AI and Client Trust: Why AI Use Should Not Lower Your Fees
Clients care about the quality of the work they receive, and they want accurate answers, timely responses, and advice they can rely on. Whether AI...
Accounting
Is the Accounting Talent Shortage Easing?
Firm leaders want a clear answer to whether the accounting talent shortage is easing, so they can plan staffing with some confidence. We hear a...
Competing in a Consolidating Accounting Market
Most leaders of independent firms talk about consolidation as a general condition, a pressure that hangs over the whole profession and seems to help...
The End of the Reporting Cadence: What Clients Will Expect From Their Accounting Firm in 2027
For most of the profession’s history, the accounting relationship has been organized around the close. Work was scheduled against the calendar,...
Culling Clients: Why the Best Firms Review Their Roster Twice a Year
Every managing partner can name the clients who no longer belong on the roster. Ask privately and the list forms within seconds: the client whose...
Beyond the Chatbot: Where AI Produces a Measurable Return Inside an Accounting Firm
A browser tab open beside a tax return is not an AI strategy. Thomson Reuters’ 2025 research on generative AI in professional services found that...
HubSpot's Agent Hub Arrives. Here Is How Accounting Firms Should Use It.
On July 23, 2026, HubSpot launched Agent Hub in public beta, and every accounting firm serious about growth should take notice. Agent Hub gives firms...
The CRM Nobody Uses: Turning Client Data Into a Growth Engine
Most accounting firms do not have a CRM problem. They have an adoption problem. The software may be perfectly capable, implementation may have been...
Growth Outruns Culture: Guardrails for Fast-Scaling Firms
Gartner’s Chief of Research, Brian Kropp, has a name for what happens when a firm grows faster than it can hold onto itself: culture debt, the...
When Accounting Firms Own Law Firms: Strategy, Risk, and Opportunity for Multidisciplinary Platforms
KPMG Law passed its first anniversary in February, and the year since launch turned out to be more interesting than the original headline suggested....
The Leadership Gap in Consolidating Firms: Developing the Next Generation of Growth Partners
The private equity wave reshaping the accounting profession has generated plenty of headlines about deal volume, valuation multiples, and the firms...
Owning the AI Governance Conversation with Clients
Accounting firms are ahead of their clients on AI adoption. The AICPA made this explicit in its 2025 AI in Accounting Report: 'Firms are further...
Beyond Synergies: Building a Structured Value-Creation Plan Before You Sign the LOI
More than 70 percent of M&A transactions fail to deliver their anticipated strategic and financial value within three years, according to PwC and...
Revenue Mix, Not Just Revenue Size: Redesigning Your Services
Revenue growth tells you that something is working, but revenue mix tells you whether what's working will keep working. Two firms at identical...
The PE-Backed Competitor Next Door: How Independent Firms Compete Without Selling
The competitive landscape for independent accounting firms has changed more in the past four years than in the previous four decades. As of 2026,...
Specialty as Currency: Building Services That Command Premium Valuations
The traditional accounting firm valuation model is fracturing, and where your firm lands in the new range will be determined largely by one variable:...