What 902 US firms hiring back-office roles tell us

The short version

• Money roles lead. Accounts receivable, billing and collections (25%) and accounts payable (22%) together made up nearly half of the ads.
• Industrial firms hire the most. Manufacturing (21%) and construction and trades (19%) were the biggest industries, ahead of transportation and logistics (12%).
• Mid-sized companies. 69% of the firms had 51 to 200 employees, and 61% were in the estimated $10M to $50M revenue band.
• Invoices are everywhere. 44% of ads mentioned invoices, 35% reconciliations and 32% vendor or supplier work.
• One in five firms had more than one ad open. 176 of the 902 firms (20%) were advertising more than one role at the time.

Which roles firms were hiring for

The 902 ads used 518 different job titles. We grouped them by the work described.

Role group	Ads	Share
Accounts receivable, billing and collections	227	25%
Accounts payable	197	22%
Logistics, purchasing and order entry	196	22%
Dispatch and scheduling	134	15%
Payroll	51	6%
Office and admin	48	5%
Data entry and document control	48	5%
Other	1	0%

The most common single titles were Accounts Payable Specialist (60 ads), Dispatcher (43), Accounts Receivable Specialist (42) and Logistics Coordinator (37).

Which industries were hiring

Industry was known for 891 of the 902 firms. We grouped LinkedIn’s industry labels into broader groups.

Industry group	Firms	Share
Manufacturing	183	21%
Construction and trades	168	19%
Transportation, trucking and logistics	109	12%
Legal	54	6%
Energy, oil and gas, utilities	53	6%
Facilities, cleaning and environmental services	48	5%
Consumer and personal services	34	4%
Wholesale and distribution	30	3%
Healthcare and dental	13	1%
Financial services and insurance	10	1%
Real estate and property	3	0%
Other industries	186	21%

The single largest LinkedIn industry label was Construction, with 126 firms, followed by Law Practice with 54.

Where the firms were

State was known for 863 firms. The ten most common:

State	Firms
California	102
Texas	98
Florida	67
New York	50
Pennsylvania	37
Illinois	36
Georgia	33
Massachusetts	32
Ohio	31
Michigan	30

Company size and revenue

Employees	Firms	Share
51 to 200	625	69%
11 to 50	275	30%
Unknown	2	0%

Estimated revenue	Firms	Share
$10M to $50M	552	61%
$1M to $10M	266	29%
Under $1M	27	3%
Unknown	57	6%

Revenue bands are modeled estimates from company data providers, not reported accounts.

What the jobs actually involve

We recorded a short summary of the duties in each ad and counted how often common tasks came up. One ad can mention several.

Task mentioned	Ads	Share
Invoices or invoicing	394	44%
Reconciliations	316	35%
Vendor or supplier work	286	32%
Scheduling or dispatch	233	26%
Collections or overdue accounts	194	22%
Phone calls	123	14%
Purchase orders	100	11%
Payroll	78	9%
Payment posting or cash application	74	8%
Liens	26	3%

Our summaries were short, so these counts are a floor, not a full picture. Software was rarely named in them. Where it was, Excel, QuickBooks, NetSuite and Sage came up most.

How much of the work is rules-based desk work?

We asked an AI model to read the duties in each ad and estimate what share of the job is rules-based desk work: documents come in, get checked against rules and get entered somewhere. That is the kind of work that can be handed to software with a person reviewing exceptions. The median estimate across all 902 ads was 70%.

Role group	Judged mostly desk work	Partly	Mostly not
Accounts payable	83%	17%	0%
Data entry and document control	65%	31%	4%
Payroll	63%	37%	0%
AR, billing and collections	53%	46%	1%
Office and admin	19%	81%	0%
Logistics, purchasing and order entry	16%	51%	33%
Dispatch and scheduling	0%	93%	7%

Treat this as an estimate from ad text, not a measured result. The pattern makes sense, though. Accounts payable is mostly documents and rules. Dispatch and logistics roles involve phones, people on site and judgment calls, which is work that needs a person.

What this means if you are hiring

If you are trying to fill one of these seats, you are not alone: these are some of the most common openings at companies your size. Before you post the ad, it helps to split the role in two. The rules-based part (entering bills, sending invoices, reconciling statements) can often be handed off. The judgment part (approvals, phone calls, exceptions) usually stays with someone on your team.

Our guide to hiring, temping or handing off a back-office seat walks through the options, and the empty seat calculator puts numbers on them.

Methodology

• Source: public job ads on LinkedIn from US companies, posted between October 10 and November 9, 2026, collected by Dull on November 9 and 10, 2026.
• Who was included: companies with 11 to 200 employees on LinkedIn, advertising AR, AP, billing, collections, order entry, logistics, dispatch, payroll, data entry or office admin roles. One row per company.
• Company details: industry, size and revenue band come from LinkedIn and company data providers. Revenue is a modeled estimate.
• Grouping: job titles and industries were grouped by keyword rules. Task counts come from short duty summaries and use whole-word matching.
• Desk-work estimate: produced by an AI model reading each ad’s duties. It was not checked against how each job is done in practice.
• Limits: this is a snapshot of one month of LinkedIn ads at smaller companies. It is not a random sample of all US employers, and firms that hire offline or through agencies are missing. We don’t publish company names.