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Aynsley Damery: Learn the Early Warning Signs That Can Point to Business Failure | The Disruptors
Scaling models that work for large firms don’t necessarily translate to small businesses.
The complete video episode, with commentary and transcript, is first available exclusively to PRO Members | Go PRO here
Sponsored by The Balanced Millionaire: The Advisor Edition by Dr. Jackie Meyer | See Today’s Special Offer
The Disruptors
With Liz Farr
It’s not your fault that scaling advisory hasn’t worked. According to Aynsley Damery, CEO and co-founder of Clarity, the advisory model most accountants have been using was never designed for small businesses. “The model we were given is the same model that was used in the 70s and 80s by Bain and McKinsey,” Damery explains. “It was built for large corporates, and I’m not sure was ever really built for small business owner.”
MORE DISRUPTORS: 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 |
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The problem with this model is that it doesn’t scale. “The model we’ve been given is partner-reliant. It’s bespoke. Everything’s ad hoc. It takes a lot of time,” says Damery. In support of this thesis, Damery cites a Xero study in Canada that found that when firms that bolted bespoke advisory onto compliance, their profitability dropped by 30%. Damery’s own benchmarking among Clarity users confirmed this.
Rachel Farris: The CPA Career Nobody Talks About | ARC
The next generation is blending entrepreneurship, AI, and advisory into careers that barely existed a few years ago.
Sponsored by Radical Pricing by the Radical CPA, Jody Padar | See Today’s Special Offer
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Accounting ARC
With Donny Shimamoto
Center for Accounting Transformation
For decades, the accounting profession has followed a familiar script: earn a CPA license, join a firm, climb the ladder and perhaps become a partner.
Rachel Farris, CPA, MBA, is proving there is another way.
After building a highly specialized tax advisory practice serving U.S. citizens relocating to Puerto Rico, Farris launches Tax Stack AI, a company that helps accounting firms implement artificial intelligence securely and strategically.
MORE Accounting ARC: Conference Season Exposes Accounting’s Knowledge Gap | The Feedback Mistake That Costs You Your Best People | Is Your Boss Really the Problem? | Most Accountants Are Missing This AI Shift | 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
She has since sold her CPA practice to focus on AI consulting and education, demonstrating that today’s accounting professionals can create careers far beyond traditional public accounting.
In this episode of Accounting ARC, Donny Shimamoto, CPA.CITP, CGMA, founder and managing director of IntrapriseTechKnowlogies LLC and founder and inspiration architect for the Center for Accounting Transformation, sits down with Farris to explore entrepreneurship, AI, networking and the expanding possibilities available to CPAs willing to embrace change.
Their conversation becomes less about one accountant’s journey and more about the profession’s future.
Don’t Take on Audits in an Industry You Don’t Understand
Don’t try to wear too many hats. Pick your specialty area and become a guru.
By Alan Anderson, CPA
Transforming Audit for the Future
Industry expertise is essential for businessmindedness. For me, the primary ingredient for building a successful audit practice is to avoid taking on work that you don’t understand. Too many firms say they can audit any balance sheet, but that’s when they can get into trouble. Many firms get sued because they made a bad business decision. They thought they could take on this unique industry and get it right. If you dabble in any industry, you will put your firm and yourself at tremendous risk.
MORE: Four Questions to Make Your Firm More Successful as a Business | Move to Advisory and Assurance with Relevance | How ‘Business Expert CPAs’ Get Their Own Business Wrong | Say Adios to Audit Fee Pressure | Eight Items to Cover in the Audit Exit to Deepen Client Relationships and Prove Value | Know Your Three Audit W’s | Planning Lays the Foundation of Audit Relevance | How Do We Drive Relevance in Audit? | Before the Audit: More Than Just Planning | Are You Correctly Identifying the Relevance Intersection? | Lack of Relevance Drives Audit Commoditization
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When the U.S. Department of Labor looked at the quality of employee benefit plan (EBP) audits, they found plenty of problems. That 2014 study found “a clear link between the number of employee benefit plan audits performed by a CPA and the quality of the audit work performed.” Almost half of the firms the DOL looked at performed only one or two EBP audits per year, and 75 percent of those had deficiencies. Over half of those (56%) had five or more deficiencies.
You Have to Start Somewhere
Wishful thinking won’t move you forward.
By Ed Mendlowitz
The 30:30 Training Method
Question: Thanks for the training memo. Although I requested your memo because I know I need help with improving efficiency and the like with my practice, many of your thoughts and ideas I have already thought of but simply did not implement them.
MORE: Two Options for Collecting Past Due Fees | You Can’t Win with Lowballing | Yes, You Have to Share Work Papers | Should You Merge? Here’s How to Chart Your Path | Hold Staff Accountable If You Want Them to Listen to You | How to Raise Your Rates | Higher Fees to Start: Ten Ways to Make Your Tax Season Better | Three Ways to Start an Accounting Practice | Free Consultation? Not Always | Referral Fee? Forget It
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Response: I think you hit part of the nail on the head in what you wrote – you’ve had many of the ideas and “simply did not implement them.”
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Mandy Gallagher: Caregiving Isn’t a Side Issue – It’s a Workforce Issue | MOVE Like This
“Flexibility should be used as a tool for success. It shouldn’t be the exception.”
This is a preview. The complete 1-hour video episode, with commentary and transcript, is first available exclusively to PRO Members | Go PRO here
Sponsored by Radical Pricing by Jody Padar, CPA | See Today’s Special Offer
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MOVE Like This
With Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk
For CPA Trendlines Research
In this episode of MOVE Like This, Mandy Gallagher, lead manager of Women’s Initiatives at the AICPA, joins Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk to discuss why caregiving has become such an important conversation in accounting, what firms may misunderstand about caregivers, and how greater flexibility and support could influence retention and leadership pipelines across the profession. Gallagher’s work focuses on advancing women’s initiatives, supporting professional development, and amplifying women’s perspectives throughout the profession.
MORE MOVE Like This | MORE CPA Trendlines Streaming Network
One reason caregiving is getting more attention now is that it is both more visible and much broader than many people have traditionally assumed. Demographic shifts mean multiple generations are simultaneously balancing careers with responsibilities for children, aging parents, siblings, partners, friends, and others who rely on them. COVID also changed expectations around where and how work can happen. Employees experienced firsthand that they could remain productive while having enough flexibility to pick up a child or take a parent to a medical appointment. As more organizations return to traditional office expectations, those competing demands have become harder to reconcile.
The conversation challenges another long-standing assumption: that caregiving is primarily a women-with-young-children issue.