![]() Today “robots,” namely software, have automated these duties, allowing some large businesses to shrink their accounting and finance departments and thus lower their labor costs.įor example, Verizon Communications reduced its finance department costs by 21% over three years by closing more than 100 back-office locations, building a new hub for its accounting and finance operations, and, in the process, cutting jobs. For years, accounting back offices consisted of large numbers of clerks and bookkeepers keeping busy with manual tasks from typing thousands of orders into one large database, to sending payments to vendors, to tracking customer balances and generating aging reports. Granted, this looming crisis didn’t come upon us overnight. While statistics predict overall negative job growth for bookkeepers due to automation, a large number of new and replacement positions still exist, fueled in large part by an aging workforce entering retirement. Of workers 65 and older, a staggering 13.1% of bookkeepers are still in the labor force-double the average of all employees-compared to just 7.1% of accountants and auditors. Workers ages 55 and older account for 40% of bookkeepers and 25% of accountants but make up only 23% of all employees. Take a look, for example, at the two eldest age brackets: Baby Boomers and potential retirees. This means that a shortage of bookkeeping professionals may be upon us faster than incoming accountants. As the aging population of bookkeepers prepares for retirement, opportunities to enter the occupation should be plentiful despite the projected decline in overall employment.Īs Table 3 shows, bookkeepers and accounting clerks are generally older than accountants and auditors: 50.2 vs. A large number of openings in an occupation experiencing a decline may indicate a high need to replace existing workers who are separating, for example, due to retirement. Although bookkeepers are projected to lose 65,800 available jobs from 2018 to 2028, the average annual number of openings during this time is expected to reach 188,500, which is 42,500 more than for accountants and auditors during the same period. Workers who change jobs within the same field don’t generate openings since there’s no net change from this movement. The differences in median wages, entry-level education, and experience and training are shown in Table 2.Īccording to the BLS, occupational openings represent the sum of net employment change and separations. “Accountants and Auditors” include public accountants, cost accountants, financial accountants, fund accountants, internal auditors, and tax accountants. BLS definitions of “Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerks” include bookkeepers, accounts receivable clerks, and auditing clerks, among others. The projected shift in accounting jobs and functions can be seen in Table 1. In each case, the goal for the SMEs is to get the services they need at the best price and with the least disruption to the accounting function. ![]() ![]() In this article, we’ll provide guidance for SMEs looking to secure employees who have the appropriate skill sets, outsource bookkeeping services, or adopt technology to automate their bookkeeping and other back-office tasks. Nevertheless, the combination of an aging population of current bookkeepers and fewer new entrants into the field will be insufficient to meet the needs of many companies, especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). There will still be a strong demand for these professionals. Small Business Administration (SBA) data, professional journals, and mass-media articles-as well as the responses to our own small-scale survey-we found that the projections of lower employment and automation replacing bookkeepers may not be wholly accurate. Yet when we looked deeper into BLS and U.S. On the surface, this negative growth rate indicates that the need for back-office support will decrease substantially in the near term. For example, rather than performing manual data entry, bookkeepers will focus more on analyzing reports and pointing out potential areas for efficiency gains. As more of their routine tasks become automated, however, bookkeepers will be expected to take on more analytical and advisory roles. As a result, the same amount of bookkeeping work can be done with fewer employees, which is expected to lead to job losses. Software innovations, such as cloud computing, have automated many of the tasks these individuals used to perform. Most experts place the blame on technological change for the expected drop in employment growth for bookkeepers. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports that bookkeepers and accounting clerks will experience a 4% decline in employment during the decade ending in 2028, compared to a projected 6% increase in opportunities for accountants and auditors during the same time frame.
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