The short answer
Decide what this person will own first: day-to-day entry, the month-end close, payroll and remittances, or all three. Then write down who reviews the work and how you want to hear about problems, and hire the bookkeeper whose working style fits, not just the one with the most credentials or who interviews the best. A poor fit tends to show up as numbers you stop trusting and an accountant's year-end cleanup.
Why this hire is hard right now
The two countries are reading the same job differently. Job Bank rates the Toronto-region outlook for bookkeepers "good" for 2025 to 2027: a moderate number of new positions, several openings from retirements, and a small number of unemployed workers with recent experience. About 34,520 people hold these jobs in the region, and 42% work in professional, scientific and technical services, the category that includes accounting and bookkeeping practices. A small business hiring in-house is recruiting from the same people those practices employ. In the US, BLS projects employment of bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks to fall 6% from 2025 to 2035, a loss of 85,600 from 1,532,400 jobs.
Both can be true. BLS says "software innovations have automated many of the tasks," and expects technology to reduce demand. If the keying is automated, what is left is the part software cannot do for you: noticing that something looks wrong and telling the right person in time. That depends on how a bookkeeper and an owner work together. Know how you work, write it down, and hire someone whose style matches or complements it.
What a bookkeeper does
Job Bank describes accounting technicians and bookkeepers as keeping financial records and balancing accounts, posting journal entries, reconciling accounts, and preparing financial statements and reports. Many also prepare payroll cheques and government remittance forms. BLS describes the clerk version as entering transactions in software, producing reports such as balance sheets and income statements, and reporting any differences found in reconciling. BLS also lists integrity among the qualities the job needs. How far the job goes is your decision. Three levels cover most roles:
| Level | What it looks like | What you need to have decided |
|---|---|---|
| Keeps the books | Enters transactions, records cash and cheques, assigns each to an account | Who approves a bill before it is paid, and who sees the bank statements |
| Closes the month | Reconciles accounts, prepares trial balances and reports | The deadline, and who reads the reports |
| Runs payroll and remittances | Prepares payroll cheques and government remittance forms | Who approves a payroll run, and who covers when this person is away |
The second row is the one that tells you whether the books can be trusted.
A bookkeeper who never has a question is either guessing or saving them all for month-end.
Working style: write it down first
Neither answer in the table is wrong. The trouble starts when a bookkeeper and an owner hold opposite ones. Answer each row for yourself, and again for your accountant if they will see the work.
| Moment | Write down, for how you work | What a mismatch looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Something goes wrong | A payment posts twice, or the bank balance and the books disagree: do you want to hear the same day, or once it is sorted out? | A difference is carried for weeks, and your accountant finds it at year-end. |
| Instructions conflict | You ask for an expense to be coded one way and your accountant says another: who decides, and should the bookkeeper raise it? | The books follow whoever spoke last, and the categories drift. |
| Feedback | Will you review the books yourself? Do you want questions as they come up, or in a weekly batch? | Questions go unanswered, so the bookkeeper guesses or waits. |
| Speed against quality | Which numbers must be exact, such as a payroll run, and which can be rough this week, such as a cash position? | Every report waits for the final close, or an unreconciled number goes into a decision. |
Where your answers are "it depends," write down what it depends on. That is the part a candidate cannot guess.
What a bad hire costs
The most transparent estimate puts the cost of replacing an employee at about a fifth of salary, and it is probably low. A 2012 review by the Center for American Progress found a median of 21% of annual salary across most jobs, and 20% for jobs paying under US$50,000. Only 2 of its 11 papers counted indirect costs such as lost productivity. The data are historical and American, so read them as an order of magnitude. For a small business, the larger bill is trust in the numbers: owner hours spent re-checking, accountant hours spent cleaning up, and decisions made on figures that turn out to be wrong.
Review is also a safeguard. The ACFE's 2026 report, built from 2,402 cases in a survey of Certified Fraud Examiners, says anti-fraud controls are associated with lower fraud losses, and names management review among them. That is about organizations in general, not about bookkeepers. It is still a reason to decide how you will review the books, and to hire someone who sees being checked as normal.
What fit research does and doesn't show
A 2005 meta-analysis of 172 studies found that fit with a supervisor tracked how people felt about the supervisor (corrected correlation .46) and the job (.44), but much less performance (.18) or tenure (.09). Only 5 to 14 studies sit behind each figure. So a mismatch is less likely to make a bookkeeper bad at the work than to make the working relationship harder for both sides, and for a bookkeeper that relationship is mostly questions and answers.
