Bookkeeping Statistics 2026 — the Numbers You Can Cite

Last verified: September 2026 · Sources linked at each statistic

How much does bookkeeping cost for a small business?

• The median annual wage for bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks was $50,670 in May 2025. — U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (OOH), 2025. Source
• The median annual wage for accountants and auditors was $83,680 in May 2025. — U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (OOH), 2025. Source
• There were 1,532,400 bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerk jobs in the U.S. in 2025, and employment is projected to decline 6 percent from 2025 to 2035. — U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (OOH), 2025. Source
• About 144,100 openings for bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks are projected each year, on average, over the 2025–35 decade. — U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (OOH), 2025. Source
• Federal paperwork collections cost small businesses over $81 billion in 2025. — SBA Office of Advocacy, 2025. Source
• Over 80% of the federal paperwork burden for small businesses comes from the Internal Revenue Service alone. — SBA Office of Advocacy, 2025. Source
• Small businesses carried 1,568 million hours of IRS federal paperwork burden in 2025, at a cost of $66.0 billion. — SBA Office of Advocacy, 2025. Source

What is the ROI of hiring a professional bookkeeper?

• Low financial literacy costs small business owners an average of $118,121 in lost profit. — Intuit QuickBooks, 2025. Source
• Nearly half (45%) of small business owners say they’ve lost at least $10,000 in profits as a result of low financial literacy, and 13% believe they’ve missed out on $500,000 or more. — Intuit QuickBooks, 2025. Source
• 48% of small business owners are confident they’re paying taxes correctly — a number that jumps to 69% for small business owners who use an accounting professional. — Intuit QuickBooks, 2025. Source
• 98% of small business owners say their accountant boosts their confidence in their business, and 9 in 10 say their accountant or bookkeeper helps their business grow. — Intuit QuickBooks, 2025. Source
• 9 in 10 small business owners say their accounting professional contributes to the business’s success. — Intuit QuickBooks, 2025. Source
• Well over half (65%) of new businesses were profitable in 2024 and 57% of those that hired an employee last year plan to expand their headcount this year. — Gusto (New Business Formation Report), 2025. Source
• Seventy-seven percent of solopreneurs reported being profitable in their first year compared to only 54% of employers, and almost all (93%) of solopreneurs expect to be profitable in 2025. — Gusto (Solopreneurs Report), 2025. Source

What percentage of small businesses do their own bookkeeping?

• There are 36,207,130 small businesses in the U.S., and 82.3 percent, or 29,811,495 firms, have no employees (nonemployer firms). — SBA Office of Advocacy, 2026. Source
• There are 34,752,434 small businesses in the U.S.; 81.9 percent, or 28,477,518 firms, have no employees (nonemployer firms), and 18.1 percent have paid employees. — SBA Office of Advocacy, 2024. Source
• Only 16% of new small business owners or solopreneurs have a business degree or similar qualifications. — Intuit QuickBooks, 2025. Source
• Nearly half (42%) of small business owners surveyed admit they had limited or no financial literacy before starting their businesses. — Intuit QuickBooks, 2025. Source
• Only 54% of small business owners say they had a good understanding of financial management before starting a business. — Intuit QuickBooks, 2025. Source
• About 1 in 5 small business owners say they taught themselves financial literacy; only 13% say they learned about financial literacy in school. — Intuit QuickBooks, 2025. Source

What percentage of small businesses use accounting software?

• 71% of today’s small business owners use accounting software or apps to manage their finances, but another 71% say they’re also still using pen and paper or spreadsheets to manage some aspects of their finances. — Intuit QuickBooks, 2025. Source
• Only 2% of small business owners say they don’t have any kind of system for recording financial transactions. — Intuit QuickBooks, 2025. Source
• Small businesses heavily affected by overdue payments showed lower adoption of accounting software (36%) versus those less affected (56%). — Intuit QuickBooks, 2025. Source

What percentage of small businesses fail due to poor financial management or bookkeeping errors?

