Trump accounts offer a rare chance for a government-funded head start on a tax-advantaged education account.

“The federal government will actually infuse these accounts with $1,000,” says Art Werner. “It’s free money. Just face it, it’s free money.”

Any child under age 18 with a Social Security number is eligible for a Trump account. Children born between 2025 and 2028 also qualify for a government contribution.

More > > > 

Full show notes here

The Disruptors
With Liz Farr
For CPA Trendlines

Nancy McClelland wants to do more than just run her firm, The Dancing Accountant. She has two big passion projects that are creating the conversations and collaborations this profession desperately needs. Her community, Ask a CPA, aims to bridge the gap between bookkeepers and tax professionals. She also co-hosts a podcast with Questian Telka, She Counts, which provides a safe space for women in accounting to discuss real issues.

McClelland started the Ask a CPA Community when she noticed “this big gap that wasn’t about technical knowledge. It was about permission, about permission to collaborate.” While “bookkeepers are often the closest person to the financial truth of a business,” historically, “they've been positioned as subordinate to tax preparers, just sort of expected to hand off things and hope that they did it right,” McClelland explains.

 READ MORE > > > 

Accounting ARC
With Liz Mason and Byron Patrick
Center for Accounting Transformation

In the accounting profession, technical excellence is expected. However, according to the latest episode of Accounting ARC, relationships — not just work product — often determine who grows, who leads, and who thrives. 

In a candid and deeply personal conversation, Liz Mason, CPA, and Byron Patrick, CPA.CITP, explore how relationship-building shapes careers, creates opportunity, and provides stability in an unpredictable profession.  

• MORE Accounting ARC: The Real Problem with AI in Accounting | AI Can Fix Your Workflow—or Break It in Seconds | Efficiency Is the Wrong Goal for AI | Accounting’s Hidden Talent Risk: The Sandwich Generation | Built Fast. Sold Faster. Broken Later? The Truth About Accounting Tech | Recognize When You Need to Recharge Before You Burn Out | Valuing More Than the Balance Sheet | Accounting’s “Untalked-About” Frontier | Why Happiness is Hard-Fought for High Achievers | The Fastest Way to Lose Talent Is “Dick Leadership” | Post-Holiday Fatigue Isn’t a Failure; It’s a Signal | OCR, Research Bots & Meeting Assistants: What Actually Helps Now | Return Season is the New Stress Test | Small Firms May Have the Biggest Advantage in 2026 | Downgraded: What the DOE Said About Accounting 

Mason, CEO of High Rock Accounting, opens the discussion by reflecting on how little emphasis the profession places on teaching interpersonal skills. 

Patrick, senior product manager for Karbon and co-founder and part-time educator for TB Academy, agrees. “You don’t learn it in college,” he says. “There’s no course on building relationships.”

That gap, they argue, becomes especially obvious early in a professional’s career.

*Originally published May 14, 2026

MOVE Like This
With Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk
For CPA Trendlines Research

In this episode of the MOVE Like This podcast, Bonnie Ruszczyk sits down with Guillaume Turmel, a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne whose research focuses on how people experience genuine inclusion in the workplace. Drawing from his own experiences working internationally, helping launch an LGBTQ+ employee resource group, and observing the disconnect between strong DEI programs and employees still feeling “slightly off,” Guillaume explores why inclusion is far more personal and complex than most organizations assume.

• MORE MOVE Like This | MORE CPA Trendlines Streaming Network | JOIN MOVE 2026

Accounting Conversations
With Chayton Farlee
Center for Accounting Transformation

In the latest episode of Accounting Conversations, host Chayton Farlee sits down with Dominic Piscopo, CPA, founder of The Big Four Transparency, to unpack compensation transparency and the accounting pipeline — two stubborn bottlenecks many firms still struggle to fix. The conversation centers on how accessible salary data and real-world experiences can illuminate a path toward fairer pay and clearer career ladders for accountants at all levels.

• MORE Podcasts

Piscopo describes a career that reveals both the promise and the pain points of the industry. He started in a Big Four firm in tax and quickly encountered a supportive leadership dynamic and a stellar coach, experiences that underscore what’s possible in a healthy culture. Yet even with that backdrop, he confronted a truth many early-career professionals feel but few talk about openly: compensation does not always align with effort or market realities, especially for younger staff trying to break in and prove their value.

READ MORE > > >

Accounting ARC
With Liz Mason and Byron Patrick
Center for Accounting Transformation

In a candid, unfiltered episode of Accounting ARC, Liz Mason, CPA, CEO of High Rock Accounting, and Byron Patrick, CPA.CITP, senior product manager at Karbon and co-founder of TB Academy, confront one of the profession’s most relatable—and uncomfortable—topics: bad bosses. 

But the conversation goes further than workplace horror stories. Mason and Patrick explore a more nuanced reality: sometimes the boss is the problem—and sometimes it's the employee. 

• MORE Accounting ARC: Why Relationships Still Drive Career Success | The Real Problem with AI in Accounting | AI Can Fix Your Workflow—or Break It in Seconds | Efficiency Is the Wrong Goal for AI | Accounting’s Hidden Talent Risk: The Sandwich Generation | Built Fast. Sold Faster. Broken Later? The Truth About Accounting Tech | Recognize When You Need to Recharge Before You Burn Out | Valuing More Than the Balance Sheet | Accounting’s “Untalked-About” Frontier | Why Happiness is Hard-Fought for High Achievers | The Fastest Way to Lose Talent Is “Dick Leadership” | Post-Holiday Fatigue Isn’t a Failure; It’s a Signal | OCR, Research Bots & Meeting Assistants: What Actually Helps Now | Return Season is the New Stress Test | Small Firms May Have the Biggest Advantage in 2026 | Downgraded: What the DOE Said About Accounting |

“We wanted to talk about this topic because it’s really important to understand when you’re the problem, when your boss is the problem, and what acceptable boundaries are,” Mason says early in the episode.

Unpack real stories about bad bosses, miscommunication, and the career lessons that come with both. This episode challenges how accountants think about leadership, accountability, and growth. 

MOVE Like This
With Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk
For CPA Trendlines Research

In this episode of MOVE Like This, host Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk talks with Kristi Epp, tax partner, and Amber Schrock, advisory partner and Las Vegas market leader at Frazier & Deeter, about one of the profession’s most urgent challenges: retention. Their message is clear — firms that still believe compensation alone drives loyalty may already be falling behind.

The conversation explores how accounting has changed dramatically over the last several years. Remote work, automation, talent shortages, mergers, acquisitions, and increasing regulatory complexity have reshaped both firm operations and employee expectations. Epp and Schrock explain that younger professionals are not rejecting hard work; they are rejecting environments that fail to provide meaning, transparency, mentorship, and sustainability.

Rather than focusing solely on hours worked, Frazier & Deeter has worked to build a culture centered on effectiveness, growth, and long-term engagement. The firm’s leaders recognize that retention is deeply connected to whether people feel seen, supported, and included in the future of the organization.

Originally published 1/14/2026.

MORE CPA Trendlines Streaming Network

Anderson, along with his colleagues Corey Schmidt and Alan Anderson from Accountability Plus, served as subject matter experts for the 2025 Audit Benchmark Survey conducted by CPA.com, which sought to understand the current state of audit transformation. The CPA.com team included Emily Remington (Director of Audit Product Management), Amy Bridges (Senior Manager of Practice Development), and survey methodologist Katherine Blackburn. The resulting report, The Audit Transformation Report, was released at Digital CPA in December 2025. Liz Farr, host of The Disruptors, served as the report writer. 

Audit transformation is often misunderstood as a destination or a future state reserved for large firms with deep pockets and advanced technology. But according to Anderson, transformation is far more practical and accessible. “I see it as the process, not really like it's an end state or anything, but it's really the evolution of audit,” he explains.

READ MORE > > > 

 
The Disrupters
With Liz Farr
For CPA Trendlines

Chase Damiano, founder of Human at Scale, says that operations are the missing piece for many firms. “It’s sort of this bridge or glue that allows a business and a team to function well together,” he tells Liz Farr in this episode of The Disrupters. 

MORE DISRUPTORS: Candy Bellau: The $350 Pricing Mistake that Nearly Broke this Boutique Firm | The Disruptors | Poe: What P.E. Really Wants from Firms | The Disruptors  | Blake Oliver: Build a Biz that Runs Without You | Daiber: Use Succession as a Growth Strategy | Cannon: Busy Season is Self-Inflicted | Carroll: When One Person Can Break the Firm | Rampe: Build a Roadmap Even When the Road’s Not There | Chang: Killing SALY, One Agent at a Time

MORE CPA Trendlines Streaming Network

“I see it as the intersection of people, process, technology and culture.” What that looks like in practice, he says, is a firm where the team is happy, clients are satisfied, work is delivered on time and at high quality, and the owner has the freedom to focus on strategy and growth and has the time to spend on non-work things like family. 

READ MORE >>>

In a recent episode of Accounting Conversations, host Chayton Farlee speaks with Manalac about how young accounting professionals can strategically leverage public accounting experience to build careers at companies like Google, Tesla, Uber, and Salesforce. 

• MORE Podcasts

Manalac, an accounting manager at Google, currently leads a distributed team working on Google Search and YouTube advertising contracts. His role involves collaborating with engineering, legal, sales, finance, and compliance teams across the organization.

Farlee, an assurance associate at CliftonLarsonAllen, says conversations like these are important because many students are not exposed to the full range of accounting career opportunities.

READ MORE > > > 

MOVE Like This
With Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk
For CPA Trendlines Research

In this episode of MOVE Like This, Megan Robinson, founder and CEO of E Leader Experience, joins Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk to talk about one of the most common and costly mistakes firms make: assuming strong performers will naturally become strong leaders.

• MORE MOVE Like This | MORE CPA Trendlines Streaming Network

At the center of the conversation is a clear distinction. Technical excellence and leadership effectiveness are not the same skill set. Yet in many firms, top producers are promoted into management roles without the training or support needed to succeed. The result is frustration on both sides: leaders who feel unprepared and teams that don’t feel supported.

Accounting ARC
With Donny Shimamoto
Center for Accounting Transformation

In a profession often defined by structure, standards, and well-worn career paths, Donny Shimamoto, CPA.CITP, CGMA, opens a different kind of conversation in a recent Accounting ARC episode—one that challenges assumptions about what it means to build a career in accounting.

His guest, Danielle Supkis Cheek, embodies that challenge.

As senior vice president of AI, analytics and assurance at CaseWare, Supkis Cheek operates at the intersection of technology, methodology, and human judgment. But her path there was anything but linear—and that, Shimamoto suggests, is exactly the point.

• MORE Accounting ARC: AI Can Fix Your Workflow—or Break It in Seconds | Efficiency Is the Wrong Goal for AI | Accounting’s Hidden Talent Risk: The Sandwich Generation | Built Fast. Sold Faster. Broken Later? The Truth About Accounting Tech | Recognize When You Need to Recharge Before You Burn Out | Valuing More Than the Balance Sheet | Accounting’s “Untalked-About” Frontier | Why Happiness is Hard-Fought for High Achievers | The Fastest Way to Lose Talent Is “Dick Leadership” | Post-Holiday Fatigue Isn’t a Failure; It’s a Signal | OCR, Research Bots & Meeting Assistants: What Actually Helps Now | Return Season is the New Stress Test | Small Firms May Have the Biggest Advantage in 2026 | Downgraded: What the DOE Said About Accounting | 

Supkis Cheek describes her role less as a technologist and more as a translator. “I like to think of myself as someone who translates across domains,” she says, explaining how she helps software companies understand how accountants actually work—and how technology can reshape those workflows.

Full show notes here

The Disrupters
With Liz Farr
For CPA Trendlines

Audit has a reputation for being slow to change, but leaders like Sarah Flischel, Director of Audit Transformation and Training at AAFCPAs, are making it happen.

“We’re fundamentally reimagining how audits are being conducted,” Flischel says. She’s pushing not merely for change in the profession, but true transformation, drawing on wisdom from Tom Hood to distinguish change and transformation: “Change is doing things differently, and transformation is doing different things,” she explains.

MORE DISRUPTORS: Candy Bellau: The $350 Pricing Mistake that Nearly Broke this Boutique Firm | The Disruptors | Poe: What P.E. Really Wants from Firms | The Disruptors  | Blake Oliver: Build a Biz that Runs Without You | Daiber: Use Succession as a Growth Strategy | Cannon: Busy Season is Self-Inflicted | Carroll: When One Person Can Break the Firm | Rampe: Build a Roadmap Even When the Road’s Not There | Chang: Killing SALY, One Agent at a Time |
MORE CPA Trendlines Streaming Network

While change improves existing processes, transformation creates something fundamentally new. Traditional audits have been linear: gathering documents, testing samples, filling out checklists, and writing reports. Audit transformation means leveraging technology, using data analytics, and leveraging a risk-based approach to create an entirely new way of understanding clients’ businesses.

READ MORE >>>>

READ MORE > > >




GUFG_Ep 64

Accounting ARC
With Liz Mason and Byron Patrick
Center for Accounting Transformation

Artificial intelligence is moving fast—fast enough that even the people experimenting with it daily admit they’re still figuring it out in real time. On the latest episode of Accounting ARC, Byron Patrick, CPA.CITP, and Liz Mason, CPA, take listeners inside that reality: a profession eager to unlock AI-driven efficiency, but still learning how to manage the risks that come with it.

The conversation centers on a deceptively simple idea—just because AI can do something doesn’t mean it should. And in accounting, the consequences of getting that wrong can be immediate. 

• MORE Accounting ARC: Efficiency Is the Wrong Goal for AI | Accounting’s Hidden Talent Risk: The Sandwich Generation | Built Fast. Sold Faster. Broken Later? The Truth About Accounting Tech | Recognize When You Need to Recharge Before You Burn Out | Valuing More Than the Balance Sheet | Accounting’s “Untalked-About” Frontier | Why Happiness is Hard-Fought for High Achievers | The Fastest Way to Lose Talent Is “Dick Leadership” | Post-Holiday Fatigue Isn’t a Failure; It’s a Signal | OCR, Research Bots & Meeting Assistants: What Actually Helps Now | Return Season is the New Stress Test | Small Firms May Have the Biggest Advantage in 2026 | Downgraded: What the DOE Said About Accounting | 

The discussion begins with a practical example: integrating AI tools like Claude into everyday workflows, particularly in systems such as QuickBooks or Excel. 

What makes these tools powerful is also what makes them risky. 

MOVE Like This
With Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk
For CPA Trendlines Research

In this episode of MOVE Like This, Trisha Daho joins Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk to talk about what’s really happening inside accounting firms when it comes to talent, leadership, and growth. Drawing on her experience as a former Big Four partner turned fractional chief people officer, Daho offers a clear-eyed view of where firms are getting it right, and where they’re falling short.

• MORE MOVE Like This | MORE Benchmarks: Register for MOVE 2026 | MORE CPA Trendlines Streaming Network

At the core of the conversation is a simple but often overlooked point: the firms that are succeeding aren’t just focused on growth, they’re intentional about how they grow. That starts with having a defined talent strategy. Firms that prioritize development, align values with their people, and create consistent leadership experiences tend to see stronger retention, better performance, and more engaged teams. In contrast, firms that treat talent as secondary or assume people will simply “figure it out” often struggle to keep their best performers. 

Accounting ARC
With Liz Mason, Donny Shimamoto, and Byron Patrick
Center for Accounting Transformation

Does meaningful AI adoption require scale, budget, and the dedicated innovation teams embedded in large accounting groups? In this episode of Accounting ARC, Donny Shimamoto, CPA.CITP, CGMA; Byron Patrick, CPA.CITP; and Liz Mason, CPA, take on a familiar—but increasingly flawed—narrative in the accounting profession: that large accounting teams will define AI success

The reality, they argue, looks very different on the ground.

• MORE Accounting ARC: Accounting’s Hidden Talent Risk: The Sandwich Generation | Built Fast. Sold Faster. Broken Later? The Truth About Accounting Tech | Recognize When You Need to Recharge Before You Burn Out | Valuing More Than the Balance Sheet | Accounting’s “Untalked-About” Frontier | Why Happiness is Hard-Fought for High Achievers | The Fastest Way to Lose Talent Is “Dick Leadership” | Post-Holiday Fatigue Isn’t a Failure; It’s a Signal | OCR, Research Bots & Meeting Assistants: What Actually Helps Now | Return Season is the New Stress Test | Small Firms May Have the Biggest Advantage in 2026 | Downgraded: What the DOE Said About Accounting | 

What starts as a reaction to a “big firm” innovation discussion quickly turns into a broader reframing of how small and mid-sized organizations should think about artificial intelligence—not as a race for efficiency, but as an opportunity to increase value, improve quality, and deepen client relationships.

MOVE Like This
With Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk
For CPA Trendlines Research

In this episode of MOVE Like This, Bonnie Ruszczyk sits down with Sarah Petrone, chief human resources officer at Clark Nuber, for a conversation about responsible growth, leadership pipelines, belonging, and what it truly means to build a firm where people want to stay for the long haul.

