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OUTLOOK & ANALYSIS

Private Equity’s Accounting Playbook Is Shifting from Dealmaking to Operating Systems

Prove It: PE-Backed Firms Must Now Deliver on Their Big Strategies

CPA Trendlines CPA-PE Deal Tracker™ — May 2026

Target Platform/Buyer Sponsor Funding Strategy
Jackson Thornton Ascend Alpine Investors PE-backed Wealth management, Gulf Coast expansion
Jefferson Wells U.S. Sikich Bain Capital involvement Institutionally backed Consulting and staffing capabilities
Copeland Buhl Frazier & Deeter — Conventional M&A First Midwest footprint
Price Kong Aprio Charlesbank PE-backed Arizona and cannabis specialization
SWKJD Citrin Cooperman Blackstone PE-backed South Florida expansion
Gorfine Schiller & Gardyn Sorren DFW Capital PE-backed Mid-Atlantic expansion
Gordon Advisors Cohen & Co. Lovell Minnick PE-backed Michigan expansion
ArightCo Abbott Stringham & Lynch — Conventional M&A CAS and fractional CFO scaling
ASO Advisors Windsor Path Family-office backed Private capital Platform’s second deal
GBC Advisory Springline Advisory Trinity Hunt Partners PE-backed Oklahoma expansion
MCA Connect Grant Thornton Advisors New Mountain Capital PE-backed AI and digital transformation
Burke & Associates Platform Accounting Group / Shoreline Cynosure Group Private capital Massachusetts expansion
Of the month’s notable deals, 10 are funded by outside capital, led by Grant Thornton’s deal for a tech consultancy and Sikich’s for a staffing service.
Half “decidedly opposed” and the other half in favor, in talks or done. (CPA Trendlines Research)

By CPA Trendlines

Marking a new phase in the private equity takeover of the CPA business, the next test for accounting platforms will be proving that serial acquisitions can be converted into integrated firms, not just larger collections of offices, partners and legacy systems.

MORE CPA-PE DEAL TRACKER™: How Big Buyouts Are Turning the Profession into a Platform |  PE Wars: The CPA Platform Economy Is Concentrating Fast | Alan Whitman: Why the Next Big CPA Firms Won’t Look Like CPA Firms | The PE Takeover: Audit Problem? What Audit Problem? | 1,000 Deals Show Where PE Money in Accounting Really Goes. | The 7.6x Machine: How Grassroots Firms Are Taking Private Equity for a Ride | Deal Tracker(™): PE Platforms Accelerate the Grab for CPA Firms | With Apax Sale, CohnReznick Starts Building a National Platform | PE Deal Tracker™ for Feb. 2026: 57 deals in 60 days | PE Deal Tracker™ Update: Alan Whitman Plants a Flag in the Private Equity Landscape | Alan Whitman: Breaking the Mold with PE Backing
MORE Private Equity

Call it: The Implementation Imperative. It’s the place where grand schemes on paper meet the concrete realities of running a business. The first phase was acquisition. The second was consolidation. The next is all about making it work.

The May 2026 edition of the CPA Trendlines CPA-PE Deal Tracker™ illustrates the change. And a CPA Trendlines survey in April shows 44% of accountants are eager, open or already closed on a deal.

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BONUS DOWNLOAD

The 45-Minute Problem Scaling Across Tax Teams

These workflows quietly erode firm margins.

By CPA Trendlines

The biggest cost of K-1 inefficiency isn’t always visible on a timesheet. It shows up in missed opportunities, compressed timelines, and rising pressure on already stretched teams.

WEBINAR June 3: From K-1 Chaos to K-1 Capital: Turning Compliance Bottlenecks into Advisory Opportunities

FREE EBOOK Break the K-1 Bottleneck

Consider this: Manual extraction of a single K-1 takes an average of 45 minutes. Multiply that across dozens—or hundreds—of K-1s, and the impact becomes clear. But the real issue goes deeper.