• 43% of small business owners say cash flow is a problem for their business. — Intuit QuickBooks, 2025. Source
• 32% of small business owners say better financial literacy would help them improve budgeting and cash flow, and 19% say it would give them a better understanding of their taxes. — Intuit QuickBooks, 2025. Source
• From 1994–2022, an average of 67.7 percent of new employer establishments survived at least two years; the five-year survival rate was 49.2 percent, the ten-year rate 33.9 percent, and the fifteen-year rate 25.5 percent. — SBA Office of Advocacy (BED data), 2026. Source
• While more than half of establishments close before five years, more than two thirds (69.5 percent) that reach five years reach ten. — SBA Office of Advocacy (BED data), 2026. Source
• Small businesses comprise 43.5% of gross domestic product and 45.9% of private sector employees (62.3 million workers). — SBA Office of Advocacy, 2026. Source
• Of establishments born in March 2021, 52.4% were still surviving in March 2025; of the 1994 birth cohort, 12.6% were still trading in March 2025. — U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (Business Employment Dynamics, Table 7), 2025. Source

What are bookkeeping accuracy and error rates, and what happens in an audit?

• For Tax Years 2015–2023, the IRS examined 0.36% of individual returns filed and 0.57% of corporation returns filed, as of the end of FY 2025. — IRS (Data Book 2025), 2025. Source
• In FY 2025, the IRS closed 497,621 tax return audits, resulting in $26.8 billion in recommended additional tax. — IRS (Data Book 2025), 2025. Source
• Of closed examinations, 12,192 taxpayers, or 2.5%, did not agree with the IRS examiner’s determination. — IRS (Data Book 2025), 2025. Source
• In FY 2025, there were 16,158 examinations resulting in refunds to the taxpayer, totaling $10.4 billion. — IRS (Data Book 2025), 2025. Source
• The misreporting rate is 1% for income subject to substantial information reporting and withholding, 6% for amounts subject to substantial information reporting but not withholding, and 55% for income subject to little or no information reporting, such as nonfarm proprietor income. — IRS (Publication 1415, Tax Gap Estimates TY2014–2016), 2019. Source
• Nonfarm proprietor income accounted for $80 billion of the individual income tax underreporting tax gap in TY2014–2016 — 29% of the total, with a 57% net misreporting percentage. — IRS (Publication 1415, Tax Gap Estimates TY2014–2016), 2019. Source
• The projected annual gross tax gap for tax year 2022 is $696 billion, with a projected voluntary compliance rate of 85.0 percent. — IRS (Tax Gap, TY2022 projections), 2024. Source
• The TY 2022 gross tax gap comprises $539 billion in underreporting, $63 billion in nonfiling, and $94 billion in underpayment. — IRS (Tax Gap, TY2022 projections), 2024. Source

How much time do owners spend on bookkeeping?

• Federal paperwork burden is heaviest for small firms relative to revenue: for every $1 small businesses spend on paperwork costs they generate $265 in revenue, while large businesses incur $1 in paperwork costs but achieve $572 in revenue. — SBA Office of Advocacy, 2025. Source
• Forty-one percent of all solopreneurs said time management is a major challenge, and almost a third report cash flow management as an ongoing challenge. — Gusto (Solopreneurs Report), 2025. Source
• More than 40% of new-business owners said they didn’t have enough time to do everything they needed to, and managing cash flow and finding new customers rounded out the top three challenges, with more than a third of respondents citing each. — Gusto (New Business Formation Report), 2025. Source

What is the unpaid invoice backlog and what are days sales outstanding for small businesses?

• Nearly 3 in 5 businesses (59%) have invoices overdue by 30+ days, up from 47% last year. — Intuit QuickBooks, 2026. Source
• Businesses with unpaid invoices are owed $17.7K on average. — Intuit QuickBooks, 2026. Source
• Over half (56%) of small businesses surveyed reported being owed money from unpaid invoices, averaging $17.5K per business, and 47% reported a portion of invoices overdue by more than 30 days — with nearly 1 in 10 invoices falling into this category on average. — Intuit QuickBooks, 2025. Source
• 51% of businesses with overdue invoices say cash flow is a problem, compared to 36% of those without. — Intuit QuickBooks, 2026. Source
• Nearly 2 in 5 owners (39%) say one late payment made it hard to cover payroll or bills in the past year. — Intuit QuickBooks, 2026. Source
• Nearly 3 in 4 businesses (74%) aren’t fully automated when it comes to managing and paying bills. — Intuit QuickBooks, 2026. Source
• 43% of small business owners say cash flow is a problem for their business; 74% say their cash flow challenges have stayed the same or worsened over the last 12 months. — Intuit QuickBooks, 2025. Source
• Rising costs of goods, services, and/or wages was the most common financial challenge, cited by 75% of firms; more than half cited paying operating expenses (56%) or uneven cash flows (51%). — Federal Reserve Banks (Small Business Credit Survey), 2024. Source

What are the statistics on late tax filings and penalties?

