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Technical expertise earns credibility, but the ability to delegate, build trust, and guide people through uncertainty determines how far a business can grow. Full show notes hereAccounting VoicesWith Rob BrownAn accounting firm’s biggest bottleneck may sit at the top.The leader who reviews every return, answers every technical question, and makes every consequential decision can appear indispensable. But that dependence raises a difficult question: Who is building the business while its leader is busy checking the work?MORE Accounting Voices with Rob Brown | MORE CPA Trendlines Streaming NetworkIn this episode of Accounting Voices, insights from conversations with nearly 50 influential voices in the profession highlight a pressing leadership challenge: Technical excellence is the starting point. Leading an enterprise requires a broader set of skills.The episode calls this tension the “Competency Collision.” The expertise that helps accountants advance does not, by itself, prepare them to build adaptable organizations, develop future leaders, or make difficult decisions about what comes next.READ MORE > > >

Overlooked client requests and undocumented know-how can distort pricing, strain teams, and limit advisory growth. It's Not Just the NumbersWith Penny Breslin and Damien GreatheadFor CPA Trendlines Most accounting firm owners could tell you their billable hours down to the decimal. Far fewer could tell you where the other 25% to 30% of their team's time goes. Jeanne Hardy, CEO and founder of the practice management platform Levvy and the CAS firm Creative Business, joins Damien Greathead and Penny Breslin on It's Not Just the Numbers to explain why that invisible work is the real barrier standing between most firms and a healthy advisory practice, and what she built to fix it. MORE Penny Breslin and Damien Greathead | MORE Advisory & Consulting JOIN From Scorekeeper to Strategist CAS Workshop | BUY "It's Not Just the Numbers" Hardy has lived this problem from both sides. She has run a CAS firm for 20 years and built software to solve the gaps she kept hitting inside her own practice. That dual perspective runs through the whole conversation.

Recurring revenue, client boundaries, and an entrepreneurial mindset helps shape a career around family. Accounting ConversationsWith Chayton FarleeCenter for Accounting Transformation Caitlynn Eldridge, CPA, is not trying to win a revenue contest. She is building an accounting practice that leaves room for the rest of her life. The mother of five describes a business with an intentionally manageable workload: 55 tax returns in the season she discusses, an employee handling bookkeeping and sales taxes, and a schedule she puts at 10 to 15 hours a week. She knows those choices may look modest alongside the growth stories filling social media. For her, they represent a deliberate definition of success. MORE Center for Accounting Transformation | MORE CPA Trendlines Streaming Network “This is purposeful. This is intentional,” Eldridge says. On Accounting Conversations, she joins host Chayton Farlee to discuss how an accounting career can accommodate changing priorities, why students need to hear more than the public accounting pitch, and what entrepreneurship can offer professionals who want greater control over their work.

“This isn’t a flash in the pan. This is an actual structural change in the profession.” Big 4 TransparencyBy Dominic Piscopo, CPAFor CPA Trendlines Private equity in public accounting is often reduced to a caricature - buy, cut, flip. Tim Brackney, CEO of Springline Advisory, says that framing misses what many accounting investments are actually trying to do: fund a growth thesis built around expanded capabilities, talent development, and modernized service delivery. Springline, backed by Trinity Hunt Partners, is a “buy-and-build” platform that has completed nine deals across CPA and advisory firms as it works toward becoming a national and eventually global firm with “all of the capabilities inside our four walls that our clients will need.” MORE Dominic Piscopo | MORE Private Equity | MORE Pay & Compensation Brackney’s path to the CEO seat isn’t the “serial PE operator” stereotype. He started at PwC as an auditor, then moved into advisory and BPO work, and later spent two decades at Resources Global Professionals (RGP), a publicly traded Deloitte spin-out, ultimately serving as president and COO. He describes an 18-month mutual diligence process with Trinity Hunt, emphasizing that the goal wasn’t a quick arbitrage play, it was building an enduring firm, potentially by bringing in future investors over time rather than forcing a rapid exit. A key early lesson, Brackney says, was that 2023 still required “Private Equity 101” education for many sellers.

Burnout pushed him to rethink growth, rebuild his processes, and make room for a better life. The DisruptorsWith Liz FarrFor CPA Trendlines  When Nick Boscia joined his father's accounting firm in 2013, it was like stepping back in time. “When I joined, we were still using like the green ledger sheets,” he recalls. “I started in 2013, and it was like it was 1980.” Today, Boscia is known as the Balanced CPA and is co-owner, with his brother Joe, of Boscia and Boscia PC, the firm their father founded in 1975. Working for his father was difficult. “He didn't really value going on vacations or taking time off,” Boscia recalls. Adopting new technology was out of the question.  MORE Disruptors with Liz Farr | CPA Trendlines Streaming Network “I’ve been doing this for 40 years, and it works, so we’re not changing things,” his father would say. But when Boscia and his brother took over, things changed dramatically. “My dad was like, we’re not making changes,” he recalls. “I’m like, I want to change everything.”In just a few years, Nick and Joe transformed a legacy, paper-based practice serving 700 clients into a modern firm that, at its peak, served 1,800 clients.

