Accountinsights: Know the Secrets to a Less Busy Audit or Tax Season

What if you can make your audit busy season or tax season…less busy?

Is there such a thing?

In chats with fellow accountants now working in different countries, the topic of busy seasons always comes up.

Our usual conversation goes like this:

“How many hours do you work on average back then?” I’d asked.

“It depends. But more than the usual 8 hours per day of course.”

“Do you also work on weekends?”

“Yes.” Followed by several reasons:

• “I go to the office on weekends. But mainly it’s because my teammates are there. We just want to chat and work together.”
• “I work on the weekend because it makes me feel prepared for the coming week.”
• “I work on the weekend because I have nothing better to do.”
• “I work on the weekend because I have multiple deadlines coming up. If I don’t work on weekends, I will not be able to meet these deadlines.”
• “I work on the weekend because the senior, the manager, or the partner told me to.”

If someone tells you to stop working long hours or working on weekends, will you stop?

“But…work keeps piling up. Work is never-ending. How can I stop?”

If the organization you work with already promotes a culture of well-being and yet you keep on working longer hours and keeping yourself busy during busy seasons, who is at fault? You or the organization?

Do culture and societal norms and even personality impact how we experience our busy seasons?

A less busy season. Myth or fact? 

Depending on the situation… 

Some busy seasons are busier than others. 

Some people also find themselves working longer than they have to.

But some people (and countries and cultures) are better at handling these issues than others. 

One point of expanding your knowledge borders is to learn from the best practices of others.                       

If others can do it, why can’t we? 

Last 2022, I started a Substack newsletter Less Than 60 Hours in an attempt to address a recurring pain point of auditors and accountants—their “lack of time” especially during busy seasons.

This newsletter does not hold all the answers. And it promises not to.

It’s a medium to explore best practices around time and personal management that will lead to maximum efficiency during busy seasons so that you have more time to spend on things that matter to you. 

It’s an informal study on what works well and what’s not, based on experiences—mine and yours.

I’m also sharing some experience-based hacks, mindset changes, and a system I’ve built through the years around time management while being a seasoned auditor in a Big 4 firm. 

I hope that peers in the profession will also share their experiences. 

We all have something to learn from each other.

P.S. Post originally published via LinkedIn and reposted here with minimal edits.