• MORE MOVE Like This | MORE Benchmarks: Register for MOVE 2026 | MORE CPA Trendlines Streaming Network

With more than 20 years in human resources across eight industries, Petrone joined Clark Nuber after leading HR in a startup environment, intentionally seeking a stable yet innovative professional services firm. What she found was an organization that understands a fundamental truth of accounting: in professional services, people are the product. That reality shapes everything from growth strategy to succession planning.

River challenges CPA firm leaders to rethink long-held assumptions about growth and sustainability. “There is no reason we should be taking a high volume of low spenders when it’s killing us. It’s ruining our sustainability chances,” she says.

River leaves three big takeaways for CPA firms.

• MORE Accounting ARC: Built Fast. Sold Faster. Broken Later? The Truth About Accounting Tech |  Recognize When You Need to Recharge Before You Burn Out | Valuing More Than the Balance Sheet | Accounting’s “Untalked-About” Frontier | Why Happiness is Hard-Fought for High Achievers | The Fastest Way to Lose Talent Is “Dick Leadership” | Post-Holiday Fatigue Isn’t a Failure; It’s a Signal | OCR, Research Bots & Meeting Assistants: What Actually Helps Now | Return Season is the New Stress Test | Small Firms May Have the Biggest Advantage in 2026 | Downgraded: What the DOE Said About Accounting | Savage: Using Your License as a Megaphone |  Baker: Interpreting Pricing Psychology | Don’t Get Fired by Your Own Automation | What Amazon Doesn't Tell You | Royalties, Residuals, and Reality Checks | ARC-SLC

They are caregivers.

In the latest episode of Accounting ARC, Donny Shimamoto, Byron Patrick, and Liz Mason turn their attention to the 2026 Accounting MOVE Project — and the professionals it aims to better understand and support. This year’s emphasis: the “sandwich generation” and others balancing careers with caregiving responsibilities. The topic reflects a broader shift in how the profession defines talent, productivity, and success — and raises questions about whether traditional firm structures are keeping pace with reality.

MOVE Like This
With Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk
For CPA Trendlines Research

In this episode of MOVE Like This, Bonnie Ruszczyk is joined by Lisa Fitzgerald, Chief Human Resources Officer at Eide Bailly, for a conversation about talent, leadership, and what it takes to build workplaces where people actually want to stay. With nearly two decades at the firm and a career spanning manufacturing, technology, and professional services, Fitzgerald brings a practical, people-centered lens to some of the profession’s biggest challenges.

• MORE MOVE Like This | MORE CPA Trendlines Streaming Network

One issue keeping Fitzgerald up at night is the accelerating impact of AI on the accounting workforce. While Eide Bailly is approaching AI adoption thoughtfully and seeing real productivity gains, Fitzgerald is just as focused on the downstream effects, particularly how the conversation around AI may influence students deciding whether accounting feels like a “safe” career choice. With firms still recovering from talent shortages, she sees a real risk that fear and uncertainty could deter future professionals before they even enter the pipeline.

The Disrupters
With Liz Farr
For CPA Trendlines

Sharrin Fuller isn’t your typical accountant. For one, she’s not a CPA. She doesn’t have an accounting degree. She didn’t even go to college. But despite lacking what most consider the usual credentials and following “the most unconventional and broken path possible,” she managed to build and sell two successful accounting firms. Fuller recounts this story in her new book, Unfollow the Rules: The Messy Truth About Burnout, Bad Decisions, and Building Until It Works. 

Fuller wrote the book to help entrepreneurs see behind the social media images of success. “All you see are their wins and their glorified wins, but you don’t know what it took to get them there,” she explains. Her book was originally intended to be a how-to guide, but halfway through the process, she changed her mind. “I don’t want to write this book telling people this is how you should do it,” she explains. “I needed to be vulnerable so people could understand how I got to the point that I got to.” 

What if the difference between a “typical” accounting student and a standout future professional isn’t GPA, but initiative?

That’s the underlying theme of this episode of Student-Led Conversations, where host Chayton Farlee sits down with fellow accounting student Noah Brabble for a candid, high-energy discussion on leadership, internships, and what it actually takes to build a career before graduation.

• MORE SLC: Will AI Make Students Better Learners — or Just Faster Workers? | Why the Next Generation May Be Accounting's Greatest Competitive Advantage | Students Redefine Career Readiness | Savage: Using Your License as a Megaphone |  Baker: Interpreting Pricing Psychology | Royalties, Residuals, and Reality Checks | ARC-SLC 

This isn’t a conversation about theory. It’s a real-time look at what today’s students are doing—and what others should be doing—to get ahead.

Whether it’s pursuing internships, stepping into leadership roles, or building a professional presence online, the students who take action early are the ones who create momentum.

As Brabble puts it, success later is often a reflection of what you invest now.

Because the future of the profession isn’t waiting. And neither are the students shaping it.

Gear Up for Growth
With Jean Caragher
For CPA Trendlines

“What got you to this point is not going to be what gets your firm to its next major milestone,” says Geoffrey Brown, president and CEO of the Illinois CPA Society.

“Be flexible. Be nimble,” he tells Jean Caragher in this episode of Gear Up for Growth. “Surround yourself with the right people and take advantage of opportunities that help you lead into the future.” 

Brown outlines the forces reshaping public accounting and the leadership mindset required for the future.

Top Takeaways

1. How Private Equity Is Forcing Firms to Rethink Everything
2. The New Skills Needed for the Advisory Future
3. Why Demographics Are the Profession’s Biggest Challenge

Accounting ARC
With Liz Mason and Byron Patrick
Center for Accounting Transformation

The accounting technology market looks crowded from the outside. New tools launch every month. Conference expo halls overflow with promise. And artificial intelligence is accelerating everything. 

But beneath that surface, the economics of building accounting technology tell a more complicated story—one shaped as much by venture capital and sales pressure as by innovation itself. 

• MORE Accounting ARC: Recognize When You Need to Recharge Before You Burn Out | Valuing More Than the Balance Sheet | Accounting’s “Untalked-About” Frontier | Why Happiness is Hard-Fought for High Achievers | The Fastest Way to Lose Talent Is “Dick Leadership” | Post-Holiday Fatigue Isn’t a Failure; It’s a Signal | OCR, Research Bots & Meeting Assistants: What Actually Helps Now | Return Season is the New Stress Test | Small Firms May Have the Biggest Advantage in 2026 | Downgraded: What the DOE Said About Accounting | Savage: Using Your License as a Megaphone |  Baker: Interpreting Pricing Psychology | Don’t Get Fired by Your Own Automation | What Amazon Doesn't Tell You | Royalties, Residuals, and Reality Checks | ARC-SLC 

In the latest episode of Accounting ARC, Byron Patrick, CPA.CITP, and Liz Mason, CPA, step back to examine how the industry got here—and where it is likely headed next. 

When advisors think about financial planning, numbers, projections, and optimization strategies are what typically come to mind. But in a recent podcast conversation with me, Carl Richards challenged that assumption, arguing that the real work of planning begins with having a meaningful dialogue about money.  

As Richards described his latest book, Your Money: Reimagining Wealth in 101 Simple Sketches, the goal is not to provide answers, but to spark better questions. “The book is just a means to an end,” Richards said. “What I care about is that it starts [better] conversations about money.” 

Big 4 Transparency
With Dominic Piscopo, CPA
Full show notes here

Decimal CEO Matt Tait joins Dominic Piscopo to explain why his CAS firm is franchising its playbook, how it drives 50%-plus margins with queue-based delivery and daily book maintenance, and why private equity may accelerate – not kill – entrepreneurship in accounting.

MORE Dominic Piscopo | MORE CPA Trendlines Streaming Network

Tait says the biggest accounting story right now isn’t just AI, it’s the industry’s next operating model.

On the Big 4 Transparency, Tait says Decimal started as a “different” CAS and bookkeeping firm while simultaneously building an internal operating system for running a modern accounting shop. In under six years,

If you feel like your accounting firm has become unpredictable, you are not imagining it. The ground is moving under your feet. People who spent years feeling stable and secure are suddenly unsettled. Partners are leaving. New leaders appear from nowhere. Titles change. Policies change. Strategies change. And no one explains why.

MORE Accounting Voices with Rob Brown
MORE CPA Trendlines Streaming Network

Right now, the accounting profession feels like someone picked up the entire industry, shook it hard and said, "Good luck." Private equity is buying firms. National groups are rolling up mid tiers. Regional firms are merging into larger firms. Advisory practices are being carved out. Tax teams are being shifted. Audit is being restructured. And firms everywhere are rewriting their business models in real time.

 Gear Up for Growth
With Jean Caragher
For CPA Trendlines

Sponsored by The True Advisor:  Buy now | Learn more

Alan Whitman isn’t trying to build a better CPA firm. He’s trying to replace it.

At Nichols Cauley, the former Baker Tilly CEO is recasting the traditional accounting practice as a “financial services company”—a structure that blends tax, insurance, risk, and transaction advisory into a single, continuous client relationship.

MORE ALAN WHITMAN: PE Deal Tracker Update: Alan Whitman Plants a Flag in the Private Equity Landscape | Breaking the Mold with PE Backing | Build Culture on ‘Progress,’ Not Change | Moss Adams-Baker Tilly Merger: Bigger Isn’t Better. Better Is Better.| Unlocking the Secrets to Smart Growth

MORE Jean Caragher here | Get her best-selling handbook, The 90-Day Marketing Plan for CPA Firms, here | MORE Gear Up for Growth | MORE CPA Trendlines streaming videos and podcasts here

Accounting ARC
With Liz Mason, Byron Patrick, and Donny Shimamoto
Center for Accounting Transformation

Business continuity planning often lives in the realm of “someday.”

Until it doesn’t.

In the latest episode of Accounting ARC, hosts Donny Shimamoto, CPA.CITP, CGMA; Byron Patrick, CPA.CITP; and Liz Mason, CPA, tackle a topic many professionals avoid: what happens when the unexpected actually happens.

The conversation opens not with theory, but with a moment that makes the stakes unmistakably real.

• MORE Accounting ARC: Recognize When You Need to Recharge Before You Burn Out | Valuing More Than the Balance Sheet | Accounting’s “Untalked-About” Frontier | Why Happiness is Hard-Fought for High Achievers | The Fastest Way to Lose Talent Is “Dick Leadership” | Post-Holiday Fatigue Isn’t a Failure; It’s a Signal | OCR, Research Bots & Meeting Assistants: What Actually Helps Now | Return Season is the New Stress Test | Small Firms May Have the Biggest Advantage in 2026 | Downgraded: What the DOE Said About Accounting | Savage: Using Your License as a Megaphone |  Baker: Interpreting Pricing Psychology | Don’t Get Fired by Your Own Automation | What Amazon Doesn't Tell You | Royalties, Residuals, and Reality Checks | ARC-SLC 

Mason, CEO of High Rock Accounting, recounts a recent skiing accident in which she fell roughly 200 yards and collided with a tree at high speed. She survived with a broken leg—but the incident forced a sobering question: What would have happened to her firm if she hadn’t?

Accounting Voices
With Rob Brown

You know a profession is under pressure when strangers online ask the same question every week. And in accounting, right now, that question is this. Should I leave public accounting?

It shows up constantly on our YouTube channel. People write things like. I cannot survive another busy season. Is it normal to feel like this job is crushing me? I love accounting, but I hate public accounting. Does it ever get better, or do I need to escape?

Gear Up for Growth
With Jean Caragher
For CPA Trendlines

“CAS is kicking CASS right now,” says Kane Polakoff, principal and CAS practice leader at CohnReznick, in the new episode of Gear Up for Growth, hosted by Jean Caragher, president of Capstone Marketing.

“It’s on fire, especially over the last five or six years. The demand is incredible, but the key is having a strong delivery mechanism and the right capacity to provide real value to clients.”

MORE Jean Caragher here | Get her best-selling handbook, The 90-Day Marketing Plan for CPA Firms, here | MORE Gear Up for Growth | MORE CPA Trendlines Streaming Network

Student-Led Conversations
With Harshita Multani
Center for Accounting Transformation

Artificial intelligence is no longer a future issue in education. It is already shaping how students study, how teachers prepare lessons, how universities think about access and admissions, and how employers evaluate readiness for the workforce.

• MORE SLC: Why the Next Generation May Be Accounting's Greatest Competitive Advantage | Students Redefine Career Readiness | Savage: Using Your License as a Megaphone |  Baker: Interpreting Pricing Psychology | Royalties, Residuals, and Reality Checks | ARC-SLC 

In this episode, host Harshita Multani, a Center for Accounting Transformation intern and Indiana high school business student, leads a thoughtful discussion on AI in education with Markus Ahrens, Ph.D., CPA, CGMA, FMAA, of the American Accounting Association, and David Wood of Brigham Young University.

What makes this conversation stand out is not just the topic. It is the perspective.

Accounting ARC
With Liz Mason, Byron Patrick, and Donny Shimamoto
Center for Accounting Transformation

In accounting, exhaustion does not always look dramatic. 

Sometimes it looks like irritability. Sometimes it looks like staring at a spreadsheet that suddenly makes no sense. Sometimes it looks like mental fog, poor focus, a mild headache, or the sense that even small decisions take too much effort. 

• MORE Accounting ARC: Valuing More Than the Balance Sheet | Accounting’s “Untalked-About” Frontier | Why Happiness is Hard-Fought for High Achievers | The Fastest Way to Lose Talent Is “Dick Leadership” | Post-Holiday Fatigue Isn’t a Failure; It’s a Signal | OCR, Research Bots & Meeting Assistants: What Actually Helps Now | Return Season is the New Stress Test | Small Firms May Have the Biggest Advantage in 2026 | Downgraded: What the DOE Said About Accounting | Savage: Using Your License as a Megaphone |  Baker: Interpreting Pricing Psychology | Don’t Get Fired by Your Own Automation | What Amazon Doesn't Tell You | Royalties, Residuals, and Reality Checks | ARC-SLC 

In the latest episode of Accounting ARC, hosts Donny Shimamoto, CPA.CITP, CGMA; Byron Patrick, CPA.CITP; and Liz Mason, CPA, take on a subject that lands close to home for many professionals, especially during demanding stretches of work: how to recharge when the pace is relentless and the pressure does not let up.

Accounting ARC
With Donny Shimamoto
Center for Accounting Transformation

Donny Shimamoto, CPA.CITP, CGMA, opens a recent episode of Accounting ARC with a simple question: How do you value a business when the numbers tell only part of the story?

His guest, Baria Jaroudi, a Houston-based director in BDO’s business valuation and advisory practice, says valuation work requires more than reviewing financial statements. It requires understanding how owners built the business, where cash flow comes from, and what risks and assumptions shape a credible and defensible value — especially in family law and divorce matters, where the stakes can run high.

• MORE Accounting ARC: Accounting’s “Untalked-About” Frontier | Why Happiness is Hard-Fought for High Achievers | The Fastest Way to Lose Talent Is “Dick Leadership” | Post-Holiday Fatigue Isn’t a Failure; It’s a Signal | OCR, Research Bots & Meeting Assistants: What Actually Helps Now | Return Season is the New Stress Test | Small Firms May Have the Biggest Advantage in 2026 | Downgraded: What the DOE Said About Accounting | Savage: Using Your License as a Megaphone |  Baker: Interpreting Pricing Psychology | Don’t Get Fired by Your Own Automation | What Amazon Doesn't Tell You | Royalties, Residuals, and Reality Checks | ARC-SLC 

“I like to think of myself as someone who brings clarity and calm in moments that can otherwise feel overwhelming,” Jaroudi says.

Shimamoto, founder and managing director of IntrapriseTechKnowlogies LLC and founder and inspiration architect for the Center for Accounting Transformation, says that role reflects a core purpose of the profession: accountants deliver peace of mind. In Jaroudi’s work, that means translating complex analysis into conclusions clients can understand — and conclusions that can withstand scrutiny.

Full show notes here

Gear Up for Growth
With Jean Caragher
For CPA Trendlines

“Small firm practitioners need to remember that they are in the driver’s seat,” says Stephanie Otero, vice president, Small Firm Advocate at the AICPA, in this episode of Gear Up for Growth with Jean Caragher.

MORE Jean Caragher here | Get her best-selling handbook, The 90-Day Marketing Plan for CPA Firms, here | MORE Gear Up for Growth | MORE CPA Trendlines streaming videos and podcasts here

“They have the power to intentionally design a practice they enjoy, and that truly works for them,” Otero says.

Intentional practice design emerges as a central theme, with Otero emphasizing that burnout often stems from trying to serve too many clients and offer too many services. By clearly defining ideal clients and focusing on work they enjoy, small firm owners can create more sustainable and rewarding practices.

Big 4 Transparency
With Dominic Piscopo, CPA

Jody Padar, widely known as “The Radical CPA” and author of Radical Pricing, argues the future of accounting won’t be won by automation alone, but by a business model shift that elevates human judgment, advisory, and client relationships.

