Change fatigue is real… and it’s hurting your accountancy practice

No accountant ever said, “a change is as good as a rest” and kept a straight face.

That’s because change has become an unstoppable force in accountancy, and it’s one to be reckoned with. On legislation alone, there have been about 15 upheavals across the last two decades – whether we’re talking about matters directly linked to accounting, like MTD, or indirect but equally pressing changes, like GDPR.

Meanwhile, when it comes to tech, the world’s barely recognisable compared to 20 years ago. AI is at the forefront of everyone’s minds, but there’s also the cloud, automation, the rise of data dashboards, and much more. Against this landscape, clients expect us to do things differently and to communicate in increasingly sophisticated ways.

In your effort to keep up, it’s easy to get worn out.

If you’re not careful, change starts feeling like punishment

Most people try to move with the times. The problem is it doesn’t always work out.

When change creates problems, every effort you make works against you. Systems creak to a halt, teams are outmatched by their to-do lists, and your exhausted staff start their job searches.

Here’s a worrying fact: across all sectors, 73% of HR leaders say employees are worn out by change (Source: Gartner). Given everything we’ve mentioned so far, it’s safe to assume it could be even worse for the accountancy industry.

A guide to fixing change fatigue

This blog explains how accountancy practices can stop new laws and tech from becoming unmanageable.

Discover:

• How things can get out of control quickly
• What the warning signs are
• What the effects are on your firm
• How you can create a plan that makes you future-proof

Let’s begin by looking at how change can cause chaos for UK accountancy practices.

A tale of two changes

It’s important to remember there’s not one but two forces of change pressuring accountants right now.

Change One: A barrage of new laws and red tape

First, there’s the constant stream of regulatory change.

MTD is the most talked about in recent years – and it’s fair to say some accountants have retired or left the sector to get out of its way. But MTD isn’t the only new regime you’ve had to comply with.

There have been around 15 changes affecting accountants one way or another in the last 20 years.

From the time MTD was announced in 2015 to today – when the rollout really hits home with MTD for Income Tax – your regulatory burden has increased dramatically.

And it’s not just the laws that have ramped up. You can add the expectation of clients to your burden. Clients know that you have data and expect more than a transactional relationship. They want advice, and they expect value-add at every turn.

All of which means MTD looks even more onerous.

It will be a year-round story with a minimum of five touchpoints for individuals under MTD for IT depending on their income streams. During those touchpoints, it’s no longer acceptable to meet the client for half an hour, prepare the return, email the draft, and file it. Now you need to have a quarterly conversation.

Many accountants we spoke to are behind. They haven’t rolled out a full process – they’ve just tried to adapt as fast as possible as the work comes in.

Change Two: The flurry of tech transformation

New tech should be the solution to new legislation, but upgrading your system can feel like a minefield.

There’s so much to grapple with. What solutions will help your firm succeed, and what’s a waste of money?

There’s a lot to think about. In the scramble to adapt to the cloud, AI, and automation, many people are working exceptionally hard to keep up.

It might surprise you to know this includes the software industry. At one time, it was possible to develop solutions years before accountants might need them. With AI, that’s no longer the case. Things are evolving too quickly.

Software companies are now having to keep pace with their own industry, as well as that of their customers. However, it’s important that experienced vendors and developers keep a sense of perspective during this time. The best know that if they’re going to build a modern, AI-assisted solution that people need, then it must be as integrated as anything that went before. You can’t simply bolt new tech onto old; that creates blockers for data and workflows.

As an accountant, it’s important to be patient and let these experienced vendors do what they do best. The temptation is to buy from an AI startup, whose slick advertising promises the world. If you feel this temptation, then please do the necessary homework. Make sure this new vendor is the real deal. Startup solutions are unlikely to come out of the gate with a full end-to-end ecosystem of features for an accounting firm. Instead, you might be paying for a painfully fragmented tech stack. As a result, jobs might hit dead ends. You could find yourself logging into several systems and moving data manually.

Instead of moving forward technologically, you’ll feel like you’ve gone back in time.

