Burnout in accounting

Accounting work runs to a calendar that clients rarely see. 31 October is the final date for registered agents to add new clients to their client list so those clients' 2026 tax returns are covered by the lodgment program, and a long list of other lodgments falls due on the same day. The next round arrives in May, and monthly and quarterly activity statements run underneath both.

Practices get that work done, season after season, with partners, managers, accountants and bookkeepers sharing it between them.

1What burnout is

The World Health Organization describes burnout as "a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed", with three parts: exhaustion, a growing mental distance from the job or cynicism about it, and reduced professional efficacy. The WHO classifies it as an occupational phenomenon.

In accounting, that stress can come from several directions at once: deadlines set by the ATO, client demands that land on those same deadlines, one busy period running into the next, and fewer experienced people to share the work. We looked at that shortage in Will AI replace accountants?

2The Australian evidence

In April 2026, Deakin University researchers launched the Australian Accountants & Bookkeepers Wellbeing Index, the first industry-wide measure of its kind in Australia. Reporting on the launch, Accountants Daily quoted the report's finding that the workforce is "under sustained and, in many areas, intensifying strain: elevated psychological distress and burnout, escalating workloads, persistent staff shortages". The report also pointed to recurring busy periods that wear down work-life balance. Mental health and wellbeing came in below national benchmarks. Business owners and sole traders were the most affected, carrying almost double the pressure from running the business on top of the emotional toll.

We could not find a published burnout percentage from the new index. The latest Australian figure we found on wellbeing at work is from a 2022 survey of 151 accounting professionals by researchers at the University of Newcastle, drawn from an online panel. That survey did not measure burnout: 58% said they regularly, often or always experienced negative feelings at work.

In CA ANZ's Remuneration Survey 2025/26, about one in three of the more than 4,100 members who responded, in Australia, New Zealand and overseas, said they were considering leaving their role in the next 12 months. Nearly a third said they would favour better work-life balance over salary.

At the Tax Practitioners Board's consultation forum in December 2025, the professional associations' view, as recorded in the TPB's key messages, was that "Tax practitioners are overwhelmed with increasing obligations from multiple regulators and client expectations."

3The lodgment calendar

Those obligations bunch around fixed dates. Alongside the final date for adding new clients, 31 October brings prior-year returns, SMSF returns for new registrants and a list of annual reports. In May, returns for all entities that did not have to lodge earlier are due on 15 May, with quarterly activity statements due on 26 May. Agents are also measured against an 85% on-time lodgment requirement for current-year income tax returns.

Jobs and Skills Australia reports average full-time hours of 43 hours a week for accountants, based on the 2021 Census. That figure does not show how hours move through accounting's peak periods.

In a CA ANZ survey of 334 New Zealand accountants, three-quarters said their provisional tax workload peaked in April and May. CA ANZ notes that practitioners can move from prior-year returns straight into year-end work, GST returns and P3 reviews, with little breathing room in between.

A small US field study by Devon Jefferson, Lindsay Andiola and Patrick Hurley followed 44 public accountants for three days in a normal work period and three days in busy season, with a short log each morning and evening. Fatigue at the end of a busy-season day lowered sleep quality, and the accountants started the next morning more tired. In a separate experiment with 93 graduating accounting students and 86 online workers, a one-minute microbreak reduced fatigue and improved error detection.

4AI and the workload

In the busy periods, AI can take on some of the routine work, such as a draft reply to a client query or a first look at a bank reconciliation.

Safe Work Australia's July 2026 fact sheet on AI notes that "Automation of routine or basic tasks could result in workers having a greater proportion of tasks which require extensive thought and focus (e.g. work intensification or fatigue)." Is AI helping or hindering our decision fatigue? covers the research on a day full of big decisions, and how much of it has held up.

The TPB's guidance on using AI, issued in July 2026, adds a checking step, saying practitioners "should verify and review AI generated content for accuracy throughout each step of the workflow". In a peak, that review sits alongside the other sign-offs, and a draft that has to be redone takes longer again (More drafts than anyone needed).

What we're seeing is new AI tools and features arriving quickly, each with its own small decisions about whether to use it and how far to trust it. Deakin's index found technology to be a point of tension in the profession, including the pressure to keep skills current and its role in driving change inside firms.

The research on AI and burnout itself is early. A University of Adelaide study found that people who used generative AI more reported more control over their work, and it found no link between AI use and burnout, or between AI use and job demands. Its 197 workers came from mixed occupations and were surveyed once.

5Capacity across the team

What we tend to see is the time AI saves staying with the person who saved it. The research we covered in Working smarter with AI, not just faster found that most people who saved time with AI put part of it into other work tasks.

In the Newcastle survey, accounting professionals with more job autonomy, more support from co-workers and supervisors, regular feedback and opportunities to develop reported more positive feelings at work. Deakin's index named strong social support and fair leadership as protective. In the US field study, accountants who had more support from a supervisor on a given busy-season day finished that day less tired.

If a practice wants saved time to go towards supervision, feedback or sharing peak workloads, it has to allocate that time deliberately.

In medicine, where organisational approaches to burnout have been studied, a 2017 review of 19 studies covering about 1,550 doctors found that changes aimed at the organisation had a larger effect on burnout than programs aimed at individual doctors. We could not find an equivalent study for accounting.

6What can move before a peak

Safe Work Australia's code of practice on psychosocial hazards lists high workloads and time pressure among psychosocial hazards. Its examples of ways to manage them include scheduling non-urgent work for quieter periods, planning the workforce so there are enough skilled staff, providing "additional support during periods of high demand", and allowing "adequate rest and recovery, particularly between periods of high demand".

The ATO's dates stay where they are. A practice can look at which non-urgent work can be done before October or May, and which routine tasks AI could take on ahead of the peak. Safe Work Australia's AI fact sheet flags that automating routine work can leave people with a greater share of demanding tasks, so a plan that moves routine work to AI also needs to account for what is left.

Any time AI saves can go to the harder decisions, to juniors learning the work beside a senior colleague, or to recovery after a peak, if the practice decides that in advance. We look at other options for that time in What to do with the time AI gives back.

7Planning for the peaks

8Where we come in

Our investigation follows your practice's work through its steps and times it as it runs today, including who carries the load at each point in the year and where AI could help. The practice can then plan its year from its own measures. The findings belong to your firm whether or not we go any further together.

To talk through where the pressure falls in your practice's year, and how AI fits into it, reach out to our team. The first conversation works out whether your firm is the right fit for the AI Uplift Program, and whether we are the right people to help.

Planning the year as a team