Leaders reveal a widening gap between adopting new capabilities and building firms that can use them effectively. Accounting VoicesWith Rob Brown A firm buys powerful technology, announces ambitious growth plans, and asks an already stretched team to deliver more. The tools change. The way the business operates barely moves. Accounting Voices explores the strain inside that scenario. Drawing on reflections from 48 firm leaders, consultants, media professionals, technology experts, and other industry voices, it examines what their observations reveal about accounting’s direction. MORE Accounting Voices with Rob Brown In the episode, host Rob Brown identifies a “velocity gap”: the distance between firms talking about change and firms making it part of their daily operations. AI, outside investment, shifting professional identities, and talent pressures all contribute to that gap. Together, they raise a practical question for leaders: Can the organization absorb the change it pursues?

Nontechnical teams can use AI-built scripts to automate repetitive work, reclaim valuable time, and turn an accounting firm’s operational problem into a marketable product. It's Not Just the NumbersWith Penny Breslin and Damien GreatheadFor CPA Trendlines Most accounting firms talk about AI automation in the future tense. They're waiting for the right tool, the right vendor, or the right moment to start using it seriously. Trent Yesberg didn't wait. As director of Regional Business Services in Townsville, Australia, he started asking Claude and ChatGPT to write scripts that run his firm's internal workflows directly, with no ongoing subscription or per-task cost attached. MORE Penny Breslin and Damien Greathead | MORE Advisory & Consulting JOIN From Scorekeeper to Strategist CAS Workshop | BUY "It's Not Just the Numbers" What began as a way to save his own team a few hours a week turned into Twine Biller, a tool now used by other firms to fix one of accounting's quietest profit leaks: subscription rebilling that slips through the cracks month after month.His approach cuts against a common assumption, that AI automation in a firm has to mean either building an entire internal platform from scratch or renting one from a big software vendor. There is a middle path, and Yesberg has been living in it for the better part of a year.

Building an accounting tool with AI is only the beginning of making it useful, secure, and sustainable. Innovation InsightsWith Donny Shimamoto and Byron PatrickCenter for Accounting Transformation An accountant builds a dashboard that pulls information from several systems. A proposal generator turns service selections into a polished PDF. A homemade utility eliminates a tedious step in the monthly close. Then comes the question that changes everything: How do I let my team use it? In this episode of Innovation Insights, Donny Shimamoto and Byron Patrick explore the distance between a promising personal tool and software an accounting team can depend on. More Donny ShimamotoAI makes building easier, they say, but sharing, securing, supporting, and maintaining what you build requires a different level of preparation. For accountants eager to experiment with AI agents and “vibe coding” — using natural-language instructions to have AI generate code — the conversation offers both encouragement and a reality check.

Leaders must align everyday decisions with the flexibility, innovation, and growth they promise employees. MOVE Like ThisWith Bonnie Buol RuszczykFor CPA Trendlines Research In this episode of MOVE Like This, Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk sits down with Kassi Rushing, strategist and speaker with Kassi Rushing Consulting, to explore what future-ready accounting firms need from their people strategies, and why culture, caregiving, leadership development, and business performance are increasingly difficult to separate. Rushing, who has spent 20 years working in and with the accounting profession, says firms have made significant progress in recognizing people as a critical business asset. But understanding that people matter and creating an environment where they can do their best work are two different things, particularly as firms navigate AI, changing workforce expectations, and significant demographic shifts.  MORE MOVE Like This | MORE CPA Trendlines Streaming Network One example came from a firm that added a simple question to its employee survey: How many employees identify as caregivers? Leadership expected some but was surprised to learn that more than half of its professionals did. Many weren't simply caring for children; they were simultaneously helping aging parents, stepparents, siblings, or others. The finding prompted the firm to reconsider everything from when it scheduled social events to whether its benefits, training, and leave programs actually reflected employees' lives. For Rushing, the lesson is simple: firms can't support people they haven't taken the time to understand.

A five-layer “AI trust stack” helps auditors put AI to work while keeping professional judgment at the center. The DisruptorsWith Liz FarrFor CPA Trendlines As AI takes on more audit work, David Marquis sees professional judgment becoming more valuable. The Caseware CEO argues that the opportunity extends beyond faster document reviews and automated analysis. Firms can rethink how audits work while strengthening the consistency, accountability, and trust that clients and capital markets depend on. MORE Disruptors with Liz Farr | CPA Trendlines Streaming Network In The Disruptors, Marquis explains why putting AI to work requires more than a powerful model — and why the profession’s human responsibilities remain central to its future. “They’re not simply knowledge industries, they're actually workflow industries,” he says of audit and accounting. Following those workflows consistently is how professionals deliver work that clients, regulators, and capital markets can rely on. AI creates an opportunity to redesign that work, “and not just do it faster, but also do it differently and do it better.”