Moving systems

Remember, choosing software is just your first step. After that, you have to move everything to the new system, and that isn’t the easiest thing. If anyone says that it is, they have never had to do it themselves. It costs money and takes valuable time from your accountants.

The need for an AI plan beyond accounting software

AI is going to play a role in your profession, beyond what you access via accountancy software. That means taking time to make important decisions: what might be your policy regarding solutions like ChatGPT and Claude? Are there red lines when it comes to data management and output reliability?

Needless to say, this is a lot to manage. Compliance is your watchword – and your headache – as you go through each solution’s Ts & Cs.

Signs that fatigue is setting in

You need to know when change is posing too much of a problem for your firm. So how does this fatigue manifest?

It’s long hours. It’s “busy season” becoming business as usual.

First, a peak period extends by a month. Then, suddenly, it’s two months, and you’re still knee-deep in work and trying to catch up.

Eventually, any bravado that comes from working long hours begins to fade. You aspire to get on top of things by the end of the third month, but that milestone comes and goes.

Maybe it’s because of the software you chose – or you don’t know how to use it to its fullest. If so, the systems you put in place to deal with all the legislative change become an irritation. You’d pay someone to turn back the clock and reintroduce the old software, but you’re stuck with what you have for the time being.

MTD and unhappy staff

With the rise of MTD, the one glimmer of hope a tired accountant can cling to – a holiday – can get snuffed out fast. They put in the application and you reject it, because HMRC’s calendar is calling the shots.

Tired, overworked, and resentful – and constantly being tripped up by ill-fitting software – they start to wonder: is the grass greener elsewhere? They make a call to an old friend or two.

With MTD, there will be winners and losers when it comes to staffing

Let’s imagine you don’t have the processes in place to deal with MTD effectively.

If a rival practice has put MTD in its place, and they reach out to your staff, you’re in trouble. Maybe one of your team catches up with a former colleague over lunch, and an offer is put to them. If so, expect your staff member to be poached by that rival before the coffee cools.

The next 12 months will decide which firms are the most attractive to employees. How you absorb new challenges like MTD, and what tech you add, is going to make a difference. We’ll see some firms embrace change the right way and rise above it, and others get swallowed by the chaos.

Preventing change fatigue

So how do you solve the problem of change fatigue? Think of it like this: change fatigue is a compounding issue; it’s a snowball. Things begin innocently enough. A new law gets introduced that requires more work.

Thinking little of it, the accountancy practice adds it to “business as usual”. But then there’s another change, and another. Soon it feels like the momentum is out of control, as one problem sticks to the next.

If you’re lucky, you will spot the symptoms we discussed and identify the problem as change fatigue. Unfortunately, change fatigue means you don’t feel like the one rolling the snowball. If anything, you’re trying to balance on top of it, like an acrobat. At some point, you need to take a breath and jump off.

You need to take a good look at the snowball – what it’s made of, and which direction you want it to move in.

Essentially, you need to become the change. For that, you need a plan.

How to plan for change, no matter what comes your way

With so much going on, a North Star is essential. For accountants, that’s your clients.

Plan your services and see what systems they need. Do this by looking at the clients you have, and the ones you hope to win. What do they want, and where do they want to go as people or businesses?

From there, you have a focus. You’ll also have a wishlist of things you’ll want to achieve.

Play through “what if” scenarios

You can and should take this planning to the next level. It can be a fun exercise. Consider all the possibilities – the “what if” scenarios. So, what if an announced law confirms your worst nightmares? What happens if AI fulfils the biggest dreams of Silicon Valley? What does that look like, and how will you stay visible and relevant?

When you have a plan, you can tackle tech

When you think about your clients and all the possibilities of what can happen, you’ll start to have a plan. It will keep you centred around winning and keeping clients, even when major changes take place.

With your plan in hand, you’ll find out very quickly whether a vendor can help. If anything, these meetings will feel more like an invitation to pitch, where you’re asking software firms to put their best foot forward.

With the right vendor, you can turn tech to your advantage and start dealing with the avalanche of new accounting legislation, like MTD.

Systems will join up, they’ll work for you – not against you – and they’ll help you adapt to the future.