It’s no secret that many face a lot of accounting stress in our profession.
After all, you are responsible for your client’s financial well-being and often have to make tough decisions that can impact their bottom line.
Luckily there are ways to reduce stress in an accounting firm and maintain a healthy work-life balance.
In this article, I will discuss 15 methods for overcoming accounting stress.
Read on for more…
Table of Contents
- Why is the Accounting Profession Stressful?
- How to Reduce Accounting Stress
- 1. Engage in Capacity Planning
- 2. Use a Task Management System
- 3. Learn How to Say “No”
- 4. Identify your Stress Triggers in Advance
- 5. Don’t Skimp on the Right Tools
- 6. Exercise Regularly
- 7. Consider Yoga or Meditation
- 8. Set Realistic Daily Goals
- 9. Get Enough Sleep
- 10. Delegate Tasks You Don’t Like
- 11. Strengthen Your Support System
- 12. Prioritize Work-Life Balance at Your Firm
- 13. Take Some Time to Debrief
- 14. Set Some Time for Yourself at The Start of The Day
- 15. Set Boundaries by Removing Work Apps On Your Phone
Why is the Accounting Profession Stressful?
According to caba, 55% of accountants are suffering from stress and burnout.
Here are a few reasons why the accounting profession is stressful:
1. Never-Ending, Tight Deadlines
Each month, accounting professionals have to deal with all kinds of tight deadlines.
Combined with basically zero room for error at the risk of serious consequences…
You get a perfect recipe for constantly high stress levels.
2. Difficulty Finding Skilled Talent
The accounting field is facing a massive shortage of qualified professionals, as fewer young people are choosing it over other industries they find more attractive.
In today’s market, skilled talent is hard to come by, which means many team members end up working longer hours just to keep up with the influx of new clients.
3. Long Hours Are Often Expected
Unlike many other accounting jobs in corporate settings, firm work often demands irregular hours.
Their teams often work overtime to ensure they meet deadlines, especially when auditing a company or doing taxes for clients during the busy season.
These long hours cause stress and burnout, which can lead to mental health problems, especially when the accountant isn’t able to spend time with family and friends.
4. The Need to Quickly Adapt to New Regulations and Guidelines
New changes in regulations occur in the world of accounting and tax, accountants, especially certified public accountants, must quickly understand and implement these changes across their client base.
5. Clients Expect Better and Faster
Thanks to the Amazons and Ubers of the world, clients expect to receive what they want with the click of a button.
Since this is unrealistic in the accountancy profession, this can often cause stress to work faster.
How to Reduce Accounting Stress
Here are a few ways to reduce accounting stress:
1. Engage in Capacity Planning
Capacity planning means forecasting and comparing time committed to clients against their available capacity so that you can meet your changing and increasing client needs.
By forecasting capacity, you can avoid the overwork issue in the profession.
One of my favorite tools for capacity planning is Teamwork (affiliate link):
2. Use a Task Management System
Whether you’re preparing financial reports or handling client meetings, tracking tasks prevents overwhelm.
Making a list of things to do (i.e., your tasks) and tracking that list somewhere is one of the easiest ways to avoid chronic stress.
This helps you plan ahead and avoid missing deadlines, overworking yourself, being late to meetings, and forgetting important tasks.
To help you choose the right tool for you, check out my in-depth guide to the best accounting practice management software.
3. Learn How to Say “No”
Many accountants are stressed out because they have a hard time saying “no” to anything.
They keep accepting non-ideal clients, handling out-of-scope client requests, accepting meetings for non-mission critical activities, etc.
Here’s a template you can use to say “no” to non-ideal clients:
4. Identify your Stress Triggers in Advance
By understanding in advance what your stress triggers are, you put yourself in a position to recognize when an event might cause you unnecessary stress.
Identify your triggers first, then look out for them when they first appear so that you can mitigate the situation.
5. Don’t Skimp on the Right Tools
I sometimes see accountants trying to save a few bucks on the right tools and instead manually handling their work in spreadsheets or Word documents.
Sure, you might save a bit of money, but the cost of saving that money is far higher.
If you’ve found an app that will save you even just an hour or two each month, it’s probably worth it.