Because K-1 data often arrives late and in inconsistent formats, firms are forced to: reassign senior staff to low-value tasks, rework data multiple times, and delay higher-level analysis and planning

In many cases, the most experienced (and expensive) professionals end up doing manual, administrative work simply because timelines leave no alternative. That dynamic doesn’t just affect efficiency. It affects profitability. Budgets stretch. Margins shrink. And the ability to deliver proactive advisory services disappears under the weight of compliance demands.

PRO Member Exclusive

New Data: K-1 Workloads Reach a Breaking Point

K-1 season isn’t what it used to be.

By CPA Trendlines

What was once a defined window during busy season has quietly expanded into a months-long operational challenge—stretching well into summer and fall for many firms.

New data from K1x highlights just how concentrated—and disruptive—the workload has become.

MORE: Join the June 3 webinar: From K-1 Chaos to K-1 Capital: Turning Compliance Bottlenecks into Advisory Opportunities

Break the K-1 Bottleneck: Download the full guide.

More than 52% of K-1 aggregation work now happens within a three-month window, with over 80% completed within six months. That compression creates a cascading effect: workloads spike unpredictably, timelines shrink under pressure, and teams are forced into reactive mode.

At the same time, delays across the broader K-1 ecosystem—many outside firms’ control—make it nearly impossible to smooth workflows or plan capacity effectively.

The result: A growing mismatch between how firms are structured to work… and how K-1 data actually arrives. That disconnect is becoming one of the defining operational challenges in modern tax practices.

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PRICING, FEES & BILLING RATES

As Easy as Buying a Can of Paint

Productize your services for consistent client value.

By Jody Padar
Radical Pricing – By The Radical CPA

Now that you have hopefully standardized your services, it’s time to look at productization. Productization is the packaging of intangible services to make them feel tangible. You put everything you will do for a persona into an offering that resonates with them because it’s customized for them. It’s then clearly priced so the buyer knows what they get for their investment.

MORE by Jody Padar
GoProCPA.comExclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

This is just as useful for your clients as it is for your staff. Clients appreciate it because they know exactly what they’ll get and what to expect. Staff appreciate it because, unlike in traditional firms where there are at least four different ways to get to the same deliverable, this model has one pathway for each deliverable and service product, making it both efficient and traceable.

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PRO Member Exclusive

Five Tips for Strengthening Firm Culture

four colleagues chatting around a water cooler

Make it work for you.

By Martin Bissett
Passport to Partnership

Cultural issues are dynamic, very broad and unique in each firm. As such it is a challenge to summarize them accurately and comprehensively.

MORE by Martin Bissett
GoProCPA.comExclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

From our research, however, the wise choice for anyone wishing to get their passport to partnership appears to be to study

  • their firm’s existing culture,
  • that of its senior individuals and
  • that of those who have the ear of those senior individuals

to understand not only the route to partnership, but the terrain that they need to cross too.
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MARKETING & SALES

Are You Asking Enough Life Cycle Questions?

Green "opportunity" highway sign with sunrise background

Use them to raise client awareness of services.

By Ed Mendlowitz
The CPA Trendlines Practice Doctor

Part of selling is to have existing clients use more of your services. To do this they must be told the breadth and depth of your firm’s activities. It should be a major goal of every meeting with a client.

Here are a few ways to do it.

MORE by Ed Mendlowitz
GoProCPA.comExclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

Tax Return Preparation Interviews

The tax return preparation interview, the purpose of which is to gather information, is a tremendous opportunity to find out the concerns of the client and where you can help. The assistance you give can sometimes provide a life-changing benefit to the client while enabling your firm to increase its service base gaining additional revenues. READ MORE →

PRO Member Exclusive

Remove Rocks in the Path to Firm Growth

large rocks in road

Six types and how to move them.

By Domenick J. Esposito
8 Steps to Great

“Tiger Woods did not always win majors with ease; after his narrow victory in the 1999 PGA, he slumped and sighed as if he’d been carrying rocks uphill all afternoon.” – John Updike

MORE by Domenick J. Esposito
GoProCPA.comExclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

 

A CPA firm must move many rocks that are on the path to growth. If a firm doesn’t effectively address these rocks, it will not be able to grow at a satisfactory rate.
READ MORE →