How to screen for fit
Ask every candidate the same questions and score the answers against what you wrote down. A 2022 re-analysis of hiring research (Sackett and colleagues) ranked structured interviews first, with a validity of .42, ahead of work samples at .33, as summarized by SIOP. The figures cover job performance across occupations, not bookkeepers specifically.
Questions that surface working style
Ask about a real past situation, then keep asking "what did you do next?" until you hear actions, not intentions.
- Something went wrong: "Tell me about an error you found in the books, yours or someone else's. What did you do first, and who did you tell?"
- Instructions conflicted: "An owner or manager asked you to record something in a way you doubted. What did you do?"
- Feedback: "How do you like your work reviewed? Tell me about a time a reviewer found something you missed."
- Speed against quality: "It is two days before the month closes and one account will not reconcile. What do you do?"
A 30-minute work sample
Hand over a mock month: a one-page bank statement, a short list of invoices, and four items that do not fit. One looks like a duplicate, one has no receipt, one the owner has asked you to hold, and one could be coded two ways. Ask for a short note on what they posted, what they left alone, and what they would ask you. Watch for:
- Asks before coding the unclear item: strongest.
- Codes it and flags the assumption in the note: good.
- Codes it silently, or plugs a difference to make the account balance: a risk, whatever else the note shows.
References
Ask a former owner or accountant: "What did this person need from you to do their best work?" Then have finalists talk through a month-end with whoever will review their work.
Canada and the US
| Ontario | United States | |
|---|---|---|
| Usual title | Bookkeeper, listed under accounting technicians and bookkeepers (NOC 12200). | Bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerk. |
| Size | About 34,520 in the Toronto region (Job Bank). | 1,532,400 jobs in 2025 (BLS). |
| Median pay | C$28.50 an hour, range C$19.23 to C$46.15 (Job Bank, 2023 to 2024 data). Toronto region: C$29.22. | US$50,670 a year (BLS, 2025). |
| Outlook | "Good" for 2025 to 2027, Toronto region. | Employment down 6% from 2025 to 2035, with about 144,100 openings a year. |
FAQ
What does a bookkeeper do?
Job Bank lists keeping financial records and balancing accounts, posting journal entries, reconciling accounts, and preparing financial statements and reports. Many bookkeepers also prepare payroll and remittances. At a small business, decide which of these are in the role before you write the posting.
Should I hire a bookkeeper or an accounting assistant?
The titles overlap. Job Bank lists bookkeepers under one occupation, and BLS groups bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks together. What matters is the work: who carries the books to the month-end close, and who only enters transactions that someone else reviews. Write that down before you choose the title.
How much does a bookkeeper earn in Ontario?
Job Bank's Ontario median is C$28.50 an hour, with a range of C$19.23 to C$46.15 (2023 to 2024 data). The Toronto-region median is C$29.22.
What should I ask in a bookkeeper interview?
Ask about real past situations: an error they found, an instruction they doubted, how they like their work reviewed, and a month-end that would not reconcile. Use the same questions for every candidate and add the mock-month work sample.
Will AI replace bookkeepers?
Nobody knows yet. BLS projects a 6% decline for the group through 2035, while Job Bank rates the Toronto outlook for bookkeepers good. Hire for what software does not do: noticing what looks wrong and telling you early.
Sources
All pages opened October 27, 2026.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook: Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerks (last modified August 27, 2026)
- Job Bank, Government of Canada: Bookkeeper (NOC 12200): outlook, Toronto region (2025 to 2027; page modified September 24, 2026)
- Job Bank, Government of Canada: Bookkeeper (NOC 12200): wages, Toronto region, with Ontario and Canada rows (Labour Force Survey, 2023 to 2024; updated November 19, 2025)
- Job Bank, Government of Canada: Accounting Technician (NOC 12200): job description, main duties
- Association of Certified Fraud Examiners: Occupational Fraud 2026: Report to the Nations. I read the report's web page, not the full PDF.
- Center for American Progress, Boushey and Glynn, November 16, 2012: There Are Significant Business Costs to Replacing Employees
- Kristof-Brown, Zimmerman and Johnson (2005), Personnel Psychology 58(2), 281 to 342: Consequences of Individuals' Fit at Work. Person-supervisor figures from Table 4.
- Sackett, Zhang, Berry and Lievens (2022), Journal of Applied Psychology 107(11), 2040 to 2068, as summarized by SIOP's TIP