• The failure to file penalty is 5% of the tax due for each month or partial month a return is late, accruing up to a maximum of 25%. — IRS, 2026. Source
• The failure to pay penalty will not exceed 25% of your unpaid taxes. — IRS, 2026. Source
• In FY 2025, the IRS assessed $29.6 billion in additional taxes for returns not filed timely and collected $3.5 billion with delinquent returns. — IRS (Data Book 2025), 2025. Source
• In FY 2025, the IRS collected $117.5 billion in unpaid assessments on returns filed with additional tax due, netting $73.1 billion after credit transfers. — IRS (Data Book 2025), 2025. Source
• The IRS assessed more than $1.2 trillion in civil penalties in FY 2025; of this, $33.1 billion was assessed in civil penalties on individual and estate and trust income tax returns. — IRS (Data Book 2025), 2025. Source
• Taxpayers established 3.2 million new installment agreements and paid $17.9 billion toward all installment agreements in FY 2025. — IRS (Data Book 2025), 2025. Source
• In FY 2025, taxpayers proposed 38,797 offers in compromise to settle existing tax liabilities for less than the full amount owed; the IRS accepted 5,464 offers, amounting to $98.1 million. — IRS (Data Book 2025), 2025. Source
• The IRS collected $5.3 trillion in gross taxes in FY 2025 and issued 120.6 million refunds amounting to $638.8 billion. — IRS (Data Book 2025), 2025. Source
• The IRS collected $486.4 billion in income taxes, before refunds, from businesses in FY 2025. — IRS (Data Book 2025), 2025. Source
• Federal taxes on business income ranks 4th among small business problems, with 24.9% of owners calling it a critical problem, followed by state taxes on business income (21.8%), tax complexity (18.8%), frequent changes in federal tax laws (16.3%) and dealing with IRS/state tax agencies (13.1%). — NFIB Research Center, 2024. Source
• The ‘Cost of Health Insurance’ is the number one small business problem, with 41% of small business owners citing it as a critical issue in 2024. — NFIB Research Center, 2024. Source
• In July 2026, 16% of small business owners reported taxes as their single most important problem, the second top issue. — NFIB Research Center (Small Business Economic Trends), 2026. Source

Remote/virtual bookkeeping and AI adoption

• Nearly a quarter (24%) of all small employers currently use AI technologies for their business activity, compared to 76% who do not. — NFIB Research Center (Small Business and Technology Survey), 2025. Source
• Only 4% of small employers reported using AI technology for accounting, versus 29% for communications and 27% for marketing. — NFIB Research Center (Small Business and Technology Survey), 2025. Source
• Over half (57%) of all small employers have introduced new, or significantly improved, technologies (software, equipment, etc.) in their business within the last two years. — NFIB Research Center (Small Business and Technology Survey), 2025. Source
• Overall, 82% of small employers have their own website. — NFIB Research Center (Small Business and Technology Survey), 2025. Source
• Nearly half of firms (46%) reported that their business or its employees currently use AI, while an additional 15% planned to begin using it in the next 12 months. — Federal Reserve Banks (Small Business Credit Survey), 2025. Source
• For AI users, the top challenges were accuracy (46%) and adapting tools to meet business needs (43%). — Federal Reserve Banks (Small Business Credit Survey), 2025. Source
• More than 3 in 4 small and midsize businesses in the US now use AI regularly, up from 48% in July 2024. — Intuit QuickBooks (2026 AI Impact Report), 2026. Source
• Work-related generative AI adoption stands at about 41 percent of the workforce, and non-work-related usage at about 50 percent of the population, as of November 2025. — Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (FEDS Notes), 2026. Source
• The SBU estimates an employment-weighted firm AI adoption rate of around 78 percent and an LLM adoption rate of about 54 percent. — Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (FEDS Notes), 2026. Source
• Between Sept. 2024 and Aug. 2025, 7.6 percent of small businesses used artificial intelligence (A.I.). — SBA Office of Advocacy (BTOS), 2026. Source
• Last year, nearly half (47%) of new businesses used GenAI, up from 21% in 2023, and 81% of those using GenAI said it allows them to get more done. — Gusto (New Business Formation Report), 2025. Source
• The percentage of new businesses that allowed fully remote or hybrid work fell from 40% in 2023 to 34% in 2024. — Gusto (New Business Formation Report), 2025. Source

Statistics are attributed to their original producing organizations and linked for verification. All Lines Business Solutions has no affiliation with the cited sources; they are cited for reference only.