MORE Dominic Piscopo | AI | Pay & Compensation | MORE CPA Trendlines Streaming Network

In the new episode of the Big 4 Transparency Podcast, Padar joins host Dominic Piscopo to trace her path from early cloud-firm pioneer to venture-backed operator and to explain why her newest venture, Xcel Labs, is focused on training CPAs to think and lead differently in an AI-first world. Xcel Labs’ Navi aims to build empathy and leadership at scale.

Student-Led Conversations

With Arpan Grewal 

Center for Accounting Transformation

Student-Led Conversations opens its second season with a conversation that reflects a larger shift underway in the accounting profession: rapid technology change, accelerating adoption of artificial intelligence tools, and an increasing push to bring younger voices into the discussion.

Arpan Grewal, a Center for Accounting Transformation intern and business student in Indiana, welcomes Liz Mason, CPA, CEO of High Rock Accounting, as the first guest of Season 2. Grewal describes the discussion as “full circle,” noting Mason is among the first professionals she interviewed when Student-Led Conversations launched last year. 

• MORE Accounting ARC: Downgraded: What the DOE Said About Accounting | Savage: Using Your License as a Megaphone | Baker: Interpreting Pricing Psychology | Don’t Get Fired by Your Own Automation | What Amazon Doesn't Tell You | Royalties, Residuals, and Reality Checks | ARC-SLC | Free Speech Is a Right; Respect Is a Responsibility | Cash Bags, Casinos & Audits: How First Jobs Shape Us | Gen Z Redefines Careers | Bootleggers, Baptitsts & CPAs: Rethinking Licensure

Mason, a co-host of Accounting ARC, argues the profession is no longer talking about incremental change. It is, she says, in the early stages of something much larger. 

The word that continues to surface for her is “revolution.” 

Driscoll and Sylvester “are completely different people from completely different planets,” Driscoll notes. She’s a Millennial. He’s a Boomer. She lives in Charlottesville, VA. He’s in Fort Wayne, IN.  “Even to the extent of: I’m on Team Waffles, and he’s on Team Pancakes. We can’t even agree on breakfast.”

While she initially wondered whether the generational and other differences would be a problem, Driscoll has learned “that partnering with someone who is very different from you can be incredible, because the character flaws that I have, he doesn’t have.” 

 Their generational diversity also serves the larger purpose of modeling collaboration across age groups. “It’s so important for the younger generation and the older generation to be in a room together talking about accounting,” Driscoll explains.  

The Disruptors _Ep 133

Accounting ARC
With Donny Shimamoto
Center for Accounting Transformation

In an era when private equity rollups and “bigger is better” narratives dominate accounting headlines, Donny Shimamoto, CPA.CITP, CGMA, returns to a quieter question: What does it look like to build a firm — and a career — around serving the places that rarely get the spotlight? 

• MORE Accounting ARC: Why Happiness is Hard-Fought for High Achievers | The Fastest Way to Lose Talent Is “Dick Leadership” | Post-Holiday Fatigue Isn’t a Failure; It’s a Signal | OCR, Research Bots & Meeting Assistants: What Actually Helps Now | Return Season is the New Stress Test | Small Firms May Have the Biggest Advantage in 2026 | Downgraded: What the DOE Said About Accounting | Savage: Using Your License as a Megaphone |  Baker: Interpreting Pricing Psychology | Don’t Get Fired by Your Own Automation | What Amazon Doesn't Tell You | Royalties, Residuals, and Reality Checks | ARC-SLC 

In this episode of Accounting ARC, Shimamoto sits down with two practitioners who live that reality every day: Shayna Chapman, who runs a practice rooted in a small Ohio community, and Mohan Chirumamilla, who serves clients across Omaha, Nebraska, and Columbia, Missouri. Their conversation is part practical playbook, part gut-check — and it lands on a message that feels increasingly urgent for the profession: small towns still need sophisticated accounting, and accountants still need work that feels meaningful. 

Gear Up for Growth
With Jean Caragher
For CPA Trendlines

Author and strategist B. Joseph Pine II urges accounting firm leaders to confront a fundamental question: What business are you really in?

According to Pine, the profession is approaching a critical inflection point as the global economy moves beyond goods, services, and even experiences, into what he calls the transformation economy.

“You use experiences as a raw material to guide people to change, to help them achieve their aspirations,” Pine tells Gear Up for Growth host Jean Caragher, president of Capstone Marketing. This shift, he explains, requires firms to move beyond simply delivering accounting work efficiently to helping clients achieve meaningful, measurable change.

Gear Up For Growth Ep 58 - Joe Pine

“I kept dropping the ball at my own company and my team, the long-term members kept picking it up, and slowly but surely, they just absorbed the client work I was doing,” Bellau recalls. 

Bellau’s transition from operator to owner came at a pivotal moment. After working nonstop since age 14, Bellau found herself at 56 needing a change. “I don’t even know who I am. I don’t know what I like. I don’t have any interest outside of work and tasks that have to be done at home," she explains. So she took art classes, improv classes, wrote a book, and launched the Unbalanced Podcast with Sam Hallburn.

Disruptors Ep 132

Accounting ARC
With Byron Patrick and Donny Shimamoto
Center for Accounting Transformation

Busy season may still be a days out, but the stress response already starts to hum for a lot of accounting professionals — the calendar fills, the inbox tightens, and the margin for error feels like it shrinks to a sliver. In the latest Accounting ARC, Donny Shimamoto, CPA.CITP, CGMA, and Byron Patrick, CPA.CITP, take that reality head-on with a surprisingly practical lens: modern stoicism. 

• MORE Accounting ARC: The Fastest Way to Lose Talent Is “Dick Leadership” | Post-Holiday Fatigue Isn’t a Failure; It’s a Signal | OCR, Research Bots & Meeting Assistants: What Actually Helps Now | Return Season is the New Stress Test | Small Firms May Have the Biggest Advantage in 2026 | Downgraded: What the DOE Said About Accounting | Savage: Using Your License as a Megaphone |  Baker: Interpreting Pricing Psychology | Don’t Get Fired by Your Own Automation | What Amazon Doesn't Tell You | Royalties, Residuals, and Reality Checks | ARC-SLC 

They start by naming the misconception most people bring to the word “stoic” — that it means emotionless, rigid, “stone-faced.” Shimamoto, founder and managing director of IntrapriseTechKnowlogies LLC and founder and inspiration architect for the Center for Accounting Transformation, admits that’s how he learned it, too: a kind of unfeeling resilience. 

But the article that sparks the episode — a Psychology Today piece on the science of stoicism — reframes it as something more useful (and more human): a set of attitudes and behaviors linked with resilience, lower anger and higher life satisfaction.  

Gear Up for Growth
With Jean Caragher
For CPA Trendlines

Full show notes here
 

“This legislation has real consequences – positive consequences – for the health of firms, corporate accounting departments, and the broader economy,” says Aiysha “AJ” Johnson, CEO and executive director of the New Jersey Society of CPAs, during her appearance on Gear Up for Growth with Jean Caragher of Capstone Marketing. “I like to think that we’re opening doors.”

More Jean Caragher here | Get her best-selling handbook, The 90-Day Marketing Plan for CPA Firms, here | More Gear Up for Growth | More CPA Trendlines videos and podcasts here

Johnson highlights New Jersey’s new legislation signed by Governor Murphy, creating an additional pathway to CPA licensure, a move designed to expand access while maintaining rigorous standards.

Accounting ARC
With Liz Mason, Byron Patrick, and Donny Shimamoto
Center for Accounting Transformation

Leaders in accounting do not need to choose between being “nice” and being effective.

In this ARC episode, Donny Shimamoto, CPA.CITP, CGMA; Byron Patrick, CPA.CITP; and Liz Mason, CPA, make the case that the best bosses aim for something tougher — kindness with clarity.

The conversation starts with a story familiar to anyone who has ever hovered over the “Send” button on a difficult message. 

• MORE Accounting ARC: Post-Holiday Fatigue Isn’t a Failure; It’s a Signal | OCR, Research Bots & Meeting Assistants: What Actually Helps Now | Return Season is the New Stress Test | Small Firms May Have the Biggest Advantage in 2026 | Downgraded: What the DOE Said About Accounting | Savage: Using Your License as a Megaphone |  Baker: Interpreting Pricing Psychology | Don’t Get Fired by Your Own Automation | What Amazon Doesn't Tell You | Royalties, Residuals, and Reality Checks | ARC-SLC 

Mason, founder and CEO of High Rock Accounting, recalls proposing a conference talk with a deliberately provocative title — a reminder that most professionals feel the tension between holding the line and keeping the peace. The point, she says, is not to sanitize reality. It is to learn how to hold people accountable without turning it into a personal attack.

When firms talk about innovation in accounting, they often start with technology. But in my conversation with Nick Pasquarosa, founder and CEO of Bookkeeper360, it became clear that technology was never the starting point for his firm. It was the result of listening closely to small business owners and building systems to solve their most persistent problems.

MORE Rory Henry and The Holistic Guide | BOLT: Bookkeeper360 Launches Mobile and Web App Featuring AI-Powered Virtual CFO

Pasquarosa founded Bookkeeper360 in 2012, long before cloud accounting was the norm. What began as a door-to-door side hustle helping local businesses reconcile their checking accounts evolved into a nationwide cloud accounting firm serving nearly 1,000 small business clients with a team of more than 75 professionals across 26 states.

“I started this in high school,” Pasquarosa tells me. “It really started with an interest in helping small businesses stop running their business off their bank account balance and [instead] giving them timely, accurate books so they could make real-time decisions.”

Big 4 Transparency
By Dominic Piscopo, CPA
For CPA Trendlines

Full show notes here

Jeremy Dubow, CEO and co-founder of Chicago-based Prosperity Partners, explains how entrepreneurship in accounting has shifted from demand-driven to capacity-constrained, and why transparent equity programs are becoming the new standard for talent retention.

Dubow joins Dominic Piscopo on the Big 4 Transparency show to discuss how accounting-firm entrepreneurship and the operating model required to scale have changed since he co-founded NDH in 2003. NDH later sold to private equity and rebranded as Prosperity Partners, which Dubow described as a case study in how firms are adapting to labor constraints, expanding client complexity, and rising expectations around technology and talent strategy.

Accounting ARC
With Liz Mason, Byron Patrick, and Donny Shimamoto
Center for Accounting Transformation

As the calendar flips and the pace of work accelerates, many accounting professionals find themselves running on fumes. The holidays are over. Travel lingers in the body. Busy season looms. And yet, expectations snap back to full speed almost overnight.

In this Accounting ARC, Donny Shimamoto, CPA.CITP, CGMA, and Liz Mason, CPA, take on a topic many professionals quietly struggle with but rarely discuss openly: how to work through fatigue without burning out—or dialing down performance.

• MORE Accounting ARC: OCR, Research Bots & Meeting Assistants: What Actually Helps Now | Return Season is the New Stress Test | Small Firms May Have the Biggest Advantage in 2026 | Downgraded: What the DOE Said About Accounting | Savage: Using Your License as a Megaphone |  Baker: Interpreting Pricing Psychology | Don’t Get Fired by Your Own Automation | What Amazon Doesn't Tell You | Royalties, Residuals, and Reality Checks | ARC-SLC 

Their conversation is refreshingly candid, practical, and grounded in lived experience. And it challenges one of the profession’s most persistent myths: that being tired means you’re doing something wrong.

Both hosts open the episode admitting they are exhausted—but not from overwork. Shimamoto is coming off a stretch of nonstop weekends filled with visitors, events, and travel. Mason is freshly jet-lagged after nearly two weeks in London, balancing client work with museums, family time, and international flights.

The point lands quickly: fatigue doesn’t only come from too much work. It comes from full lives.

And pretending otherwise, they argue, is where professionals get stuck—pushing through exhaustion with guilt instead of strategy.

Big 4 Transparency
By Dominic Piscopo, CPA
For CPA Trendlines

At a time when the accounting profession is undergoing its most rapid transformation in decades, Jen Cryder, CEO of the Pennsylvania Institute of Certified Public Accountants (PICPA), is quietly redefining what a state CPA society can (and arguably should) become. 

• MORE Dominic Piscopo | MORE Private Equity | MORE Pay & Compensation

In this episode of the Big 4 Transparency Podcast, Cryder joins host Dominic Piscopo to discuss how advocacy, revenue diversification, and technology investment are converging to reshape the future of the CPA profession. 

Cryder, who spent 15 years in public accounting before joining PICPA more than a decade ago, now finds herself at the center of national conversations around licensure reform, continuing professional education (CPE), and the evolving definition of what it means to be a CPA. While state societies have historically focused on a relatively narrow set of services, Cryder argues that the profession’s accelerating rate of change has expanded that mandate dramatically. “For most of our 130-year history, the definition of a CPA was fairly static,” she notes. “In just the last few years, that list of issues has become infinite.” 

The Disruptors
With Liz Farr

Brannon Poe, founder of Poe Group Advisors, says the key to a successful firm transaction is fit.  

“I think having a good deal is really about having a good fit,” he says. Besides technical skills, “you have to have management styles that mesh well, you have to have client service philosophies that are aligned,” he explains.  

• MORE STREAMING:MORE STREAMING: Oliver: Build a Biz that Runs Without You | Daiber: Use Succession as a Growth Strategy | Cannon: Busy Season is Self-Inflicted | Carroll: When One Person Can Break the Firm |  Rampe: Build a Roadmap Even When the Road's Not There | Chang: Killing SALY, One Agent at a Time | Vanover: 5-Star Firms Don't Bill by the Hour | Kless: Profit Is a Result. Flourishing Is the Purpose | Whitman: Build Culture on 'Progress,' Not Change | Shein: No PE? No M&A? No Problem | Hood and Weber: Time to RISE | Proctor: Turn Dumb Ideas into Brilliant Solutions | Carter-Gray: How 1 Poor Review Strengthened the Firm | Hartman: Upwork to “40 Under 40” in 3 Years |

For sellers, choosing the right buyer matters as much as the price. “I find that the sellers in particular, who keep their focus on fit and choose the right buyer, usually are the happiest with their exit.” 

The last few years have created favorable conditions for accounting firm sales, but not for everyone. 

The Concierge CPA
With Jackie Meyer
For CPA Trendlines

Most accounting professionals do extraordinary work—and still struggle to explain why it matters.

That tension sits at the heart of a standout episode of The Concierge CPA, where host Dr. Jackie Meyer is joined by messaging strategist Neil Gordon for a wide-ranging conversation on persuasion, clarity, and the future of tax advisory in an AI-driven world.

The result is an episode that feels less like a marketing lesson—and more like a wake-up call for tax professionals who know their value but haven’t quite figured out how to communicate it.

• More Jackie Meyer

Early in the episode, Meyer names a frustration that resonates across the profession: most tax professionals create real value, yet struggle to articulate it in a way that inspires action.

That gap isn’t about intelligence or effort. It’s about messaging.

Quick Tax Tip
With Art Werner
CPE Today

Surprise tax bills remain one of the most common—and avoidable—sources of client frustration. In most cases, the issue isn’t aggressive planning gone wrong, but passive assumptions left unchecked throughout the year.

Tax attorney Art Werner, JD, points to predictable triggers: income that rises while withholding stays flat, investment activity that isn’t incorporated into estimates, and planning decisions made without coordination across the return.

• Click here for more Art Werner

Variable income is a frequent culprit. Bonuses, equity compensation, retirement withdrawals, and side-business earnings can easily push clients into higher brackets or trigger phaseouts.

Accounting Voices
With Rob Brown

After two episodes dissecting the Big Four’s AI arms race, the final chapter of the mini-series turns the lens inward. This episode of Accounting Voices makes the case that staying competitive in an automated profession has less to do with budgets and bots — and everything to do with judgment, visibility, and trust.

AI has changed what clients and employers value. Hours and output no longer differentiate. Clarity, confidence, and credibility do.

• MORE Accounting Influencers with Rob Brown

In accounting, reputation once followed hierarchy. Today, it follows visibility.

When a client, prospect, or employer searches your name, they are not just checking credentials. They are looking for proof of thinking. Insight. Perspective. Signals that you understand what the numbers mean — and when they should be questioned.

Gear Up for Growth
With Jean Caragher
For CPA Trendlines

When Jan Lewis, vice chair of the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA), says, “The world is a complicated place, and who better than a CPA to help cut through the noise?” she’s not offering a slogan. She’s issuing a call to action.

• More Jean Caragher here | Get her best-selling handbook, The 90-Day Marketing Plan for CPA Firms, here | More Gear Up for Growth
• More CPA Trendlines videos and podcasts here

In a wide-ranging and refreshingly candid conversation with host Jean Caragher on Gear Up for Growth, Lewis makes the case that this moment—right now—is one of the most consequential and opportunity-rich periods the CPA profession has ever faced.

One of Lewis’s strongest messages is also one of the most misunderstood: advocacy isn’t theoretical—it’s working.

As firms head into tax season, the hosts of Accounting ARC make a case for lowering the temperature — and the workload — with practical tech choices, proactive planning and a stronger focus on people.

