Every January the same thing happens. The inbox fills up, the bookkeeping backlog grows, and a partner starts drafting a job ad for a role that will take months to fill. There is a cheaper way to buy those hours back.
The pipeline is still thin
According to the AICPA's 2025 Trends report, US schools awarded 55,152 accounting bachelor's and master's degrees in 2023–24, down 6.6% from the year before. Master's degrees fell by about 15%. Enrollment rose 12.4% in spring 2025, which is good news for the profession, but those students won't be closing your clients' books this tax season.
What a hire really costs
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the median annual wage for bookkeeping, accounting and auditing clerks at $50,670 (May 2025), or $24.36 an hour. For accountants and auditors, the median is $83,680.
Salary is only the start. Joe Hadzima at MIT estimates that salary, employment taxes and benefits together typically come to 1.25 to 1.4 times base salary. For a median bookkeeper, that is roughly $63,300 to $70,900 a year, before recruiting, software, equipment, office space and the months it takes someone new to learn your clients.
The peak problem
A full-time hire costs the same in August as in March. Most firms don't need twelve months of extra capacity. They need it from January to April, and again before the October extension deadline. Fixed salaries and seasonal work are a poor match.
What to hand over first
- Monthly bookkeeping and bank reconciliations
- AP, AR and payroll journals
- Catch-up and clean-up projects
- Month-end close packs, prepared for your review
Keep the client relationship, advisory work and sign-off with your own team. That is where your partners add value; ledger work is where their hours disappear.
A simple capacity model
Hours needed each month = client files × average hours per file. Divide by the productive hours one person gives you in a month (we use 140 as a working assumption) to see how many people you actually need.
| Example: 40 client files | Per month |
|---|---|
| Hours needed (40 files × 6 hours) | 240 hours |
| People needed at 140 productive hours each | 1.7 |
| In-house cost at the BLS median (1.25–1.4× loaded) | $9,050–$10,130 |
Your numbers will be different, and that is the point of running them. Compare your in-house figure with a fixed monthly quote for the same files; we prepare one on a 20-minute call. If your files are small, or your team has spare hours outside the season, outsourcing may not save you money, and we will tell you so.
How to start before the rush
- Pick one representative client file.
- We close it for free, inside your software and under your name.
- Judge the turnaround and the review notes yourself.
- Scale up before January, not in the middle of the season.
Sources
- The accounting graduate pipeline: where do things stand? (Journal of Accountancy, October 2025, on the AICPA 2025 Trends report)
- Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerks (US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook)
- Accountants and Auditors (US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook)
- How Much Does an Employee Cost? (Joe Hadzima, MIT)
