The finding
Intuit surveyed 725 US accounting and bookkeeping professionals in May 2026. Manual data cleanup was the top barrier to advisory work, named by 30 percent. Staffing gaps followed at 24 percent.
Respondents reported losing about five hours a week to moving and reconciling data across disconnected systems. And 77 percent reported at least one hiring struggle in the past year.
Source: The 2026 Accountant Technology Survey: Turning Data Revelations into a Firm of the Future, CPA Practice Advisor, reporting on the Intuit QuickBooks survey, July 2, 2026.
What it means for you
If you run a CAS or fractional CFO firm, your advisory capacity is probably being spent on data handling and intake. Hiring is unlikely to fix it quickly. More than half of respondents said a new entry-level hire takes six months or more to reach full billable capacity.
The first gain is usually in the process around the client work: requests, reminders, status updates and handoffs between systems.
Our take
Capacity is only half the problem. Freeing up five hours a week does not help if nothing fills them, so we build the intake work and the client pipeline together.
The source is a vendor-run survey reported by a trade publication, so read it with that in mind. It still matches what managing partners tell us. Start by mapping one client from signed letter to first deliverable, then sort each step.