• MORE Accounting ARC: Return Season is the New Stress Test | Small Firms May Have the Biggest Advantage in 2026 | Downgraded: What the DOE Said About Accounting | Savage: Using Your License as a Megaphone |  Baker: Interpreting Pricing Psychology | Don’t Get Fired by Your Own Automation | What Amazon Doesn't Tell You | Royalties, Residuals, and Reality Checks | ARC-SLC | Free Speech Is a Right; Respect Is a Responsibility | Cash Bags, Casinos & Audits: How First Jobs Shape Us | Gen Z Redefines Careers | Bootleggers, Baptitsts & CPAs: Rethinking Licensure

In a special Tax Season Readiness episode, Donny Shimamoto, CPA.CITP, CGMA; joins co-hosts Liz Mason, CPA; and Byron Patrick, CPA.CITP, CGMA; to preview new tax platform research, spotlight emerging AI tools and talk candidly about what helps teams sustain momentum from January through April.

Shimamoto, founder and managing director of IntrapriseTechKnowlogies LLC and founder and inspiration architect for the Center for Accounting Transformation, sets the tone early. He says he intentionally avoids calling it “busy season,” noting that practitioners tell him the upcoming cycle may feel lighter than the past few years. The conversation that follows keeps returning to the same core question: What, specifically, helps firms reduce friction before deadlines hit?

The Disruptors
With Liz Farr

Blake Oliver noticed a consistent pattern with firm owners. “The hardest part for them, it seems, just based on my conversations, is getting started and then building that initial team, creating that firm from scratch, going from zero to something is really, really, really difficult,” he explains.  

That “hardest part” echoes his own experience. 

• MORE STREAMING:MORE STREAMING: Daiber: Use Succession as a Growth Strategy | Cannon: Busy Season is Self-Inflicted | Carroll: When One Person Can Break the Firm |  Rampe: Build a Roadmap Even When the Road's Not There | Chang: Killing SALY, One Agent at a Time | Vanover: 5-Star Firms Don't Bill by the Hour | Kless: Profit Is a Result. Flourishing Is the Purpose | Whitman: Build Culture on 'Progress,' Not Change | Shein: No PE? No M&A? No Problem | Hood and Weber: Time to RISE | Proctor: Turn Dumb Ideas into Brilliant Solutions | Carter-Gray: How 1 Poor Review Strengthened the Firm | Hartman: Upwork to “40 Under 40” in 3 Years 

Before he became known to the accounting world as the co-host of the Accounting Podcast and founder of Earmark, Oliver had his own firm. “I spent five years building a firm from scratch…going from zero to a million dollars in revenue in five years,” he says. Because he was largely figuring it out on his own, the process was far harder than it needed to be.  

His new book, "Building a Sustainable Firm: Strategies for the Modern Accounting Practice," distils the lessons he learned from talking to firm owners and from his own experiences into a blueprint for creating an accounting business that supports your team, your clients, and your own life. 

“If you’re going to take the leap to go start your own firm…you should have something that you’re happy with at the end,” he explains.   

Money is one of the things that people think about most. Yet most people aren’t comfortable talking about it openly.

In this episode of Holistic Guide to Wealth Management, I sit down with Erika Wasserman, CFT, a certified financial therapist, keynote speaker, and author of "Conversations with Your Financial Therapist: Stories and Scripts to Grow Your Money Mindset," to talk about why money conversations about are so often avoided and how advisors, families, and individuals can begin to change that dynamic. 

• MORE Rory Henry and The Holistic Guide to Wealth Management
• BUY the Holistic Guide to Wealth Management

Accounting Voices

With Rob Brown

The Big Four are spending billions on artificial intelligence, cutting thousands of jobs, and reshaping how accounting work gets done. That scale can feel intimidating—especially if you’re running or working inside a small or mid-tier firm.

But here’s the counterintuitive truth explored in a recent episode of Accounting Voices:

The Big Four aren’t winning because of their budgets. They’re winning because of their discipline.

• MORE Accounting Influencers with Rob Brown

This episode breaks down what smaller firms and ambitious professionals can borrow from the AI strategies of PwC, KPMG, Deloitte, and EY—without trying to copy their scale.

The lesson is clear: clarity beats capability, and governance beats gadgets.

Gear Up for Growth
With Jean Caragher
For CPA Trendlines

Technology is no longer something CPA firms use to get work done. It’s what defines how firms compete, scale, attract talent—and increasingly, how they’re valued.

That was the clear, unambiguous message from Roman Kepczyk, director of Firm Technology Strategy at Rightworks, during his recent appearance on Gear Up for Growth, hosted by Jean Caragher.

• Gear Up for Growth spotlights the best strategies for smart and effficient growth in today's competitive landscape. More Gear Up for Growth every Friday here.|  More Capstone Conversations with Jean Caragher every Monday | More Jean Caragher here | Get her best-selling handbook, The 90-Day Marketing Plan for CPA Firms, here | More CPA Trendlines videos and podcasts here

With nearly 30 years spent advising CPA firms of all sizes, Kepczyk didn’t mince words: firms that fail to standardize, automate, and strategically invest in technology are already falling behind—whether they realize it or not.

Accounting ARC

With Liz Mason, Byron Patrick, and Donny Shimamoto
Center for Accounting Transformation

Holiday shopping has never been easier. With a few taps on a smartphone, consumers can buy gifts from bed, track deliveries in real time, and return unwanted items with minimal friction. But behind that convenience lies a complicated accounting reality—one that came into sharp focus during a recent episode of Accounting ARC.

• MORE Accounting ARC: Small Firms May Have the Biggest Advantage in 2026 | Downgraded: What the DOE Said About Accounting | Savage: Using Your License as a Megaphone |  Baker: Interpreting Pricing Psychology | Don’t Get Fired by Your Own Automation | What Amazon Doesn't Tell You | Royalties, Residuals, and Reality Checks | ARC-SLC | Free Speech Is a Right; Respect Is a Responsibility | Cash Bags, Casinos & Audits: How First Jobs Shape Us | Gen Z Redefines Careers | Bootleggers, Baptitsts & CPAs: Rethinking Licensure

Hosts Donny Shimamoto, CPA.CITP, CGMA; Byron Patrick, CPA.CITP; and Liz Mason, CPA, examine the financial, operational, and environmental consequences of e-commerce returns, using the holiday season as a lens to explore broader shifts in consumer behavior and business sustainability.

Industry research shows that nearly 25% of e-commerce purchases are returned after the holidays, compared with less than 9% of in-store retail purchases. For accounting teams, that disparity introduces volatility into revenue recognition, inventory valuation, and profitability forecasting—often at the worst possible time of year.

Big 4 Transparency

By Dominic Piscopo, CPA

For CPA Trendlines

What happens when you fuse a CPA firm with a wealth advisory under one roof and design the operations from a blank page? In this two-guest episode of the Big 4 Transparency, host Dominic Piscopo sits down with Owen Pryor and Steve Blake, managing and senior managing advisors at Evans May Advisory, the sister firm to Evans May Wealth Advisory. Their premise is simple and radical: serve the client with unreasonable hospitality, align wealth and tax strategy, and deliver family-office convenience to high-net-worth families and growing owner-operated businesses.  

• MORE Dominic Piscopo | MORE Private Equity | MORE Pay & Compensation

Pryor and Blake describe a system built on proactive data sharing (with client consents in place) so the firm, not the client, chases documents, coordinates advisors, and executes. The impact shows up in small, high-leverage wins (e-paying taxes and killing paper vouchers, physically banking clients’ mailed checks twice a week, fully recording receivables) and in headline outcomes (structuring a family-farm sale from an estimated $550,000 tax bill to near $0 through planning; spotting missed depreciation and back-catching via Form 3115; introducing lesser-known international strategies like ICDIS where relevant). The result is relief for clients and measurable ROI that converts conversations into scope. 

The Disruptors
With Liz Farr

Erin Daiber, founder and CEO of Well Balanced Accountants, keeps seeing the same issue in firm after firm. A partner announces their intention to retire within a year or two, and the firm suddenly realizes no one is ready to take over. “Firms are not starting that conversation soon enough,” Daiber says.

• MORE STREAMING: Cannon: Busy Season is Self-Inflicted | Carroll: When One Person Can Break the Firm |  Rampe: Build a Roadmap Even When the Road's Not There | Chang: Killing SALY, One Agent at a Time | Vanover: 5-Star Firms Don't Bill by the Hour | Kless: Profit Is a Result. Flourishing Is the Purpose | Whitman: Build Culture on 'Progress,' Not Change | Shein: No PE? No M&A? No Problem | Hood and Weber: Time to RISE | Proctor: Turn Dumb Ideas into Brilliant Solutions | Carter-Gray: How 1 Poor Review Strengthened the Firm | Hartman: Upwork to “40 Under 40” in 3 Years 

“They’re not thinking about succession planning as a strategy,” she explains. Instead of treating succession as an ongoing process, firms see it as simply the point in time when a partner exits the firm. According to Daiber, succession planning should ideally begin with hiring decisions and culture building so that firms can be confident that they won’t lose clients or staff due to uncertainty about what might happen as partners get older.  

When succession planning fails, firms lose key employees before they even reach partnership consideration. “We're losing them much sooner than that, which creates a big hole in the pipeline,” Daiber notes. She identifies an inability to have difficult conversations as the root cause, particularly when dealing with founders who view the firm as their legacy. 

The Concierge CPA
With Jackie Meyer
For CPA Trendlines

The Concierge CPA hosts a deep dive into captive insurance planning this week, as host Dr. Jackie Meyer, CPA, and guest Vardan Pogosian, CPA, unpack both the risk-management foundations and tax-planning implications of small captive insurance companies. The episode clarifies a strategy that many tax professionals find complex or intimidating, with actionable guidance on identifying suitable clients and avoiding compliance risks.

• More Jackie Meyer

Captive insurance — typically formed under Internal Revenue Code Section 831(b) — allows businesses to establish their own insurance company to cover risks that may be difficult or costly to insure through commercial carriers. Under the provision, small qualifying captives can elect alternative tax treatment, in which premiums paid into the captive are tax-deductible to the operating business but not immediately recognized as income by the captive. Tax is generally deferred until the captive is dissolved, at which point capital gains tax applies.

It's Not Just the Numbers
With Penny Breslin and Damien Greathead
For CPA Trendlines

Client Accounting Services (CAS) has moved well beyond bookkeeping. For firms serious about advisory, CAS is now a fundamentally different operating model, one that demands new roles, new systems, and a far higher level of internal transparency than traditional tax or audit practices ever required. 

In this episode of It’s Not Just the Numbers, Damien Greathead and Penny Breslin draw on more than two decades of shared experience to unpack what actually makes a modern CAS practice work in the real world. Their discussion goes beyond theory and into the structural, cultural, and operational decisions firms must confront if they want CAS to be scalable, profitable, and sustainable . 

• MORE Penny Breslin and Damien Greathead | MORE Advisory & Consulting | BUY "It's Not Just the Numbers"

Traditional accounting firms are built around specialization and hierarchy: junior and senior accountants, bookkeepers, managers, and partners, each working essentially in isolation on their own client list. That structure works for compliance, but it breaks down in a CAS environment. 

“CAS requires the team to approach the client holistically,” Breslin explains. “You can’t have people operating in silos. Everyone needs to understand the client’s goals, not just their individual task.” 

Accounting Voices
With Rob Brown

Artificial intelligence is no longer a side project in accounting. It is the main event.

The largest firms are moving aggressively, clients are asking sharper questions, and expectations around speed, accuracy, and insight continue to rise. In the latest episode of Accounting Voices, the focus shifts past headlines and hype to examine what the Big Four are actually doing with AI—and why their moves matter far beyond the global giants.

• MORE Accounting Influencers with Rob Brown

Brown does not chase flashy demos or speculative tech. Instead, he breaks down how AI is being operationalized in audit, tax, and advisory work—and how firms without billion-dollar budgets can compete by doing fewer things better.

Gear Up for Growth

With Jean Caragher

For CPA Trendlines

On this episode of Gear Up for Growth, host Jean Caragher sits down with John Higgins, founder and CEO of Higgins Advisory, to explore how ChatGPT and generative AI are reshaping advisory services, pricing models, and the way CPAs work.

Higgins is blunt about the opportunity—and the risk. “AI and ChatGPT-type tools can become your advisory services assistant,” he says. “They help CPAs communicate better as advisors and focus on what matters most for each client. But you can’t let them turn into a way of giving away your time.”

• Gear Up for Growth spotlights the best strategies for smart and effficient growth in today's competitive landscape. More Gear Up for Growth every Friday here.| More Capstone Conversations with Jean Caragher every Monday | More Jean Caragher here | Get her best-selling handbook, The 90-Day Marketing Plan for CPA Firms, here | More CPA Trendlines videos and podcasts here

For decades, CPAs have been told they need to “become more advisory.” The challenge hasn’t been belief—it’s been execution. Many practitioners equate advisory with answering questions accurately, rather than proactively guiding decisions.

Generative AI changes that equation.

Accounting ARC
With Liz Mason, Byron Patrick, and Donny Shimamoto
Center for Accounting Transformation

In their New Year’s episode, the hosts of Accounting ARC do something many industry commentators avoid: they revisit last year’s predictions, mark what proved accurate, and adjust what did not. Donny Shimamoto, CPA.CITP, CGMA — founder and managing director of IntrapriseTechKnowlogies and founder and inspiration architect of the Center for Accounting Transformation— joins Liz Mason, CPA, CEO and founder of High Rock Accounting, and Byron Patrick, CPA.CITP, CGMA, senior product manager for Karbon, and co-founder and educator for TB Academy, to grade last year's predictions and discuss what's to come in 2026. 

• MORE Accounting ARC: Downgraded: What the DOE Said About Accounting | Savage: Using Your License as a Megaphone |  Baker: Interpreting Pricing Psychology | Don’t Get Fired by Your Own Automation | What Amazon Doesn't Tell You | Royalties, Residuals, and Reality Checks | ARC-SLC | Free Speech Is a Right; Respect Is a Responsibility | Cash Bags, Casinos & Audits: How First Jobs Shape Us | Gen Z Redefines Careers | Bootleggers, Baptitsts & CPAs: Rethinking Licensure

The episode blends reflective scorekeeping with forward-looking speculation, centering on three forces that continue to reshape accounting: alternative licensure pathways, the pace of AI adoption, and the role of culture in firm competitiveness.

MOVE Like This
With Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk
For CPA Trendlines

On this episode of MOVE Like This, host Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk explores a deceptively simple question with Alice Grey Harrison, founder of AGH Consulting: Why do so many firm transformations stall—not because of strategy, but because of communication?

With more than 30 years of experience in strategic communications and change management within the accounting profession, Harrison has seen firms navigate mergers, private equity investments, leadership transitions, system implementations, and cultural shifts.

The difference between momentum and misery, she argues, is rarely technical. It’s human.

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Her core insight is that culture becomes a growth engine only when people understand how their work connects to the firm’s mission, vision, and values. That clarity unlocks what she calls “discretionary energy”—the extra effort people put in when they believe in the firm's direction.

The Disruptors

With Liz Farr

Audit has spent decades digitizing the past—paper binders moved to the cloud, workflows wrapped in prettier software, and manual testing dressed up as “innovation.” According to Jin Chang, that’s not transformation. It’s inertia.

Chang knows because he lived it.

Early in his career as an auditor, he found himself doing exactly what generations before him had done: matching evidence to samples, racing against the clock, and wondering why a four-year degree was being spent on work that machines should have mastered long ago.

• MORE STREAMING: Cannon: Busy Season is Self-Inflicted | Carroll: When One Person Can Break the Firm |  Rampe: Build a Roadmap Even When the Road's Not There | Chang: Killing SALY, One Agent at a Time | Vanover: 5-Star Firms Don't Bill by the Hour | Kless: Profit Is a Result. Flourishing Is the Purpose | Whitman: Build Culture on 'Progress,' Not Change | Shein: No PE? No M&A? No Problem | Hood and Weber: Time to RISE | Proctor: Turn Dumb Ideas into Brilliant Solutions | Carter-Gray: How 1 Poor Review Strengthened the Firm | Hartman: Upwork to “40 Under 40” in 3 Years | 

“Why aren’t computers doing this better and faster?” he remembers thinking.

That question became the seed for Fieldguide—the audit platform Chang says he wished he’d had, powered by AI agents designed to work alongside auditors rather than replace them.

By Rory Henry CFP®, BFA™
For CPA Trendlines

Student loan debt has quietly outgrown its stereotype.

What was once viewed as a challenge for early-career professionals is now showing up in family balance sheets, tax returns, and retirement plans. Parents nearing retirement—and retirees themselves—are increasingly carrying education debt, often on behalf of their children. For CPAs and financial advisors, student loans are no longer a niche planning issue. They’re a multigenerational one.