Leaders face growing questions about influence, identity, and professional relevance. Accounting VoicesWith Rob Brown An accounting firm can keep its clients, meet its deadlines, and remain profitable while the people inside it quietly wonder whether they still belong in its future. As technology, ownership models, and expectations reshape the profession, Accounting Voices examines the questions that software demonstrations and strategic plans often leave unanswered: Who gets to make decisions? Whose expertise still carries weight? And what happens when the career someone works toward becomes a career they no longer want? MORE Accounting Voices with Rob Brown The episode presents accounting’s growing divide as a realignment of power, relevance, and leadership. For firm leaders and professionals preparing to lead, understanding that realignment means looking beneath the most visible changes.

An AI engineer can help accounting teams tackle bottlenecks, streamline workflows, and build capacity. It's Not Just the NumbersWith Penny Breslin and Damien GreatheadFor CPA Trendlines For years, accounting firm owners have treated the "next hire" question as a simple one: bring on another accountant. However, that assumption is starting to cost firms real time and money. In this recent case study, MoneyPenny, LLC shares what happened  when their newest hire wasn't an accountant at all. She was a recent graduate with a degree in AI, and within her first weeks, she had built a tool that solved a problem the whole team had been living with for years. MORE Penny Breslin and Damien Greathead | MORE Advisory & Consulting JOIN From Scorekeeper to Strategist CAS Workshop | BUY "It's Not Just the Numbers" She graduated in the first AI cohort to come through her university and joined the firm knowing nothing about accounting. What she did know was how to watch a process and ask why it worked the way it did.

Practical experience, thoughtful questions, and strong communication help students build careers that reach beyond the classroom. Accounting ConversationsWith Chayton FarleeCenter for Accounting Transformation A perfect GPA can open a door. It cannot explain a client’s financial story, replace practical experience, or demonstrate how someone responds when there is no answer key. For accounting students eager to distinguish themselves, that difference matters. On Accounting Conversations, host Chayton Farlee welcomes Hannah Hood and Joey Kinney, co-hosts of The Young CPA Success Show, for a candid discussion about preparing for an accounting career. Drawing on their work in virtual CFO services with Summit Virtual CFO by Anders, the guests challenge students to look beyond familiar recruiting paths and consider what makes an accountant valuable to the people they serve. MORE Center for Accounting Transformation | MORE CPA Trendlines Streaming Network Their advice starts with a seemingly modest assignment: Get close to the books. Students may picture their future in consulting, financial leadership, audit, or tax. Hood and Kinney argue that those ambitions make understanding everyday accounting more essential.

Employees lose stability and firms lose money through churn Big 4 TransparencyBy Dominic Piscopo, CPAFor CPA Trendlines A growing body of compensation data suggests that accounting firms may be unintentionally penalizing their most loyal employees. In a recent solo episode of the Big 4 Transparency, founder Dominic Piscopo unpacks what he calls the “loyalty tax” — the pay gap between internally promoted employees and externally hired peers performing the same role. Drawing on 2024–2025 compensation data from thousands of U.S. and Canadian professionals, Piscopo outlines how this structural imbalance is reshaping career incentives across the profession. MORE Dominic Piscopo | MORE Private Equity | MORE Pay & Compensation The loyalty tax, as defined in the episode, is the percentage difference in pay where externally hired employees earn more than internally promoted employees at the same level. According to the data, that gap is far from trivial. In the U.S., first-year senior associates hired externally earn roughly 6.3% more than internally promoted seniors, while first-year managers see an 8.9% premium. Even at the senior manager level, the gap persists. Canadian data shows a similar pattern, with especially pronounced spreads at the senior and senior manager levels. The disparity is even more striking in consulting and advisory roles.

Curiosity, problem-solving, and creative habits help strengthen marketing, improve client experiences, and bring more humanity to an AI-driven profession. The DisruptorsWith Liz FarrFor CPA Trendlines Karen Reyburn, managing director of We Are PF and author of the new book Accountants, You Are Creative, wants accountants to embrace their innate creativity. Reyburn's first book, The Accountant Marketer, laid out the building blocks of marketing for accounting firms based on what worked for the firms that she and PF worked with. She noticed that just having a playbook and structure for marketing wasn’t enough. “The accountants who were seeing the greatest success, the greatest transformation for themselves and their clients, were the ones that either knew that they were creative human beings, they knew they had creativity within them, or at least they were open and curious about what that looked like, and willing to try,” she explains. MORE Disruptors with Liz Farr | CPA Trendlines Streaming Network As she watched AI’s rapid advancements over the last few months, she nearly shelved the manuscript. “Is this even relevant anymore? With all this stuff about AI, does anyone care about this mindset of creativity?” she wondered. But as she thought about AI and talked to accountants, she realized she was seeing a “both, and” moment. “You're seeing leaning into AI to help you with tasks and repetition, and you're seeing people want more humanity, more opportunity to trust you, more case studies, more in-person events,” she explains.