6. Exercise Regularly
You might be thinking…
Accounting is already one of the most stressful jobs there is, so shouldn’t you allocate as much time as possible getting work done?
That stress is exactly why you need to exercise.
You don’t even need a lot of it — even 30 minutes of some kind of exercise a few times per week will significantly help relieve stress.
Personally, yhe days where I’m the most stressed and least interested in exercising are usually the days where I’ll benefit the most from it.
7. Consider Yoga or Meditation
Research states that yoga can help you focus and increase productivity. This will give your body a break without taking up too much of your day and reduce your stress levels.
And while I never got into yoga myself, I have started meditating daily since the pandemic and it’s been a game changer for anyone that has a racing mind.
I personally use this app at the moment:
8. Set Realistic Daily Goals
Setting realistic daily goals helps avoid procrastination in critical activities or tasks which can help reduce stress.
The key is to ensure that the daily goals you are setting are realistic, otherwise, this suggestion will have the opposite result.
One of best habits I rely on is writing my plans for the day.
9. Get Enough Sleep
Sleep is the first thing many accountants give up when they’re faced with heavy workloads.
This is actually one of the worst things that you can do for your performance and, more importantly, long-term health.
Getting enough sleep dramatically decreases stress levels at work.
It also boosts your mood, which makes you easier to work with.
10. Delegate Tasks You Don’t Like
A lot of stress comes from being far too busy.
By delegating tasks and freeing up time for yourself, you will be able to focus on your goals, the big picture, the firm’s processes, and the business’ direction.
If you’re having trouble delegating, here’s an amazing book I’d recommend:
11. Strengthen Your Support System
Having a strong support system helps greatly in managing stress.
Here are some top tips to get you started:
- Reach out to family members and colleagues
- Build on existing bond
- Look for an emotional support group
- Ask for help from a coach or mentor
- Join an online community with others like you
Ideally, you should join an online community with engaging members that have gone through the challenges you’re currently facing.
My Future Firm Accelerate program has hundreds of accounting firm owners with the goal of achieving better work-life balance, increasing revenue, and building autopilot firms.
It’s worth checking out. 🙂
12. Prioritize Work-Life Balance at Your Firm
Chronic stress is a result of prolonged stressors from your obligations at your firm, to your family or friends, and other traumatic scenarios.
It can lead to symptoms such as fatigue and a lack of sleep, which also contributes to the feeling of burnout, even among young people.
That’s why you need to create work-life balance in your accounting firm.
This starts with intentional boundaries.
Take regular breaks and find an activity you enjoy doing outside of work.
As mentioned earlier, meditation can be a great way to de-stress and practice mindfulness.
13. Take Some Time to Debrief
A stressed accountant who’s under a lot of pressure can easily affect the mood and energy of their coworkers. Given the deadlines and stress at work, give yourself some time to debrief.
By debriefing after stressful situations, we can learn from them and take steps to prevent them in the future.
14. Set Some Time for Yourself at The Start of The Day
Your time at work shouldn’t be just about managing through accounting stressful periods.
Even if it’s only 30 minutes, making yourself a priority early in the morning can place you in a better mindset for the rest of the day.king yourself a priority early in the morning can place you in a better mindset for the rest of the day.
You can use this time to write about your daily goal or just have a cup of coffee and think about what you want to achieve.
15. Set Boundaries by Removing Work Apps On Your Phone
Consider removing work apps like Slack and email from your phone.
When you’re constantly accessible, it’s hard to mentally disconnect from work stress.
Every ping pulls you back into problem-solving mode, even during family dinner or weekend downtime.
Try setting specific check-in times instead — maybe three times a day rather than responding to every notification as it comes in.
Most issues can wait a few hours, and you’ll be more focused when you do address them.
De-Escalate and Handle Stress in Your Firm With This Guide
That’s a wrap!
Use these strategies to tackle stress at its source instead of just working harder.
When you implement even a few of these, you’ll notice fewer late nights and a team that actually enjoys coming to work.
Your clients will feel the difference too.
Now, let me know what you think.
What did I miss?
Are there other stress points in your firm that we didn’t cover?
Which of these are you going to try first?
Share in the comments below!
