Small Business Admin Time: Where the Hours Go

By Humera Iqbal, founder of HME Solutions

small business admin time in a small business

Here is a number worth sitting with. In 2024, Canadian small businesses spent 735 hours complying with regulation, according to the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB). Of those, 256 hours, about 32 business days, went to red tape alone. CFIB says the time spent on red tape has grown 35% since 2020.

That is more than a month of work every year, spent on forms.

As CFIB’s Director of Research, Marvin Cruz, put it: “Business owners lose an entire month’s worth of productivity to filling out lengthy or redundant forms.”

And that’s only the government side

Inside the business, the admin keeps piling up. In a 2023 Censuswide survey commissioned by Time etc, owners of growing U.S. businesses reported working 45.5 hours a week on average, and said 36% of that week went to administrative tasks.

The tasks they named will be familiar to anyone running a small team:

Logging expenses (59%)
Managing schedules (45%)
Creating invoices (44%)
Data entry (43%)

The smaller you are, the heavier it gets

CFIB found that businesses with fewer than five employees spent $10,208 per employee on regulatory compliance. Businesses with 100 or more employees spent $1,374. Measured in time, smaller firms spent 198 hours per employee, compared with just eight hours for the largest firms.

A big company spreads this work across a finance team and expensive software. A ten-person business spreads it across the owner’s evenings.

You probably already own the tools

Here is the part that surprised us. CFIB’s 2025 digital adoption research found that 92% of small businesses in Canada use digital tools, but only 10% have fully integrated them across their operations. A March 2026 Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses survey found something similar with AI: 76% of small businesses report using it, but only 14% say it is fully embedded in their core operations.

Our read: the lost hours don’t live inside any one tool. They live in the gaps between them. The invoice typed up from an email. The customer’s details entered once in the booking system and again in the accounting system. The schedule rebuilt by hand every Monday.

What getting time back looks like

CFIB reports that Canadian small businesses using generative AI have saved 1.08 hours per day on average. Across a five-day week, that works out to roughly five hours (our arithmetic, not CFIB’s). And for every $1 businesses invested in digital tools, CFIB found they saw $1.60 in return on average.

Five hours a week is one more sales call a day. Or dinner at home.

Start with one task, not a transformation

For one week, jot down every task your team repeats and roughly how long it takes.
Circle anything where information is copied from one place to another.
Pick the one that happens every week and costs the most hours.
Automate that first, then measure the hours you actually got back.

An honest caveat

Not everything should be automated. Government red tape shrinks only when the rules change; software can speed up the forms, but it can’t make the requirement disappear. Some tasks need a human touch, like a careful conversation with a customer who is late paying. And setting up new tools takes time and money, which is exactly why CFIB found many businesses held back by cost, lack of time or limited digital skills.

That’s why we start small, with one painful process, and prove the hours come back before building anything else.

At HME Solutions, we build custom AI tools that take manual back-office work off your plate, for businesses too big for spreadsheets and too small for enterprise software. Big-company tools, small-business prices.

Which weekly task would you hand off first?

Sources

HME Solutions builds custom tools like this for small businesses. See our automation services, how we work, or get in touch.

Originally published on LinkedIn, September 25, 2026.

Frequently asked questions

How much time do small businesses spend on admin and red tape?

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business found Canadian small businesses spent 735 hours on regulation in 2024, including 256 hours, about 32 business days, on red tape alone.

How do you start automating admin tasks?

Start with one task. List what your team repeats for a week, circle anything copied from one place to another, pick the weekly task that costs the most hours, automate it, then measure the hours you actually got back.

A month a year: where small businesses lose their time to admin, and how to get it back