• MORE Rory Henry and The Holistic Guide to Wealth Management
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With more than $1.8 trillion in federal student loan debt spread across 42.5 million borrowers, the scale alone demands attention. But it’s the shifting who—not just the how much—that makes this moment critical for advisors.

That shift is the focus of this episode of Holistic Guide to Wealth Management, featuring Alex Bottom, CEO of Finology, and Ryan Galiotto, CFP®, CSLP®, founder of the Student Loan Help Network. Their conversation unpacks how legislation, demographics, and delayed life milestones are reshaping student loan planning—and why advisors can’t afford to sit this one out.

It's Not Just the Numbers
With Penny Breslin and Damien Greathead
For CPA Trendlines

Client Advisory Services (CAS) continue to outperform every other service line in accounting. But firms that treat CAS as “enhanced bookkeeping” quickly hit a ceiling. The firms that scale profitably make harder—and smarter—choices: who they serve, how they staff, how they price, and how they explain their value in a world obsessed with automation.

• MORE Penny Breslin and Damien Greathead | MORE Advisory & Consulting | BUY "It's Not Just the Numbers"

In this episode of It’s Not Just the Numbers, co-hosts Penny Breslin and Damien Greathead get refreshingly practical about what actually drives CAS success. Their message is clear: strong CAS practices are built intentionally, not incrementally.

One question cuts straight to the tension many firm owners feel: Should teams see profitability numbers?

Breslin and Greathead don’t argue for radical openness—or secrecy. Instead, they advocate for profit literacy.

Teams don’t need to know margins by client. They do need to understand three things...

Accounting Voices
With Rob Brown

Artificial intelligence is no longer a concept that accountants debate in panels or pilot projects. It is actively reshaping how firms hire, train, and define value.

In this episode of Accounting Voices, host Rob Brown delivers a blunt assessment of what many professionals are already sensing, but few are saying out loud: AI is not coming for your job. It is coming for what your job does.

• MORE Accounting Influencers with Rob Brown

That distinction changes everything.

Brown frames the moment as an AI talent shock—a structural shift that is quietly altering career paths across public accounting, corporate finance, and advisory work. This is not about fearmongering or futurism. It is about reality on the ground.

Gear Up for Growth
With Jean Caragher
For CPA Trendlines

 In a re-energizing episode of Gear Up for Growth, Paul Dunn makes the case that the billable hour isn’t just outdated—it’s holding firms back. The four-time TEDx speaker and cofounder of B1G1 challenges accounting leaders to rethink how success is measured and to lead with purpose, not punch clocks. 

• Gear Up for Growth spotlights the best strategies for smart and efficient growth in today's competitive landscape. More Gear Up for Growth here | More Jean Caragher here | Get her best-selling handbook, The 90-Day Marketing Plan for CPA Firms, here | More CPA Trendlines videos and podcasts here

Talking with host Jean Caragher, Dunn reframes the profession’s obsession with time as a distraction from what clients actually value. “It’s not about the inputs,” he says. “It’s about the outcomes.” When firms anchor their work to results—and to the human impact behind those results—growth follows naturally.

More than two decades after coauthoring "The Firm of the Future," Dunn remains a vocal critic of six-minute increments. While some firms are inching toward value pricing and advisory-led models, he argues the real shift requires courage. Measuring work by time, he notes, is “the opposite of human flourishing.” Measuring by impact, on the other hand, elevates both clients and teams.

Originally published May 2025

Big 4 Transparency
By Dominic Piscopo, CPA
For CPA Trendlines

What does it take to turn dense tax law into business wins? In this episode of the Big 4 Transparency, host Dominic Piscopo sits down with Mark Gallegos, tax partner at Porte Brown, to explore how a self-described “tax geek” became an eminence engine by teaching, writing, and speaking across the country while translating the new HR1 legislation into clear moves for clients. 

• MORE Dominic Piscopo | MORE Private Equity | MORE Pay & Compensation

Gallegos serves on the AICPA Strategic Tax Reform Advisory Group (“strike force”), where volunteer experts parse bills, surface practitioner pain points, and help shape the letters and asks that go to Treasury, IRS, and Capitol Hill. That inside track, pressure-testing interpretations with national peers, feeds his day job: delivering 50,000-foot explanations that prompt the most valuable question in professional services: “What should we do next?” 

Gallegos and Piscopo dive into HR1’s planning levers. 

The Disruptors
With Liz Farr

Brenda Cannon, co-founder of Cannon and Associates, has been pioneering a creative approach for taming tax season madness: every return is scheduled like an appointment. “We know how long it takes us to prepare a tax return. Why could we not control each week and the number of tax returns we prepare each week?” she recalls thinking after hearing Jason Staats introduce the concept on a podcast in 2022.  

• MORE STREAMING: Carroll: When One Person Can Break the Firm |  Rampe: Build a Roadmap Even When the Road's Not There | Chang: Killing SALY, One Agent at a Time | Vanover: 5-Star Firms Don't Bill by the Hour | Kless: Profit Is a Result. Flourishing Is the Purpose | Whitman: Build Culture on 'Progress,' Not Change | Shein: No PE? No M&A? No Problem | Hood and Weber: Time to RISE | Proctor: Turn Dumb Ideas into Brilliant Solutions | Carter-Gray: How 1 Poor Review Strengthened the Firm | Hartman: Upwork to “40 Under 40” in 3 Years 

Over the last three tax seasons, Cannon and her team, which includes her husband and co-founder, Randy Cannon, have been refining the process. Clients choose a date on a calendar on which they will deliver their documents to her office, with the understanding that their return will be ready three weeks after that date.  

The Concierge CPA
With Jackie Meyer
For CPA Trendlines

In this episode of the Concierge CPA podcast, host Dr. Jackie Meyer, CPA, puts a spotlight on a charitable tax strategy that sounds suspiciously modern — yet has been sitting in the tax code since 1978.

The strategy is called charitable gift financing, and, according to Meyer’s guest, Aleksander Dyo, founder and managing director of Wealth Excel, it remains largely invisible to many accountants despite decades of IRS validation.

• More Jackie Meyer

Dyo frames the idea with a blunt comparison: Americans finance homes, cars, equipment — even vacations. So why not charitable giving?

Charitable gift financing allows high-income taxpayers to make significant philanthropic contributions by combining personal funds with borrowed capital, while claiming a charitable deduction for the full amount transferred to charity in the year of the gift.

This isn’t a loophole or a creative interpretation, Dyo says. It’s rooted in long-standing IRS guidance on the deductibility of charitable contributions made with borrowed funds, provided the funds are transferred to the charity in the same tax year.

In practice, that timing is everything.

It's Not Just the Numbers

With Penny Breslin and Damien Greathead

For CPA Trendlines

For decades, accounting careers followed a familiar script: grind through repetitive work, earn your stripes, and maybe—eventually—get to the interesting stuff.

That script is officially broken.

In this episode of It’s Not Just the Numbers, hosts Penny Breslin and Damien Greathead tackled one of the most misunderstood shifts in the profession: how artificial intelligence and outsourcing are reshaping early-career accounting work—and why that’s actually good news for graduates and firm leaders.

• MORE Penny Breslin and Damien Greathead | MORE Advisory & Consulting | BUY "It's Not Just the Numbers"

The big question isn’t whether AI and outsourcing are here to stay. They are. The real question is whether firms will use them to strip away opportunity—or to finally fix a broken talent model.

Let’s be honest: repetitive data entry, reconciliations, and manual cleanup were never great learning tools. They were time-consuming, error-prone, and often disconnected from how firms actually create value.

Yet for years, they were treated as a rite of passage.

Accounting Voices
With Rob Brown

Artificial intelligence is transforming accounting at breakneck speed. It writes reports, summarizes research, drafts client communications, and accelerates analysis. But when AI gets it wrong, it does not whisper. It declares falsehoods with confidence.

That is the warning at the center of a new episode of Accounting Voices, which pulls back the curtain on real-world AI failures that have already shaken the profession — and explains why no firm can afford to treat AI as a neutral back-office tool.

• MORE Accounting Influencers with Rob Brown

This is not about hypothetical risk. It is about documented failures, public apologies, reputational damage, and a hard truth every leader must confront: Technology does not absolve responsibility.

It's Not Just the Numbers

With Penny Breslin and Damien Greathead

For CPA Trendlines

Artificial intelligence has arrived in accounting, but not in the way many expected. It’s not a single app or a single process. It’s everywhere, embedded in workflows, changing how firms scope engagements, price cleanup work, and train their people. 

• MORE Penny Breslin and Damien Greathead
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In the latest episode of It’s Not Just the Numbers, co-hosts Damien Greathead and Penny Breslin explore how AI reshapes the day-to-day work of accounting firms. Their conversation moves beyond theory to real-world examples of how AI is being used in client engagements, what it means for team development, and why critical thinking, not coding, is the skill every firm must cultivate next. 

Gear Up for Growth
With Jean Caragher
For CPA Trendlines

When Lou Grassi started his firm at age 24, he couldn’t afford to pay himself. There was no client base, no safety net, and no guarantee it would work.

More than four decades later, Grassi is the 56th largest accounting firm in the U.S., with $146.5 million in revenue, seven offices, 58 partners, and more than 560 employees. And yet, as Grassi tells host Jean Caragher on Gear Up for Growth, the most important lessons from that journey have very little to do with size.

They have everything to do with intention.

• More Jean Caragher here | Get her best-selling handbook, The 90-Day Marketing Plan for CPA Firms, here | More Gear Up for Growth
• More CPA Trendlines videos and podcasts here

Accounting ARC - Student-Led Conversations
With Arpan Grewal and Harshita Multani
Center for Accounting Transformation

As the accounting profession continues to grapple with talent shortages, shifting expectations, and generational change, one podcast is addressing those challenges from a rarely centered perspective: students themselves.

In an end-of-year episode of Student-Led Conversations, hosts Arpan Grewal and Harshita Multani reflect on a year of interviews alongside Donny Shimamoto, CPA.CITP, CGMA, founder and inspiration architect of the Center for Accounting Transformation. The episode serves as both a retrospective and a case study of what happens when students are entrusted with real platforms and real responsibility.

• MORE Accounting ARC: Downgraded: What the DOE Said About Accounting | Savage: Using Your License as a Megaphone |  Baker: Interpreting Pricing Psychology | Don’t Get Fired by Your Own Automation | What Amazon Doesn't Tell You | Royalties, Residuals, and Reality Checks | ARC-SLC | Free Speech Is a Right; Respect Is a Responsibility | Cash Bags, Casinos & Audits: How First Jobs Shape Us | Gen Z Redefines Careers | Bootleggers, Baptitsts & CPAs: Rethinking Licensure

The idea for Student-Led Conversations emerged after Grewal appeared on an episode of Accounting ARC, where she interviewed seasoned professionals about their careers. What surprised her most was not the technical content, but the personal stories.

“I realized accounting isn’t just about numbers,” Grewal says during the episode. “It’s about people.”

That realization became the foundation for a student-hosted series that explores career paths, mental health, failure, advocacy, and professional identity — topics often absent from traditional recruiting or classroom discussions.

MOVE Like This
With Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk
For CPA Trendlines

In this episode of MOVE Like This, host Bonnie Ruszczyk sits down with Rob Brown, founder and host of the Accounting Voices podcast, to talk about what’s really driving change in the accounting profession. 

Speaking from the UK with deep experience across the U.S. and global markets, Brown shares what he’s seeing in firms of all sizes: pressure from talent shortages, shifting expectations from younger professionals, and the growing importance of a strong employer brand rooted in real stories, not slogans. 

• MORE MOVE

Brown starts by outlining three major workplace trends. 

The Disruptors
With Liz Farr

Ashley Carroll thinks burnout is a design flaw, not a personal failing. 

“I’m a big believer that burnout is a business model flaw,” she says. In response, Carroll created Operations House to help founders reduce burnout and “step out of that role as the provider, the doer, the practitioner, and into an ownership level role.” 

• MORE STREAMING: Rampe: Build a Roadmap Even When the Road's Not There | Chang: Killing SALY, One Agent at a Time | Vanover: 5-Star Firms Don't Bill by the Hour | Kless: Profit Is a Result. Flourishing Is the Purpose | Whitman: Build Culture on 'Progress,' Not Change | Shein: No PE? No M&A? No Problem | Hood and Weber: Time to RISE | Proctor: Turn Dumb Ideas into Brilliant Solutions | Carter-Gray: How 1 Poor Review Strengthened the Firm | Hartman: Upwork to “40 Under 40” in 3 Years 

According to Carroll, burnout stems not only from long hours but also from processes that lack four key qualities: reliability, efficiency, integration with existing systems, and psychological safety.

Phil Whitman, President and CEO of Whitman Advisory, works with hundreds of CPA firms and more than 230 strategic investors across private equity, family offices, wealth management aggregators, and publicly traded consolidators. He sees a profession undergoing unprecedented transformation, and Whitman has a front-row seat. 

In this episode of Holistic Guide to Wealth Management, Whitman shares his observations with me from his unique vantage point.  

• MORE Rory Henry and The Holistic Guide to Wealth Management
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Transaction activity has since accelerated, creating unprecedented competition for deals and pushing accounting firm valuations into territory the profession has never seen before.

Accounting Voices
With Rob Brown

The accounting profession does not suffer from a lack of technical expertise. What it faces instead is a growing relevance gap.

• MORE Accounting Influencers with Rob Brown

That tension sits at the center of Accounting Voices, the newly launched show formerly known as Accounting Influencers. Episode 1 opens a new season with a sharper focus and a clearer message: competence is assumed, but influence is what now protects careers.

This is not a podcast about tax codes, audit standards, or software features. It is a show about the forces reshaping accounting and finance—and what professionals must do to stay ahead as those forces accelerate.

Gear Up for Growth
With Jean Caragher
For CPA Trendlines

“With AI, we finally have the tools to free up time for advisory, and clients are asking for it,” says Megan Leesley, director of tax at Dark Horse CPAs, during her appearance on Gear Up for Growth, hosted by Jean Caragher of Capstone Marketing. 

“They want more than a tax return. They want strategic guidance, and they’re willing to pay for it.” 

• More Jean Caragher here | Get her best-selling handbook, The 90-Day Marketing Plan for CPA Firms, here | More Gear Up for Growth | More CPA Trendlines videos and podcasts here

Leesley, a member of the Intuit Tax Council, recently presented at DCPA25 on transitioning from compliance to advisory, sharing practical steps to transform a traditional tax practice while increasing revenue, improving client relationships, and enhancing work-life balance. 

Leesley shares how she intentionally reduced her client base and tripled fees to focus exclusively on advisory work. “I reduced my book of business from $350K ARR with a plan to bring it down to $50K,” she explains. 

“I raised prices significantly, required advisory as part of all engagements, and still ended up at over $100K ARR, double my target, even after losing more clients than expected.” 

Accounting ARC
With Liz Mason, Byron Patrick, and Donny Shimamoto
Center for Accounting Transformation

When the U.S. Department of Education released its negotiated language for implementing the “One Big Beautiful Bill” Act’s graduate loan reforms, most accountants probably did not expect to see their field at the center of a political storm. 

But in draft rules tied to the law, accounting master’s programs are not classified as “professional degree” programs for purposes of federal student loan caps.  

• MORE Accounting ARC: Savage: Using Your License as a Megaphone |  Baker: Interpreting Pricing Psychology | Don’t Get Fired by Your Own Automation | What Amazon Doesn't Tell You | Royalties, Residuals, and Reality Checks | ARC-SLC | Free Speech Is a Right; Respect Is a Responsibility | Cash Bags, Casinos & Audits: How First Jobs Shape Us | Gen Z Redefines Careers | Bootleggers, Baptitsts & CPAs: Rethinking Licensure | CPA Firm Ownership Under Fire | Walking Violation: When Showing Your CPA Gets You in Trouble |

That classification matters. Under the new structure, beginning in July 2026, graduate students may borrow up to $20,500 per year, with a $100,000 lifetime cap, while “professional students” are allowed up to $50,000 annually and $200,000 total. Medicine and law make the professional list. Accounting does not. Neither do nursing, education, architecture, social work, nor several other fields that traditionally are seen as high-skill professions. 

In this episode of Accounting ARC, co-hosts Liz Mason, CPA; Byron Patrick, CPA.CITP; and Donny Shimamoto, CPA.CITP, CGMA, unpack what that reclassification could mean for the accounting pipeline—and for how the profession sees itself. 

.Big 4 Transparency
By Dominic Piscopo, CPA
For CPA Trendlines

For many business owners, finding the right accountant feels like an impossible task. You’re trusting someone with your finances, your future, and sometimes even your peace of mind. But in an industry dominated by word-of-mouth and vague Google listings, Sam’s List has emerged as a game-changing alternative: a review-based directory for CPAs, bookkeepers, fractional CFOs, and financial advisors, designed to make trust and transparency easier for everyone. 

