Staff Churn and the Monthly Close: Coping With the Reality

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/jcaf.22293
• Author: Michael Whitmire
• Date: 01 September 2017
• Published date: 01 September 2017

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© 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com).

DOI 10.1002/jcaf.22293

Commissioned

Staff Churn and the Monthly Close:

Coping With the Reality

Michael Whitmire

Turnover in

accounting staff

for many mod-

ern organizations

today has become

the rule rather than

the exception. In

fact, according to

CPA Trendlines,1 it’s

not uncommon for

a typical account-

ing department to

lose a quarter of its

staff in a given year.

There are lots of dif-

ferent reasons, of

course, including but

not limited to long

hours, deadline pres-

sures, other appeal-

ing opportunities or

simply a desire for

a different career

path. All of these

contribute to orga-

nizational challenges

companies face

when retaining valu-

able team members.

Considering that the

average cost of staff turnover

has been calculated at over

$30,000 per employee, again

per the CPA Trendlines article,

expense as well as operational

disruption become part of an

ongoing scenario most would

like to avoid.

Aside from

employee satisfaction

issues that may be

addressed internally

with a variety of

programs and solu-

tions, some more tra-

ditional accounting

teams have another

daunting reality that

needs to be tackled:

the month-end close

process, where the

high impact of staff

churn is felt most dra-

matically. In a recent

survey2 completed

early in 2017, Dimen-

sional Research

uncovered a startling

reality. More than

26% of managers

responding said they

have lost staff due

to the stress related

to the close process.

This directly trans-

lates to negative busi-

ness outcomes and

the renewed efforts

required to hire, train, and

retain productive contributors.

For most organizations,

the monthly close process

In general, turnover in accounting staff seems to

be par for the course. In fact, it’s not uncommon

for a typical accounting department to lose a

quarter of its staff in a given year. With the aver-

age cost of turnover calculated at $32,500 per

employee, not only is it expensive but is highly

disruptive to an organization. It’s the month-

end close process where the impact of a high

employee churn rate is frequently most felt. This

is because for most organizations, the close pro-

cess continues to be a highly manual one that typ-

ically is not well documented. When an employee

leaves, they often take their “tribal knowledge”

of a company’s close process with them, leaving

the rest of the team to scramble to reconstruct it.

This can delay close time and lead to mistakes.

Close management software is helping account-

ing departments deal with the reality of the high

turnover of staff accountants. By documenting all

procedures in a centralized place and enforcing

best practices as well as easy access to historical

referencing, it serves as an on boarding roadmap

for employees in new roles and keeps the close

process where it belongs–within the walls of a

given organization. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.