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‘Ridiculous’ workloads tipping practices over the edge, expert warns

Business

Working overtime has become the norm for many accountants with bloated client bases, according to consultant Amanda Gascoigne.

By Christine Chen 8 minute read

Too many small accounting practice owners are working “ridiculous” hours to service clients and need a major reset in 2025 or will risk burning out on the job, a consultant in the industry has warned.

Amanda Gascoigne, founder of Amanda Gascoigne Consulting and The Balanced Firm, said it had become “the norm” for some practice owners to clock up to 70 hours a week.

“So many practice owners are becoming overwhelmed and burned out,” she said in an interview with Accountants Daily.

“I’m seeing a lot more people are saying they just cannot keep working ridiculous hours.”

“They simply have too many clients that they’re not charging well enough for so then they’ve got to work additional hours – they’re working 60, 70, hours a week.”

While accountants typically started their own practice in hopes of more flexibility and a better work/life balance, it often made things worse instead, with work no longer confined to 9am and 5pm.

“Flexibility might mean you’re able to go to some school stuff, and that’s great, that’s exactly what I did when I had my practice,” Gascoigne said.

“But I’ve got some people that ring me and they’re working to 1 or 2am, they’re working every weekend.”

“That’s a sure sign that we need to reset that client base, reset that profitability level, reset the boundaries, and get back to how we can make this work for us.”

When it came to clients, Gascoigne said accountants tended to “take everyone that comes in the door” because they wanted to help people.

“I think the intrinsic thing that we’re made up of is that we want to help people,” she said.

“What I see is most accountants are so happy to help that it’s almost like their currency. So then they help more and more and more people, and they keep doing that, and sometimes the profitability goes lower and lower because you get invested in the client.”

“Everyone's got a bit of a back story. Someone’s got into some difficulty. They’ve got outstanding returns. They haven't got money to pay you, and then all of a sudden, all these accountants are doing other stuff for free or for a lower fee.”

But accountants needed to get more strategic and commercial, she said, recommending they analyse their client base by categorising them based on quantitative factors, like fee structures, and qualitative elements such as client behaviour and communication styles.

“Have a look at the attributes of all the clients that drive you crazy, and what are the attributes of all the clients that you love working with,” she said.

“Things like, they always bring the information late and expect us to get it done. They don't want to pay their bills. They always winge. They never followed our advice.”

Practice owners could then implement changes with clear business justifications.

“It's hard to say, hey, we're not the right people for you anymore … but with [the exercise] you can work out and craft your story, even though those clients might be unhappy with them, they actually can understand there's a commercial reason.”

“We need to be both: empathetic, but we also need to be more commercial.”

Gascoigne also advised practice owners to “religiously” analyse their own metrics and performance indicators.

“They should ask ‘What is my gross profit rate, what is my average hourly rate, what is my average fee per client?’ and compare their results with what top performing firms were achieving.”

“I don't think people are calculating that stuff anymore as much as they should be.”

“2025 is a perfect time, and it's what I do with all of my clients, to really just sit back and pause, reflect, and then design and redesign their practice.”

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Christine Chen

Christine Chen

AUTHOR

Christine Chen is a journalist at Accountants Daily and Accounting Times, the leading sources of news, insight, and educational content for professionals in the accounting sector.

Previously, Christine has written for City Hub, the South Sydney Herald and Honi Soit. She has also produced online content for LegalVision and completed internships at EY and Deloitte.

Christine has a commerce degree from the University of Western Australia and a juris doctor degree from the University of Sydney. 

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Comments (7)

  • avatar
    Operating a hotdog van on the beach is looking more and more appealing every day!!!
    1
  • avatar
    We need to be sufficiently strong as to say no, I don't want you as a client if you won't pay a commercial fee.    Life's too short ...
    1
  • avatar
    jjac4217@*******.net.au Monday, 13 January 2025
    ATO is trying to drive agents out of busines by putting up road blocks
    2
  • avatar
    We all know what the issue is and why this is going to keep occurring. The ATO/Government keep imposing more and more useless red tape that we the accounting industry are forced to carry out with no expectation that we can bill for the service or the taxpayer expecting to pay for.

    Look at client agent linking (I still don't know why this is a thing because i literally can't recall one case where the tax agent was signing in and lodging fraudulent returns for their client that was a non-individual compared to the daily occurrence of fraudulent returns for individuals being done through MyGov... but anyway). Something that used to take 5 seconds now takes hours/days/weeks and yes sometimes even months to sort out and that is just to onboard the client. What taxpayer expects to pay for hours of time just to sign up with an accountant? Not only was the extra work dumped on us, the ATO completely wiped their hands of the situation and basically provided no real ongoing support (unless you include a phone number that says its too busy and automatically hangs up instead of putting you on hold). I have clients that are time poor, cash poor, technology challenged and sometimes with no passport call this hotline and IF they get through get told they can't help them and its up to them to sort out which gets passed back to the accountant to do. 

    Somewhere in between client agent linking, single touch payroll setup, becoming spies for government by dobbing in clients and tax agents and being unpaid debt collectors for the ATO (just to name a few in the past couple of years), we are supposed to actually do some accounting work. Colour me surprised we are overworked and burning out...
    4
    • avatar
      Quite correct. The ATO & Treasury don't understand the critical importance of the tax profession to the tax system and treat us with disrespect. If we all took a month off as a strike/mental health month, they'd run out of money very quickly!
      3
    • avatar
      I couldn't have said it better myself! You are 100% correct.
      1
    • avatar
       Hear hear. The tech is for the ATO/SRO etc. Politicians and professional bodies think its great and saves us time. It saves the ATO time. Then the Commissioner sacks a heap of people and goes back to government saying what a great job he is doing. We are doing his job, for free mostly. As you say just on-boarding, a simple task, is now a nightmare. Things were faster more accurate and easier when we used paper. Tech is not just pressing a button. Fixing an error on STP or super stream is almost impossible and just being able to log in to things requires a prayer session and human sacrifice.
      1