• MORE Dominic Piscopo | MORE Private Equity | MORE Pay & Compensation

In this episode of Big 4 Transparency, host Dominic Piscopo speaks with co-founder Kimi Green, who shares the wild story of how the viral idea from entrepreneur Sam Parr (of My First Million) turned into a thriving lead-generation platform - and how she found herself leading it with no prior experience in accounting. “I despised accounting,” Green laughs. “I didn’t even ask follow-up questions when someone told me they were a CPA.” 

Matt Rampe sees the accounting industry as one “under a lot of pressure to change, and it’s changing very quickly.” The combination of a staffing crisis, retiring baby boomers, AI, private equity, and tax law is creating “the fog,” a period in which the path forward isn't just unclear; it's fundamentally unknowable. 

To address “the fog,” his new book, CPA Firm Strategic Planning: Your Roadmap for Long-Term Success, lays out a framework grounded in decades of consulting experience with Rosenberg Associates, combined with research on organizational change, leadership psychology, and what drives team performance. “Strategic planning, in my mind, is the venue by which you analyze and think through those issues, put them up, not just out of reactivity,” Rampe explains. It means “really stepping back and looking at the big picture of the industry and your firm and your situation, and then making choices that you're aligned with.” 

• MORE STREAMING: Chang: Killing SALY, One Agent at a Time | Vanover: 5-Star Firms Don't Bill by the Hour | Kless: Profit Is a Result. Flourishing Is the Purpose | Whitman: Build Culture on 'Progress,' Not Change | Shein: No PE? No M&A? No Problem | Hood and Weber: Time to RISE | Proctor: Turn Dumb Ideas into Brilliant Solutions | Carter-Gray: How 1 Poor Review Strengthened the Firm | Hartman: Upwork to “40 Under 40” in 3 Years |

According to Rampe’s research, strategic planning fails most often at the execution stage. Nearly two-thirds of respondents reported that “execution fails after the planning meeting.” Firms gather, generate good ideas, identify priorities, and then get pulled into their day-to-day work, and nothing happens. Or they put off strategic planning altogether until some imaginary day when they might have time.  

“One of the insights is you need to spend time working on the business, not just in the business, because the in the business is going to drown you,” Rampe explains. The way you solve that is "not working harder in the business. It's working, prioritizing, working on the business.” 

Rampe’s book outlines his Five I framework, which helps firms work through strategic planning and implement those plans by developing accountability throughout the firm. Each of the I’s has a main question attached to it, designed to invite curiosity.  

The Concierge CPA
With Jackie Meyer
For CPA Trendlines

In a recent edition of the Concierge CPA podcast, host Dr. Jackie Meyer and guest Acen Hansen delivered a detailed, no-nonsense exploration of using the Backdoor Roth IRA and the Mega Backdoor Roth to harness tax-free growth — particularly for high-income earners and those focused on legacy planning.

• More Jackie Meyer
• Catch Jackie Meyer and other thought leaders on Dec. 10 at Tax Season Readiness: Practical Steps for a Smoother Busy Season |1.5 CPE 

A Backdoor Roth IRA isn’t a special new account — it’s a workaround. As Dr. Meyer, founder of TaxPlanIQ, and Hansen, a wealth advisor for Legacy Wealth Management, explain, it allows people who earn too much to contribute directly to a Roth IRA to still access the benefits of a Roth by first contributing to a traditional IRA (on a non-deductible basis) and then converting it to a Roth IRA.

Once the funds are inside a Roth IRA, they grow tax-free and — assuming account and timing requirements are met — distributions in retirement are tax-free.

For high earners with incomes above IRS thresholds for direct Roth contributions — which, for 2025, prohibit single filers with MAGI above roughly $165,000 and married couples filing jointly above about $246,000 — the Backdoor Roth remains a viable path.

“It’s kind of surprising how many people don’t know about the ability to do a backdoor Roth,” Hansen says. “Most of the time, it’s, ‘Oh, I don’t qualify for Roths so I’ve got to figure something else out.’"

It's Not Just the Numbers
With Penny Breslin and Damien Greathead
For CPA Trendlines

If there’s one topic that never gets old in accounting, it’s technology. New apps promise smoother workflows, faster reconciliations, and smarter insights every year. Yet, despite all the innovation, many firms still struggle with the same problem: too many tools, too little strategy. 

• MORE Penny Breslin and Damien Greathead
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In the latest episode of It’s Not Just the Numbers, hosts Penny Breslin and Damien Greathead revisit a metaphor that’s as timeless as it is practical, the “little black dress” of technology. The conversation digs into what every firm owner should understand about building a tech stack that actually fits their ambition, not just their app wish list. 

Accounting Influencers
With Rob Brown

Seventy-six percent of professionals believe in-person conferences offer better networking opportunities than virtual events. But while accountants spend millions each year on registration fees, hotel rooms, and travel, only a fraction walk away with meaningful ROI. According to Rob Brown on Accounting Influencers, the problem isn’t the events—it’s the strategy.

• MORE Accounting Influencers with Rob Brown

“People go to conferences and just float,” Brown says. “They wander the expo hall, catch a few sessions, grab the swag—and then wonder why nothing changes.” With conferences back at full strength and offering multi-sensory experiences, deeper technical sessions, and richer networking formats, Brown says firms should treat them as strategic business opportunities, not passive learning days.

Gear Up for Growth
With Jean Caragher
For CPA Trendlines

“A business model describes how you earn revenue when services are given away for free,” said Ron Baker, co-founder of THRESHOLD: A Revelation for the Transformation Economy, during his appearance on Gear Up for Growth, hosted by Jean Caragher of Capstone Marketing. 

“That terrifies people, but it’s where the economy is going.” 

• More Jean Caragher here | Get her best-selling handbook, The 90-Day Marketing Plan for CPA Firms, here | More Gear Up for Growth
• More CPA Trendlines videos and podcasts here
• Sponsored by Tax Season Readiness: Practical Steps for a Smoother Busy Season  | Is your firm truly ready for tax season—or just hoping to survive it? Join this 90-minute webinar featuring an Accounting ARC Live panel with thought leaders who know what it takes to optimize performance under pressure. | Dec. 10, 2 p.m. ET | 1.5 CPE

Accounting ARC - Student-Led Conversations
With Arpan Grewal
Center for Accounting Transformation

Advocacy often appears on television as protest marches, campaign rallies, or contentious debates. But in a recent Accounting ARC – Student-Led Conversations episode, host Arpan Grewal and guest ZeNai Savage, CPA, recast advocacy as something more grounded and accessible: a series of everyday decisions about when to speak up, who to invite in, and how to use professional skills for public good.

• Sponsored by Tax Season Readiness: Practical Steps for a Smoother Busy Season | Dec. 10, 2 pm ET  | Is your firm truly ready for tax season—or just hoping to survive it? Join this 90-minute webinar featuring an Accounting ARC Live panel with thought leaders who know what it takes to optimize performance under pressure. See Today’s Special Offer

• MORE Accounting ARC: Baker: Interpreting Pricing Psychology | Don’t Get Fired by Your Own Automation | What Amazon Doesn't Tell You | Royalties, Residuals, and Reality Checks | ARC-SLC | Free Speech Is a Right; Respect Is a Responsibility | Cash Bags, Casinos & Audits: How First Jobs Shape Us | Gen Z Redefines Careers | Bootleggers, Baptitsts & CPAs: Rethinking Licensure | CPA Firm Ownership Under Fire | Walking Violation: When Showing Your CPA Gets You in Trouble |

Savage is not a typical accountant. She is the founder of The Savage Advantage, a consulting firm that provides outsourced controller work, budget development, governance support, and board training to nonprofits and civic organizations. She also writes and speaks through Blurred Lines, a personal platform built on the belief that people do not have to separate their faith, professional life, and community service into neat compartments.

For Grewal, a Gen Z student leader, Savage’s path offers a concrete example of how young professionals can blend technical careers with civic engagement.

Quick Tax Tip
With Art Werner
CPE Today

For the last several years, tax professionals, small businesses, and even casual online sellers have been living through what Quick Tax Tip host Art Werner calls “a fun roller coaster ride”—if you think tax compliance roller coasters are fun.

In this episode, Werner breaks down the whiplash-inducing changes to Form 1099-K and the brand-new thresholds for 1099 reporting, and explains how Congress, the IRS, and a long list of confused taxpayers all contributed to the mess.

• Click here for more Art Werner

The Disruptors
With Liz Farr

Audit is notorious for long hours, terrible work-life balance, reliance on endless checklists, and repeating the same mind-numbingly tedious procedures year after year. But some, like Kathryn Horton, are creating a different path for success as an auditor.  

 At her solo firm, Kathryn K. Horton CPA, she provides outsourced audit and analytics consulting services to firms nationwide. As “auditor on call,” she steps into manager and senior manager roles for local, regional, and national firms, helping them increase capacity while reducing staff burnout. 

• MORE STREAMING: Chang: Killing SALY, One Agent at a Time | Vanover: 5-Star Firms Don't Bill by the Hour | Kless: Profit Is a Result. Flourishing Is the Purpose | Whitman: Build Culture on 'Progress,' Not Change | Shein: No PE? No M&A? No Problem | Hood and Weber: Time to RISE | Proctor: Turn Dumb Ideas into Brilliant Solutions | Carter-Gray: How 1 Poor Review Strengthened the Firm | Hartman: Upwork to “40 Under 40” in 3 Years | Telka: Transform Fear into Fuel | 

By Rory Henry CFP®, BFA™
For CPA Trendlines

Few people have been able to bridge the gap between emerging technology and the accounting profession the way Dr. Sean Stein Smith does. A CPA, researcher, Forbes contributor, and professor at Lehman College, Stein Smith serves on the advisory board of the Wall Street Blockchain Alliance and has spent more than a decade helping practitioners make sense of blockchain, crypto, and artificial intelligence. 

• MORE Rory Henry and The Holistic Guide to Wealth Management
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• MORE Dr. Sean Stein Smith | Crypto Tax Planning – Beyond the Basics & What Practitioners Need to Know Going Forward | Dec. 11, 12:30 p.m. ET | On-Demand

And CPAs can no longer afford to ignore it.  

It's Not Just the Numbers
With Penny Breslin and Damien Greathead
For CPA Trendlines

Winning the client is exciting—but in Client Accounting Services (CAS), that’s just the opening act. The real work, and the real success, depends on what happens immediately after a prospect says “yes.”

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In this episode of It’s Not Just the Numbers, hosts Penny Breslin and Damien Greathead make the case that onboarding is one of the most overlooked, underdeveloped, and business-critical functions in CAS firms today.

“Too many firms have no clue what actually happens when a client walks in the door,” Breslin says. “You sold the work, but what happens next? What experience does the client have? And what does your team do first?”

Accounting Influencers
With Rob Brown

A stark warning is shaking the accounting profession: 65% of current firm partners will be considered “digitally obsolete” within three years. The unsettling part? Private equity (PE) investors are not planning to retrain them—they are preparing to replace them.

• MORE Accounting Influencers with Rob Brown

On the latest episode of the Accounting Influencers Podcast, host Rob Brown uncovers how private equity–backed firms are redrawing the profession’s leadership map. The digital divide is no longer theoretical. It is already defining who will lead the future of accounting and who will be pushed aside.

Gear Up for Growth

With Jean Caragher

For CPA Trendlines

When public accounting firms talk about “leadership challenges,” the conversation often turns into a soft focus on communication styles or vague culture issues.

Michael Meihaus goes straight for the hard truths.

On Gear Up for Growth, hosted by Capstone Marketing president Jean Caragher, Meihaus—owner of Meihaus CPA in Escondido, California—lays out the structural leadership failings he sees across the profession: outdated ownership models, harmful work expectations, broken incentives, and leaders who resist change because the current system works for them, even as it burns everyone else out.

• More Gear Up for Growth here. | More Jean Caragher here | 
• Get her best-selling handbook, The 90-Day Marketing Plan for CPA Firms, here | 
• More CPA Trendlines videos and podcasts here

“It’s simply that we don’t change unless we have to,” he tells Caragher. In a profession that’s been “stable, profitable, successful” for decades, too many people at the top have little incentive to transform how firms actually operate.
 
 One of Meihaus’s most provocative arguments is that many “partners” aren’t really owners in any meaningful sense. 

Big 4 Transparency
By Dominic Piscopo, CPA
For CPA Trendlines

 When Mike Maksymiw first joined the Big 4 Transparency podcast, listeners were struck by his candor, clarity, and willingness to challenge the profession’s long-standing norms. Now, as host Dominic Piscopo welcomes him back as the show’s first repeat guest, Maksymiw brings even more insight—this time shaped by Aprio’s rapid growth, his own unconventional career path, and a message for accountants who feel stuck in roles that no longer fit. 

• MORE Dominic Piscopo | MORE Private Equity | MORE Pay & Compensation

Maksymiw currently serves as executive director of the Aprio Firm Alliance, a national network of nearly 100 firms that share resources, expertise, and support across specialties and geographies. And—thanks to Aprio’s recent acquisition of the PS Plus Alliance from RSM—the Alliance has nearly doubled in size.

“It broadens how we can go find answers,” he explains. “Now there are a hundred people you can ask, and maybe fifty have done what you’re trying to do. Maybe there are seven different ways to make it work.”

The Disruptors

With Liz Farr

After decades in public accounting, years emceeing national conferences, and a long stretch coaching college softball, Dawn Brolin has learned something most leadership books bury in footnotes: empathy drives performance.

“Empathy is, to me, the number one characteristic that a leader should follow,” she told host Liz Farr in her return to The Disruptors. Her latest book, The Elevation of Empathy: Leading for the W.I.N., digs into why the accounting profession needs a different kind of leadership—one rooted in awareness, humanity, and intentional care. 

• MORE STREAMING: Chang: Killing SALY, One Agent at a Time | Vanover: 5-Star Firms Don't Bill by the Hour | Kless: Profit Is a Result. Flourishing Is the Purpose | Whitman: Build Culture on 'Progress,' Not Change | Shein: No PE? No M&A? No Problem | Hood and Weber: Time to RISE | Proctor: Turn Dumb Ideas into Brilliant Solutions | Carter-Gray: How 1 Poor Review Strengthened the Firm | Hartman: Upwork to “40 Under 40” in 3 Years 

Accounting firms often reward technical strength or revenue generation with leadership titles. But Brolin argues those metrics don’t create leaders; they create what she calls “appointed leaders.”

“You could be appointed a leader because of a skill or the amount of revenue you bring in. That doesn’t mean you are one,” she says.

Real leadership, in her view, has less to do with credentials and more to do with emotional intelligence, personal responsibility, and daily behaviors that elevate the people around you.

*Originally published August 2025

In this episode of MOVE Like This, host Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk talks with Stacie Kwaiser, CPA and CEO of Rehmann, about the firm’s nearly three-decade journey toward building a culture where people stay, grow, and lead.

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Kwaiser began her career in public accounting at Coopers & Lybrand before joining Rehmann, a firm that now employs more than 1,100 professionals across 22 offices. She rose through the audit practice and into firmwide leadership roles, ultimately becoming CEO in 2023. Along the way, she experienced—and helped shape—Rehmann’s evolution into one of the profession’s most recognized firms for women and equity leadership.

Rehmann’s reputation didn’t happen by accident. Nearly 20 years ago, the firm launched its Women’s Career Advocacy Program to address attrition among rising female professionals. That effort has since expanded into a firmwide Career Advocacy Program that embeds mentorship, sponsorship, and structured development into daily culture.

Kwaiser is clear that these supports aren’t optional. “You can’t treat talent development like an initiative that comes and goes,” she says. “It has to be part of how you operate.”

Originally published October 2025.

It's Not Just the Numbers
With Penny Breslin and Damien Greathead
For CPA Trendlines

When accountants and bookkeepers talk about building a scalable, profitable firm, the conversation often jumps straight to technology. Which workflow app is best? Should we move payroll into a dedicated platform? Is our practice management system due for an upgrade? 

But as Penny Breslin and Damien Greathead emphasize in the latest episode of It’s Not Just the Numbers, software is only as good as the processes that support it. Without consistent policies and documented procedures, even the most advanced tech stack will fail to deliver efficiency or profitability. 

• MORE Penny Breslin and Damien Greathead | MORE Advisory & Consulting | BUY "It's Not Just the Numbers"

This lesson is especially crucial for firms offering Client Advisory Services (CAS). Advisory work depends on reliable, timely data and standardized outputs. If every accountant on the team closes the books differently, it doesn’t just create inefficiency; it undermines the consistency and trust that clients rely on. 

Accounting Influencers
With Rob Brown

The accounting podcast world is no longer a niche corner of the internet. It is a sprawling ecosystem of news briefings, exam prep guides, leadership conversations, and tech trend breakdowns. For today’s professionals—from students to senior partners—the shows they follow influence how they think, how they show up, and how they lead.

In this episode of Accounting Influencers, host Rob Brown breaks down the types of accounting podcasts in the market today and explains why some help you grow while others simply drain your time.

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Not all accounting podcasts are built for the same audience. Some exist to help students pass exams. Others help partners stay current on regulatory changes. Some deliver tech deep dives. Others humanize the profession with personal stories.

