The hidden tax on every accountant’s day

Minutes vanish

Searching email, ledgers, chats, and cloud drives steals two minutes here and five there; these fragments feel harmless, yet by noon an unseen hour has slipped away, dragging profit and energy with it. The chase pushes real work into the evening, eroding personal time and burning mental fuel that should power judgment calls. Over months the hidden tax balloons into hundreds of unbilled hours and a culture of perpetual catch-up.

The ledger’s truth

Time lost to scavenging never shows on invoices yet it erodes margins just as surely as a price cut. Each context switch drains focus and raises stress that lingers long after closing time, compounding error risk. Clients sense the fatigue even if they never see the stopwatch.

Measure, then act

Track where the minutes leak, assign a cost, and aim automation at the gap. Publish the metric so the team owns it and celebrates every point shaved. You cannot plug a hole you refuse to meter, and what gets measured finally gets fixed.