 100,000 yen per month, or about 360,000 to 1.2 million yen per year. Moreover, with outsourcing, there is no risk of resignation, and it is possible to use it on a spot basis only during busy periods. It is surprisingly little known that options other than 'hiring people' are so advantageous in terms of cost.

The 'work breakdown' necessary for successful outsourcing

However, saying 'let's outsource accounting starting tomorrow' does not mean it will go well immediately. There is a common trait among companies that fail at outsourcing. It is that they dump the work without organizing 'what to delegate.'

I believe the following three steps are the minimum necessary for successful outsourcing:

・Step 1: Inventory of work—List who is doing what task now
・Step 2: Outsourcing judgment—Sort tasks into 'those that should remain in-house' and 'those that can be outsourced'
・Step 3: Handover design—Prepare procedures and rules so that the outsourcing partner can work smoothly

This 'Step 1' is actually the most difficult. In tasks that have become personalized, even the person in charge often cannot verbalize 'what they are doing.' That is precisely why you need to start with 'visualizing the work.'

For example, if you take an inventory of 'month-end accounting work,' it includes multiple tasks within a single operation, such as invoice issuance, payment confirmation, journal entry, expense settlement, and transfer processing. Among these, invoice issuance and journal entry have relatively fixed patterns and are easy to outsource. On the other hand, decisions on cash flow and condition negotiations with business partners are tasks that the manager should be involved in. If you outsource without doing this 'decomposition' and 'sorting,' it leads to dissatisfaction that 'it was not what I expected.'

A common misconception is the claim that 'our company is too small to have enough work to outsource.' However, the reality is the opposite: the smaller the company, the more likely it is that one person is handling accounting, general affairs, and human resources, meaning the damage when that person leaves is significant. That is precisely why 'organizing and outsourcing while the volume is still low' is a more rational approach to risk hedging.

When you feel like 'I can't find an accountant' or 'there is no one I can entrust with administrative tasks,' many business owners first try to post a job opening. But what you really need might not be 'to find a person,' but 'to organize your operations.'

Take inventory of your tasks and separate out what can be handled externally. Just by doing that, your company can function without relying on hiring. This time of year, as the fiscal year changes, is the perfect opportunity to review your back-office operations. For those who think 'it's still too early for us,' why not start by writing down your company's tasks?

ShakeHands LLC

A business partner that organizes labor shortages from the structural level.
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