Understanding these differences helps listeners choose wisely and avoid content that feels irrelevant or repetitive.

Gear Up for Growth
With Jean Caragher
For CPA Trendlines

When most people picture a CPA firm CEO, they don’t envision a former marketing director in the big chair.

That’s exactly what makes Eric Majchrzak worth listening to.

Majchrzak, CEO and Principal of BeachFleischman—Arizona’s largest locally owned CPA firm and a Top 200 firm in the U.S.—has been named multiple times to Accounting Today’s “Top 100 Most Influential People in Accounting” and is an Association for Accounting Marketing Hall of Fame inductee.

• More Jean Caragher here | Get her best-selling handbook, The 90-Day Marketing Plan for CPA Firms, here | More Gear Up for Growth
• More CPA Trendlines videos and podcasts here

 If you’re wrestling with growth, private equity pressure, talent shortages, or AI-driven disruption, this is a conversation you don’t want to miss. 

Know-How Korner

With Donny Shimamoto

Center for Accounting Transformation

Know How Korner, hosted by Donny Shimamoto, aims to translate peer-reviewed findings into practical actions for firms. In a recent episode, Shimamoto interviews Dr. Katelynn Hopson, assistant professor of accounting at Arkansas Tech University, whose dissertation quantifies a deceptively soft concept—hope—and links it to how public accountants experience stress and consider leaving their firms.

• MORE Know-How Korner

Hope, in the research literature, is not vague optimism. Psychologist C. R. Snyder frames it as goal-directed cognition comprising agency (“the will”) and pathways (“the ways”). Hopson studies state hope—how hopeful someone is about a specific time frame or event—rather than broad personality-level trait hope. State hope moves; it can be built or eroded by experience and context.

“People who have higher levels of hope are more likely to want to stay and less likely to feel burned out,” Hopson explains.

Quick Tax Tip
With Art Werner
CPE Today

If you thought Section 179 was already generous, buckle up. Tax guru Art Werner is back with a Quick Tax Tip that dives into one of the most business-friendly changes proposed in the “Big, Beautiful Bill” — a massive, permanent expansion of the Section 179 expensing limit to $2.5 million.

• Click here for more Art Werner

That’s right. The deduction, which once topped out at a modest $10,000 (yes, really), could soon allow businesses to expense up to $2.5 million of qualifying property immediately. According to Werner, this is not just another routine adjustment — this is a seismic change in year-one expensing power.

And for the right business? It could be a game-changer.

By Rory Henry CFP®, BFA™

For CPA Trendlines

When most people think about retirement planning, they picture spreadsheets and savings targets. But as Dan Haylett, author of The Retirement You Didn’t See Coming and host of the Humans vs. Retirement podcast, explains, the real challenge of retirement is not mathematical—it’s psychological. 

• MORE Rory Henry and The Holistic Guide to Wealth Management
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“People focus on the numbers because they think that will solve all their challenges,” Haylett says. “But retirement is a complex human problem. Spreadsheets will not tell us who we are without a business card or what gets us out of bed in the morning.” 

Haylett distinguishes between “complicated” and “complex” problems. For instance, he says a tax return is complicated but solvable, while retirement is complex—filled with uncertainty, emotion, and shifting identity. That’s a huge distinction, and Haylett argues that advisors who only solve the math side miss the messy human side of the client relationship. 

Haylett urges advisors to help clients plan beyond their finances – for instance, how they will structure their days in retirement, as well as their relationships and purpose. “Retirement is an emotional human transition,” Haylett says. “It requires people to think about who they are, what they are doing, and how their relationships might change.” 

Accounting Influencers
With Rob Brown

In today’s crowded attention economy, time is the rarest currency. Every minute you spend consuming content needs to work for you. That’s why accounting leaders are turning to podcasts—not as entertainment, but as a professional advantage.

In this episode of Accounting Influencers, host Rob Brown explores how podcasting is evolving and what that means for accountants and firm leaders who want to stay sharp, visible, and ahead of the curve.

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The podcast industry is booming—worth an estimated $47 billion globally and projected to triple in the next few years. But as Brown explains, this growth isn’t about quantity; it’s about quality.

“The best podcasts,” he says, “cut through the noise. They know who they’re for, and they deliver the goods.”

Listeners today average seven podcasts in rotation, but loyalty is increasingly tied to the relevance of the content. The most trusted shows focus on niche audiences and deliver actionable value.

Gone are the days of meandering interviews and filler content. The top-performing podcasts are shorter, tighter, and built for multitasking professionals.

Brown notes three key shifts redefining the medium.

Gear Up for Growth
With Jean Caragher
For CPA Trendlines

“Leaders who realize they’re too tired to keep managing change should recognize that it might be time to transition to somebody who has that energy,” says Carrie Steffen, CEO of the Iowa Society of CPAs, during her appearance on Gear Up for Growth, hosted by Jean Caragher of Capstone Marketing. “The longer you hang on when you don’t have the energy for change, the more of a disservice you’re doing, not only to your firm, but to the profession as a whole.”   

• More Jean Caragher here | Get her best-selling handbook, The 90-Day Marketing Plan for CPA Firms, here | More Gear Up for Growth
• More CPA Trendlines videos and podcasts here

In addition to highlighting self-awareness as a key leadership skill, Steffen offered valuable insights for CPA firm leaders navigating today’s dynamic environment. 

In her interview, two major takeaways stood out. 

Accounting ARC - Student-Led Conversations
With Harshita Multani
Center for Accounting Transformation

On Accounting ARC – Student-Led Conversations, host Harshita Multani interviews Ron Baker—author, educator, and sought-after speaker—about price discrimination and the psychology behind everyday pricing. Across coffee shops, hotels, streaming platforms, and movie theaters, Baker says the same principle repeats: value is subjective, so pricing must be, too. 

• MORE Accounting ARC: Don’t Get Fired by Your Own Automation | What Amazon Doesn't Tell You | Royalties, Residuals, and Reality Checks | ARC-SLC | Free Speech Is a Right; Respect Is a Responsibility | Cash Bags, Casinos & Audits: How First Jobs Shape Us | Gen Z Redefines Careers | Bootleggers, Baptitsts & CPAs: Rethinking Licensure | CPA Firm Ownership Under Fire | Walking Violation: When Showing Your CPA Gets You in Trouble | Audit Bags to TikTok Tags, Gen Z Talks Success | Students Challenge Accounting's Traditional Career Path | True Grit: Recognizing Struggles That Shape Our Successes |More Admins, Fewer Students, No Plan | What Career Advice Gets Wrong for Gen Z - And How to Fix It | Your Identity is Not a Liability | Burnout, Be Gone: Accounting Needs a Boundary Breakthrough

Baker argues that pricing “behaves like art” because people don’t act like predictable particles. The goal is not perfect prediction, but rather constant testing: offering options, observing behavior, and refining strategy. That framing aligns with a growing body of hospitality research that shows how subtle cues—like removing the “$” symbol—change spending patterns. Cornell researchers find diners spend significantly more when menus list numerals without currency signs, a choice many premium venues intentionally make.  

Big 4 Transparency
By Dominic Piscopo, CPA
For CPA Trendlines

What does it take to build one of Canada’s fastest-growing cloud accounting firms? In this episode of the Big 4 Transparency, host Dominic Piscopo sits down with Mike Pinkus, co-founder of ConnectCPA and host of the Growth Tales podcast, to unpack the bootstrapped, contrarian story behind ConnectCPA’s rise to over 100 staff and a fully remote, recurring revenue model long before it was trendy. 

• MORE Dominic Piscopo | MORE Private Equity | MORE Pay & Compensation

Founded in 2014 by Pinkus and co-founder Lior Zehtser, ConnectCPA was born from a desire for more autonomy - both personally and professionally. “We just wanted to work for ourselves,” Pinkus says. “Everything else was a byproduct.” Yet within a few years, they found themselves leading a national, cloud-native firm with a deep bench of accounting, tax, and finance professionals serving scaling businesses across North America.

The firm's early bet on recurring revenue and cloud infrastructure paid off, but the growth came with growing pains. As the client base exploded, the firm took on nearly everything that came through the door until the operational costs caught up. Pinkus openly shares how a lack of data visibility and over-hiring led to margin pressure and process gaps, eventually prompting the firm to hit pause, install time tracking for its accounting team, and rework its client roster toward a more focused ICP. 

The Disruptors
With Liz Farr

What will it take to kill the billable hour? Chris Vanover, founder of CPAClub, believes it’s not only “outdated and archaic,” but that today’s age of AI and automation “is a recipe for the death of the billable hour.”   

• MORE STREAMING: Kless: Profit Is a Result. Flourishing Is the Purpose | Whitman: Build Culture on 'Progress,' Not Change | Shein: No PE? No M&A? No Problem | Hood and Weber: Time to RISE | Proctor: Turn Dumb Ideas into Brilliant Solutions | Carter-Gray: How 1 Poor Review Strengthened the Firm | Hartman: Upwork to “40 Under 40” in 3 Years | Telka: Transform Fear into Fuel | Woodard: Move Past Reports; Deliver Results 

CPAClub, formerly AuditClub, operates under a different model. As Hervochon explained in his first appearance on The Disruptors, CPAClub operates as a subscription service, where pass holders have access on a monthly or annual basis to a team of highly skilled auditors and accountants. This innovative business model undoubtedly contributed to the firm’s recognition as CalCPA’s Firm of the Year for 2025.  

“CPAClub was launched back in 2022 with a mission to try to help improve the profession,” Vanover explains.  “Hours aren't necessarily something you want to buy, because ultimately, I could sell you 40 hours at a certain value per hour, but there's no guarantee that I would actually deliver anything with those hours,” Vanover explains.  

MOVE Like This
With Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk
For CPA Trendlines

In a climate where diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs have become political flashpoints, employment attorney Aislinn Sroczynski of Royer Cooper Cohen Braunfeld joins host Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk on MOVE Like This to unpack the facts behind the fear. The result is a grounded, no-nonsense discussion on how firms can remain inclusive, compliant, and confident—without compromising their values.

• MORE MOVE

Despite the noise, Sroczynski reminds us that the legal foundation of DEI hasn’t budged. Title VII, the ADA, the ADEA, and the Equal Pay Act still form the bedrock of U.S. anti-discrimination law. “What’s changed,” she explains, “is the level of scrutiny.”

That means employers should revisit—not rewrite—their programs to ensure they focus on fairness regardless of protected characteristics, not because of them.

It's Not Just the Numbers

With Penny Breslin and Damien Greathead

For CPA Trendlines

In the world of client accounting and advisory services (CAS), most firms focus on building internal teams, refining processes, and adopting the right technology. Yet, one crucial element often gets overlooked: the client. 

In a recent episode of It’s Not Just the Numbers, co-hosts Damien Greathead and Penny Breslin explore why clients must be treated as integral members of the team, and what happens when firms fail to define the client’s role in the process. Their conversation, drawn from decades of working with accounting firms around the world, provides a blueprint for CPAs and firm owners aiming to elevate their CAS practices. 

• MORE Penny Breslin and Damien Greathead | MORE Advisory & Consulting | BUY "It's Not Just the Numbers"

Traditionally, accountants position clients as recipients of a service; for example, the client would deliver documents once a year, and the firm would produce a tax return. That transactional model doesn’t work in CAS, says Breslin. 

Accounting Influencers
With Rob Brown

Artificial intelligence isn’t a future disruptor—it’s already embedded in accounting. The profession’s survival depends on how quickly firms adapt.

“The robots are coming—scratch that—they’re already here,” says Accounting Influencers host Rob Brown. “AI literacy isn’t optional anymore. If you’re treating AI as tomorrow’s problem, you’re already behind the curve.”

The latest episode explores the seismic impact of automation on accounting and the urgent need for firms to transform their skills, strategies, and structures.

• MORE Accounting Influencers with Rob Brown

Citing a McKinsey report, Brown notes that nearly 80% of organizations already use AI in at least one core function. “It’s pervasive now,” he says. “Reconciliation, data entry, transaction classification—AI eats those jobs for breakfast.”

A 2023 OpenAI study even found that automation could impact nearly all tasks performed by accountants and auditors. Yet, surprisingly, the accounting job market hasn’t collapsed. “Two years into the generative AI journey, most jobs haven’t vanished,” Brown observes. “The danger isn’t robots replacing humans—it’s humans who fail to leverage robots being replaced by those who do.”

“I love Smith + Howard, and I loved marketing, but I didn’t think I was the person for that role anymore,” says Julie Barnes, chief of staff of Smith + Howard, during her appearance on Gear Up for Growth, powered by CPA Trendlines, and hosted by Jean Caragher of Capstone Marketing. “I didn’t want to leave; I wanted to do something different. I wanted to be valuable to the firm and create value in whatever role I landed in.” 

• More Jean Caragher here | Get her best-selling handbook, The 90-Day Marketing Plan for CPA Firms, here | More Gear Up for Growth
• More CPA Trendlines videos and podcasts here
  
  

Barnes shares how her 30-year journey at the firm has evolved through initiative, transparency, and a culture that supports growth from within. 

Her story offers two powerful takeaways for professionals in accounting firms.

Accounting ARC
With Liz Mason, Byron Patrick, and Donny Shimamoto
Center for Accounting Transformation

Accounting leaders are accelerating AI deployment across tax, audit, and advisory—but three accounting veterans and hosts of Accounting ARC argue the difference between adoption and shelfware comes down to focus, guardrails, and relentless training. 

On the latest episode, hosts Liz Mason, CPA; Byron Patrick, CPA.CITP, CGMA; and Donny Shimamoto, CPA.CITP, CGMA; dissect how large firms are approaching Microsoft Copilot and adjacent tools. They agree that leaders should start now, but do so strategically. 

• MORE Accounting ARC: Don’t Get Fired by Your Own Automation | What Amazon Doesn't Tell You | Royalties, Residuals, and Reality Checks | ARC-SLC | Free Speech Is a Right; Respect Is a Responsibility | Cash Bags, Casinos & Audits: How First Jobs Shape Us | Gen Z Redefines Careers | Bootleggers, Baptitsts & CPAs: Rethinking Licensure | CPA Firm Ownership Under Fire | Walking Violation: When Showing Your CPA Gets You in Trouble | Audit Bags to TikTok Tags, Gen Z Talks Success | Students Challenge Accounting's Traditional Career Path | True Grit: Recognizing Struggles That Shape Our Successes |More Admins, Fewer Students, No Plan | What Career Advice Gets Wrong for Gen Z - And How to Fix It | Your Identity is Not a Liability | Burnout, Be Gone: Accounting Needs a Boundary Breakthrough

Patrick, CEO of VERIFYiQ and co-founder and educator at TB Academy, opens with a caution that resonates across enterprise tech cycles: many organizations feel pressured to adopt generative AI without clearly defining expected outcomes. He urges leaders to ask what success specifically looks like, whether that is fewer review points, faster cycle times on close, or reduced audit adjustments. 

Quick Tax Tip
With Art Werner
CPE Today

In the latest Quick Tax Tip episode, tax expert Art Werner dives into one of the most talked-about provisions in the new tax bill: the restoration of 100% bonus depreciation.

“Under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, bonus depreciation started to phase down from 100% to zero,” Werner explains. “For 2025, it was set at 40%. But this new bill retroactively restores 100% bonus depreciation — starting Jan. 20, 2025 — and keeps it that way through the end of 2029.”

• Click here for more Art Werner

The move reverses years of gradual cutbacks and offers businesses renewed incentive to invest in equipment and property. According to Werner, this means tax practitioners can breathe easier — at least for now.

The Disruptors
With Liz Farr

Ed Kless believes accountants can do much more than monitor the numbers. Together with Ron Baker, their latest venture, Threshold, is a community that aims to support professionals in facilitating transformations in their customers. As Kless explains, transformations occur when someone makes lasting changes in one or more of the domains of human flourishing.  

• MORE STREAMING: Whitman: Build Culture on 'Progress,' Not Change | Shein: No PE? No M&A? No Problem | Hood and Weber: Time to RISE | Proctor: Turn Dumb Ideas into Brilliant Solutions | Carter-Gray: How 1 Poor Review Strengthened the Firm | Hartman: Upwork to “40 Under 40” in 3 Years | Telka: Transform Fear into Fuel 

“The purpose of business is to promote human flourishing. Profit is the result of a business. And there's nothing wrong with that,” Kless says. “I think profit is good, but it's the result. It's not the purpose.” Drawing from Benjamin Franklin and economist Russ Roberts, Kless explains that human flourishing has four domains: making people healthier, wealthier, wiser, or helping them live with more purpose.  

When accountants work with customers across these four domains, they are not merely providing accounting services but are also facilitating transformations. In a recent episode of The Disruptors, Ron Baker explained Joe Pine’s model for economic value, which Pine described in his earlier book, “The Experience Economy.” In this model, transformations are the most valuable of economic offerings. 

Accounting Influencers
With Rob Brown

Today’s accounting leaders are facing an alarming truth: the next generation of recruits may be the least “work-ready” in decades.

