Today's Features
CHARTS & GRAPHS

CPA PE Deal Tracker™: The Next Deal Cycle Comes into View

By CPA Trendlines Research

Wall Street’s buying spree for accounting firms is cooling going into the fourth quarter of 2026, according to the CPA Trendlines CPA PE Deal Tracker™, as platform firms digest a two-year surge of acquisitions and the earliest investors, from three to five years ago, begin to cash out.

MORE Private Equity: Michael Hoover: Growth Without Discipline Comes at a Cost | Big 4 Transparency | CBIZ Told Grant Thornton No, No, No, Before Saying Yes | PE Already Knows Your Price. Do You? | How Private Equity Turns CPA Loyalty into Legal Risk | Ira Rosenbloom: PE Forces Firms to Pick a Future | The Disruptors | Allan Koltin: What Elite CPA Firms Do Differently | Gear Up for Growth

The October 2026 edition of the CPA PE Deal Tracker™ shows accounting’s private-equity deal flow easing in the third quarter, with 37 acquisitions in the U.S. and Canada, down from 42 a year earlier and a far cry from this year’s first-quarter surge of 58. The Tracker now counts 400 such deals in the U.S. and Canada since its records began in December 2016, plus 87 it has found elsewhere, for 487 worldwide, although its coverage outside North America is not systematic.

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ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Intuit, Thomson, Wolters Kluwer: Accountants Question AI Strategies

At the big three user conferences, AI is changing the rules… again.

Vendors take center stage at user conferences. Logos: Thomson Reuters, QuickBooks, Wolters Kluwer

By CPA Trendlines Research

Over the next few weeks, Intuit, Wolters Kluwer and Thomson Reuters will be gathering their users in Las Vegas and Orlando, each bringing software and strategies that accountants fear could encroach on a firm’s client relationships.

Intuit Connect – Oct. 26-28, Aria, Las Vegas. Client books, monthly close, advisory, agents and the accountant relationship. More than 100 breakouts. Up to 12 CPE credits. Learn more
CCH Connections (Wolters Kluwer) – Oct. 25-28, Grande Lakes, Orlando. Tax and audit production, review, migrations and quality management. More than 90 sessions. Up to 19 CPE. Learn more
Thomson Reuters Synergy – Nov. 16-19, Fontainebleau, Las Vegas. Research, preparation, document workflows and engagement evidence. Combined professional audiences; separate general sessions. Learn more

The gap between firms and vendors provides a lens into the season. Intuit Connect, Wolters Kluwer’s CCH Connections and Thomson Reuters Synergy are pairing agentic AI demos with sessions on pricing, review, staffing and leadership. READ MORE →

MANAGEMENT

What Internal Controls Mean to Clients

man writing in notebook

And how to explain them.

By Ed Mendlowitz
77 Ways to Wow!

What are internal controls? Auditors widely use this term. It also appears multiple times in engagement letters for audits of businesses and not-for-profits, but I do not believe many outside of the accounting profession really know or understand what internal controls are. I will try to explain it here.

MORE by Ed Mendlowitz
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Internal controls refer to an organization’s system of deterrence, oversight, checks and balances. An illustration is where someone in a business writes and mails the checks to pay a bill. If this same person then receives the bank statement and performs the reconciliation of that account, there would not be any control or oversight on that person and whether the payment was proper and not misdirected. They are checking their own work. This is how many frauds occur.
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ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

AI Accountants Cut Costs per Task to 21 cents from $10.35

Claude delivers faster, cheaper production. But what do the tests overlook?

AI models passed accountants on benchmark tasks in 2025 and now score at or near 100%, compared to an average human accountant at 37%. (Accuracy of AI models on the study’s accounting tasks by model release date, compared with accountants without AI. Source: Mercor)

By CPA Trendlines Research

Jason Staats: “How can I be so busy if AI is this good?”

AI accountants are running faster, cheaper and now more accurately than humans.

Artificial intelligence outperforms 12 licensed CPAs on four structured accounting tasks in a new study by an AI deployment firm, with Claude Opus 5 scoring 100 percent across 20 attempts while unassisted accountants average about 37 percent.

MORE AI | Your Next Hire Might Not Be an Accountant | K1x Bets $175 Million to Beat the K-1 Bottleneck | “Set It and Forget It” Is Not an AI Strategy | Kenji Kuramoto: When AI Does the Work, What Are Firms Selling? | Your AI Agent Should Show Its Work | Rillet’s Raise: Betting $100 Million on Fewer Accountants

Claude finishes every attempt in under 10 minutes. Most accountants take 30 minutes to three hours in the Mercor study. Even the strongest participant falls behind the model on both speed and accuracy.

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ACCOUNTING VOICES

The Quiet Fear Behind Accounting’s Growing Divide | Accounting Voices

Leaders face growing questions about influence, identity, and professional relevance.

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Subscribe to CPA Trendlines podcasts anywhere: Apple, Google/YouTube, Spotify, iHeart, Deezer, Amazon Music, Audible, Player FM, Audacy, RSS.

The step-by-step operating guide for CPA firms building, pricing, and scaling advisory services that clients value—and pay for.

Accounting Voices
With 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?

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. READ MORE →

MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS

How to Attract the Best Merger Candidates

Man's hand sowing wheat

Never stop looking.

By Marc Rosenberg
CPA Firm Mergers: Your Complete Guide

Firms that are serious about merging in smaller firms on a regular basis understand that doing mergers is all about planting seeds. A buyer has to have this attitude:

MORE by Marc Rosenberg
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Every day of every year, at least one firm decides to test the merger waters. If our efforts to identify sellers are made continuously throughout the year, every year, sooner or later, we will find at least one interested merger candidate and probably more than one.

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