They know their algebra, their Shakespeare, and their chemistry formulas—but not how to introduce themselves in a job interview, meet a deadline, or handle feedback. That’s the provocative premise explored in the latest episode of Accounting Influencers Podcast, where host Rob Brown tackles the widening gap between what schools teach and what firms need.

“The classroom is no longer a pipeline for work-ready professionals,” Brown warns. “And accounting firms are starting to feel the pain.”

• MORE Accounting Influencers with Rob Brown

Brown, a former high school math teacher, speaks from experience. He spent years coaching students to pass tests—not preparing them for the real world. “The curriculum is built for exams, not for the workplace,” he says. “No one’s teaching children how to build trust, handle tough feedback, or develop emotional intelligence.”

That shortfall has far-reaching consequences. According to research cited in the episode, only 11% of business leaders strongly agree that graduates leave school ready for work. Eight in ten employers say that new hires lack not only technical proficiency but also critical soft skills, such as resilience, digital literacy, and time management.

.

Gear Up for Growth

With Jean Caragher

For CPA Trendlines

 “The problem that a lot of firms have is they just don’t pay attention to what succession really is until they get to the last few years,” explains William “Bill” Pirolli, executive vice president of firm services at Succession Institute, LLC, on Gear Up for Growth, hosted by Jean Caragher of Capstone Marketing. “It has to happen all throughout the lifetime of the firm in order to be properly established at the end.” 

• More Jean Caragher here | Get her best-selling handbook, The 90-Day Marketing Plan for CPA Firms, here | More Gear Up for Growth | More CPA Trendlines videos and podcasts here

Pirolli, a former AICPA Chair and longtime CPA firm partner, emphasizes that succession planning must begin on day one, not five years before retirement. He cautions that too many firms wait until it’s too late to build future leaders or transfer client relationships effectively. 

He also challenges firm leaders who proudly declare their intent to stay independent but lack a strategy to sustain it. True independence, Pirolli says, requires more than avoiding private equity. It demands discipline, leadership development, and a clear operational strategy. 

Accounting ARC

With Liz Mason, Byron Patrick, and Donny Shimamoto

Center for Accounting Transformation

Artificial intelligence is not replacing accountants; it is replacing the parts of accounting that accountants least want to do. That is the consensus of Liz Mason, CPA; Byron Patrick, CPA.CITP, CGMA; and Donny Shimamoto, CPA.CITP, CGMA, who devote the latest Accounting ARC to reframing AI as an accelerant for professional judgment rather than a threat to jobs.

• MORE Accounting ARC: What Amazon Doesn't Tell You | Royalties, Residuals, and Reality Checks | ARC-SLC | Free Speech Is a Right; Respect Is a Responsibility | Cash Bags, Casinos & Audits: How First Jobs Shape Us | Gen Z Redefines Careers | Bootleggers, Baptitsts & CPAs: Rethinking Licensure | CPA Firm Ownership Under Fire | Walking Violation: When Showing Your CPA Gets You in Trouble | Audit Bags to TikTok Tags, Gen Z Talks Success 

Patrick, CEO of VERIFYiQ and founder and instructor for TB Academy, begins with a familiar refrain from social media: AI will put accountants out of business. Mason, CEO of High Rock Accounting, answers with little patience. If a practitioner’s value is “typing numbers into a screen,” she says, then replacement is inevitable. The hosts argue that firms win when they let technology handle the typing and redeploy human time to analysis, communication, and decision support.

The panel notes the pattern is not new. Mason recalls first-year work in paper binders and shoeboxes of receipts. Today’s first-years receive organized digital feeds and tagged PDFs. Roles change; the need for human professionals does not. The hosts expect a similar shift with AI: fewer manual steps, faster cycles, and more conversations that translate data into business choices.

Big 4 Transparency
By Dominic Piscopo, CPA
For CPA Trendlines

When Katherine Studley posted a short TikTok in 2021 with the line “Boobs aren’t a write-off,” she wasn’t trying to build a firm - she was trying to prove a point. Now, the founder of The Only Consultant and Prisma Tax is one of the most in-demand accountants for adult industry professionals across North America, having helped thousands of creators, dancers, and sex workers file taxes, get compliant, and navigate financial systems that too often shut them out. 

• MORE Dominic Piscopo | MORE Private Equity | MORE Pay & Compensation

In this episode of Big 4 Transparency, host Dominic Piscopo speaks with Studley about how she carved out one of the most unusual and underserved niches in accounting and scaled it to a fully remote, growing firm with a waitlist and a social following that fuels constant inbound interest. Studley’s journey started after leaving the CPA firm grind, working in coffee shops, and being recruited into a government intelligence role. But it was a viral conversation during the pandemic that unlocked a huge market: OnlyFans creators and exotic dancers who were suddenly earning six figures with no idea how to file taxes or whom to trust to help them.

The Disruptors

With Liz Farr

When Alan Whitman became Baker Tilly's CEO, he was caught between two warring camps. On one side were the legacy partners who had built the organization and “wanted to continue doing things the way that we’ve always done them because we’ve been so successful.” That side was afraid of “losing what they had built.” In the other camp were the new partners who wanted to change “to what they were promised, what they signed on to by becoming part of Baker Tilly.” The newcomers wanted “to move faster and do it differently.” 

• MORE STREAMING: Shein: No PE? No M&A? No Problem | Hood and Weber: Time to RISE | Proctor: Turn Dumb Ideas into Brilliant Solutions | Carter-Gray: How 1 Poor Review Strengthened the Firm | Hartman: Upwork to “40 Under 40” in 3 Years | Telka: Transform Fear into Fuel | Woodard: Move Past Reports; Deliver Results | 

As Whitman describes in his new book, “Break the Mold: How to Achieve Transformational Change Scale and Grow Simultaneously, the conflict was resolved over time, one conversation, one small meeting at a time. “It would be more evolution, not revolution,” Whitman says.  

Whitman’s book, part memoir and part practical guide, describes his time leading one of the largest accounting firms in the US through a fundamental transformation. “We’re a storied profession, the CPA profession, and we are an incremental type of people,” Whitman explains. The transformation Whitman had in mind needed a different approach, as he says in his previous appearance on The Disruptors. “Break the mold is designing new ways of doing things to achieve results that we don’t think can happen, or don’t even think that are possible.”  

MOVE Like This
With Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk
For CPA Trendlines

MOVE Like This host Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk sits down with Sarah Elliott, CPA, co-founder of Intend2Lead, to unpack what conscious leadership looks like in accounting—and why the profession’s newest partners may be the most vulnerable leaders in the firm.

Elliott, a former audit partner who left public accounting in 2014 to become an executive coach, argues that real change happens in a precise order: mindset, then skill set, then habits. Her “conscious leader” model centers on leaders who share power, elevate others, and stay curious, even when uncertainty invites fear.

“Our best leaders are human-centric first,” Elliott says. “In a world of accelerating tech and change, we have to start with people—always.”

• MORE MOVE

Intend2Lead recently surveyed 110 newly promoted partners (2023–2024). The results spotlight avoidable gaps that push rising leaders toward burnout—or out of public accounting altogether.

Accounting Influencers
With Rob Brown

When the youngest professionals in accounting start saying “no,” leaders should start listening.

In this episode of Accounting Influencers, the conversation turns to the one thing that could make or break your firm’s future: how you treat your people, specifically, how you treat Gen Z.

They’re qualified. They’re confident. And they’ve watched what the generations before them endured—burnout, long hours, micromanagement, and “be grateful you’ve got a job” culture. Their conclusion? “No thanks.”

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This isn’t softness. It’s a strategy.

Gen Z values mental health over martyrdom, meaning over money, and culture over compensation. They’ve seen the toll that toxic leadership takes, and they’re unwilling to sacrifice well-being for tradition.

Here, Rob Brown outlines five toxic traits that send young accountants running for the exits.

Gear Up for Growth

With Jean Caragher

For CPA Trendlines

“Fiercely independent isn’t a strategy, it’s a stance,” says John Geraci, managing partner of LGA CPAs & Advisors. “To truly remain independent, firms must be strategic about how they differentiate themselves, understand the threats posed by private equity, and have the conviction to invest in their people and future leaders.” 

• More Jean Caragher here | Get her best-selling handbook, The 90-Day Marketing Plan for CPA Firms, here | More Gear Up for Growth | More CPA Trendlines videos and podcasts here

Geraci and Jeff Call, managing partner of Bennett Thrasher, were guests on Gear Up for Growth, hosted by Jean Caragher of Capstone Marketing.  

As private equity continues to reshape the accounting profession, both leaders agree on two critical factors for firms choosing to remain self-owned: independence must be intentional, and culture is the ultimate differentiator. 

Accounting ARC

With Liz Mason, Byron Patrick, and Donny Shimamoto

Center for Accounting Transformation

Accounting ARC hosts Liz Mason, CPA; Byron Patrick, CPA.CITP, CGMA; and Donny Shimamoto, CPA.CITP, CGMA, use a YouTube investigation into Amazon’s return ecosystem as a springboard to examine the financial realities behind frictionless refunds. They agree that returns are a strategic cost center that must be engineered into product pricing, platform choice, and tax compliance from the start.

• MORE Accounting ARC: Royalties, Residuals, and Reality Checks | ARC-SLC | Free Speech Is a Right; Respect Is a Responsibility | Cash Bags, Casinos & Audits: How First Jobs Shape Us | Gen Z Redefines Careers | Bootleggers, Baptitsts & CPAs: Rethinking Licensure | CPA Firm Ownership Under Fire | Walking Violation: When Showing Your CPA Gets You in Trouble | Audit Bags to TikTok Tags, Gen Z Talks Success | Students Challenge Accounting's Traditional Career Path | True Grit: Recognizing Struggles That Shape Our Successes |More Admins, Fewer Students, No Plan |

Higher return rates are the rule online. U.S. retailers estimated that 16.9% of 2024 sales—about $890 billion—were returned, according to the National Retail Federation and Happy Returns. The cost of reverse logistics, shrinkage, and fraud compounds the hit to gross margin. “If you want the increased revenue from Amazon sales, it’s going to come with increased returns,” Shimamoto says. “You can’t have the reach without the cost.”

Fees require granular modeling. Amazon’s seller fees are multilayered. Referral fees commonly range from approximately 8% to 15% by category and are typically accompanied by fulfillment, storage, and program charges. “Owners see the top line and assume they’re making money,” Patrick says. “Reconciling marketplace statements to cash is a jigsaw puzzle—even for CPAs.”

Quick Tax Tip
With Art Werner
CPE Today

When Section 199A was introduced under the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, it was hailed as revolutionary. For the first time, owners of pass-through entities — partnerships, S corporations, and sole proprietorships — received a significant tax break meant to level the playing field after the corporate rate dropped dramatically.

• Click here for more Art Werner

“The idea was simple but powerful,” says tax guru Art Werner in the latest episode of Quick Tax Tip. “You lop off 20% of the income from flow-through businesses, making sure they weren’t left behind when C corporation rates fell.”

But that popular deduction — and many others tied to the individual provisions of the 2017 Act — was scheduled to sunset...Until now.

The Disruptors

With Liz Farr

Steve Shein thought small accounting firms need a different option than private equity or the traditional M&A route. So he founded Franklin Alliance, which operates differently from either of those models.  

Unlike traditional private equity models that typically focus on cost reduction and mandate immediate process changes, Franklin Alliance operates as an investment partner with a fundamentally different structure. "We’re trying to build this intentionally, with the goal of being a differentiated partner, specifically for small firm owners who care about things like culture, autonomy, and their firm identity,” Shein explains. 

“We built this platform as an operating company specifically so we’re not a fund,” Shein explains. “It’s backed by venture capital and family offices, which basically means that the profile of the investors that we’ve taken capital from has a longer-term time horizon.” 

• MORE STREAMING: Hood and Weber: Time to RISE | Proctor: Turn Dumb Ideas into Brilliant Solutions | Carter-Gray: How 1 Poor Review Strengthened the Firm | Hartman: Upwork to “40 Under 40” in 3 Years | Telka: Transform Fear into Fuel | Woodard: Move Past Reports; Deliver Results 

This structure enables what Shein calls a “culture of growth rather than a kind of cost rationalization,” which is a better fit for many small firms. The approach contrasts with acquisitions by regional firms, where acquired firms are generally forced to adopt new processes, workflows, and technology within 90 days. 

By Rory Henry CFP®, BFA™
For CPA Trendlines

Life insurance has long been misunderstood. Too often, advisors and clients alike dismiss it as costly, confusing, or underperforming. But as Keith Friedman, CEO and founder of FBO Strategies, explains on our recent podcast, permanent life insurance deserves a second look. When designed and communicated correctly, life insurance can be a flexible, tax-efficient asset that provides protection, liquidity, and even a hedge against long-term care costs. 

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Friedman, creator of the trademarked Carbyne Allocation® approach, has built his practice on independence, analysis, and transparency. He believes the industry needs to move past outdated sales tactics and toward thoughtful integration of insurance into portfolio construction and holistic planning. 

“Permanent life insurance or cash value life insurance is frequently viewed as something that is expensive, rigid, and doesn’t perform,” Friedman says. “Now some of those things are true—but over time the commissions and fees are actually less than if you paid an advisor to manage your money.” 

Accounting Influencers
With Rob Brown

In the race to stay relevant in accounting, artificial intelligence has emerged as both a powerful accelerator and a quiet threat. In this episode of the Accounting Influencers podcast, the conversation dives deep into how accountants can harness AI to amplify their visibility and credibility—without losing their authenticity.

AI tools like ChatGPT, Copilot, and Jasper have made it easier than ever for professionals to create content that showcases their expertise. Need a LinkedIn post, a client email, or a blog idea? You can generate it in seconds. But speed comes with a price. The danger, as host Rob Brown notes, is mistaking efficiency for originality.

• MORE Accounting Influencers with Rob Brown

“AI is fast. AI is smart. But AI has no soul,” says Brown. “It’s never sat with a client in crisis or led a team through busy season. It hasn’t lived your story.”

The temptation to let AI speak for you is understandable. Accountants are busy, and content creation can feel daunting. Yet, when AI-generated posts sound polished but generic, professionals risk blending into the background. The very tool designed to help them stand out could make them indistinguishable.

Gear Up for Growth
With Jean Caragher
For CPA Trendlines

On the latest episode of “Gear Up for Growth,” host Jean Caragher interviews Matt Rampe, partner at Rosenberg Associates and author of the forthcoming book, "CPA Firm Strategic Planning: Your Roadmap for Long-Term Success," about how accounting firms can move beyond ad-hoc retreats to a disciplined, accountable planning process that sticks.

Rampe, who advises firms on strategy, succession, partner development, and profitability, said the book grew out of years of facilitation and coaching with firms of all sizes. “The book was in my brain for a long time before it got put on paper,” he says. “When I started writing, it actually came pretty quickly—but I learned there’s a lot more to making a book than a Word document.” 

• More Jean Caragher here | Get her best-selling handbook, The 90-Day Marketing Plan for CPA Firms, here |
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Rampe argues that the profession has reached a disruption point, citing converging pressures including private equity, technology, staffing shortages, succession for retiring Baby Boomers, and a shift toward advisory services. “What worked for us 10 years ago isn’t going to work for us 10 years in the future,” he says. “The old model, where a few partners disappear into a room and come out with a plan, doesn’t work in this age. We need to be nimble.”

Accounting ARC

With Liz Mason, Byron Patrick, and Donny Shimamoto

Center for Accounting Transformation

When the federal government shuts down, headlines focus on politics. But behind every furlough and frozen budget lies a deeper story—one told through accounting cycles, payroll ledgers, and cash flow reports. 

In the latest episode of Accounting ARC, hosts Liz Mason, CPA; Byron Patrick, CPA.CITP, CGMA; and Donny Shimamoto, CPA.CITP, CGMA, break down what really happens when appropriations stall and the business of government grinds to a halt. 

• MORE Accounting ARC: Royalties, Residuals, and Reality Checks | ARC-SLC | Free Speech Is a Right; Respect Is a Responsibility | Cash Bags, Casinos & Audits: How First Jobs Shape Us | Gen Z Redefines Careers | Bootleggers, Baptitsts & CPAs: Rethinking Licensure | CPA Firm Ownership Under Fire | Walking Violation: When Showing Your CPA Gets You in Trouble | Audit Bags to TikTok Tags, Gen Z Talks Success | Students Challenge Accounting's Traditional Career Path | True Grit: Recognizing Struggles That Shape Our Successes |More Admins, Fewer Students, No Plan | What Career Advice Gets Wrong for Gen Z - And How to Fix It | Your Identity is Not a Liability | Burnout, Be Gone: Accounting Needs a Boundary Breakthrough

“This is the kind of thing accountants think about,” Mason says at the start of the episode. “What’s the actual technical answer? What does a shutdown mean for accounts payable, for payroll, for the IRS? What’s really happening behind the scenes?” 

Their discussion reveals a complex web of accounting impacts—from unpaid invoices and delayed reimbursements to frozen nonprofit grants and confused taxpayers.