Today's Features
GROWTH STRATEGIES

Make Processes Your Superpower

Woman drawing flowchart on a blackboard

Priority codes, onboarding and more ways to standardize your operations.

By Jackie Meyer

Systems and processes are the unsung heroes of any successful business. They bring order to chaos, ensure consistency and free up your time to focus on high-value activities.

MORE: Maximize Impact with Tiered Service Packages | Eight Steps to ROI Pricing | Shift Your Value Proposition from Compliance to Advisory | How Niches Lead to Growth | Vision vs. Mission, and Why You Need One | Ten Questions to Check Your Entrepreneurship | More Revenue in Fewer Hours
GoProCPA.comExclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

 

Why Systems and Processes Matter

First, you must build the foundation for a thriving advisory practice, define your vision, identify your ideal client, implement value-based pricing with the ROI Method, and explore the power of tiered service packages. Then, you can focus on the backbone of a scalable practice: systems and processes.
READ MORE →

ABOUT US

Bissett Bullet: Find Common Ground

Today’s Bissett Bullet: “When it comes to meeting with a prospective client for the first time, there is only one way to approach the conversation. As a fellow business owner and human being.”

By Martin Bissett

Your prospect is a business owner, just like you. They have cash flow problems and sleepless nights and clients to service, just like you. This meeting with them is, after all, simply a human interaction between two people. So, be you. Be sincere, be genuine, be empathetic. If you are interested in them and aim to serve them, not to sell to them, then that will resonate and they will reciprocate by opening up and giving you the information you need to find the right solution for their business.

Today’s To-Do:

Prepare a more informal agenda for your next meeting. Have questions that you know you need to ask and the means to record the answers to those questions but remember that a more natural, relaxed interaction will build better rapport.

See more Bissett Bullets here

READ MORE →

ACCOUNTING ARC

Students Redefine “Career Readiness” | ARC – SLC

…And it has less to do with technical skills than firms expect.

Sponsored by The Balanced Millionaire: The Advisor Edition by Dr. Jackie Meyer | See Today’s Special Offer

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

Accounting ARC – Student-Led Conversations
With Arpan Grewal and Harshita Multani
Center for Accounting Transformation

Build a 7-figure firm in just 4 hours a week!

As the accounting profession continues to grapple with talent shortages, shifting expectations, and generational change, one podcast is addressing those challenges from a rarely centered perspective: students themselves.

In an end-of-year episode of Student-Led Conversations, hosts Arpan Grewal and Harshita Multani reflect on a year of interviews alongside Donny Shimamoto, CPA.CITP, CGMA, founder and inspiration architect of the Center for Accounting Transformation. The episode serves as both a retrospective and a case study of what happens when students are entrusted with real platforms and real responsibility.

MORE Accounting ARC: Downgraded: What the DOE Said About Accounting | Savage: Using Your License as a Megaphone |  Baker: Interpreting Pricing Psychology | Don’t Get Fired by Your Own Automation | What Amazon Doesn’t Tell You | Royalties, Residuals, and Reality Checks | ARC-SLC | Free Speech Is a Right; Respect Is a Responsibility | Cash Bags, Casinos & Audits: How First Jobs Shape Us | Gen Z Redefines Careers | Bootleggers, Baptitsts & CPAs: Rethinking Licensure

The idea for Student-Led Conversations emerged after Grewal appeared on an episode of Accounting ARC, where she interviewed seasoned professionals about their careers. What surprised her most was not the technical content, but the personal stories.

“I realized accounting isn’t just about numbers,” Grewal says during the episode. “It’s about people.”

That realization became the foundation for a student-hosted series that explores career paths, mental health, failure, advocacy, and professional identity — topics often absent from traditional recruiting or classroom discussions.

READ MORE →

PRICING, FEES & BILLING RATES

The Three-Step Formula for Setting Your Monthly Fee

Hand moving triangle along beam to indicate balance between price and value

How to create price packages.

By Jody Padar
Radical Pricing – By The Radical CPA

Packages are the first step toward productizing your services. Your packages define your services as discrete offerings with defined parameters around what they include and what’s excluded.

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

The secret sauce to creating a fixed price package with a value add consists of combining several variables:

Deliverables + Client Persona = Well-Priced Packages

Client-Specific Price Point + Market Price Point = Well-Priced Packages

READ MORE →

MARKETING & SALES

The Four Steps of the Personal Marketing Process

Remember we’re in a service business.

By August Aquila
MAX: Maximize Productivity, Profitability and Client Retention

Most new business comes about because of personal marketing efforts. There is a process that your personal marketing efforts need to follow.

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

 

In fact, the only way you will get different results is to change your current marketing process. Let’s look at the four steps in the personal marketing process. READ MORE →

MANAGEMENT

Five Simple Controls to Prevent Fraud

Businessman holding up magnifying glass

Strengthen your processes and your deterrence.

By Ed Mendlowitz
77 Ways to Wow!

I’ve talked about fraud in not-for-profits, but it is also a serious issue for business firms. Here are some cash fraud scenarios and prevention techniques that can apply to all types of organizations.

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

SCENARIO: One employee who is responsible for, or has access to, the handling, recording and mailing of cash disbursements creates a non-existing vendor who sends the company invoices, which are paid.
READ MORE →

FEATURED VIDEO

Brown: Employer Brands Talk Even if You Don’t | MOVE Like This

Real employee stories, not polished slogans, are winning the war for talent.

Sponsored by CPA Trendlines Go PRO – Get More! Go PRO!  See Today’s Special Offer

Subscribe to CPA Trendlines podcasts anywhere: Apple, Google/YouTube, Spotify, iHeart, Deezer, Amazon Music, Audible, Player FM, Audacy, RSS
Get free gits, exclusive access, and more! Get more! Go PRO! 

MOVE Like This
With Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk
For CPA Trendlines

In this episode of MOVE Like This, host Bonnie Ruszczyk sits down with Rob Brown, founder and host of Accounting Voices and previous host of Accounting Influencers, to talk about what’s really driving change in the accounting profession.

Speaking from the UK with deep experience across the U.S. and global markets, Brown shares what he’s seeing in firms of all sizes: pressure from talent shortages, shifting expectations from younger professionals, and the growing importance of a strong employer brand rooted in real stories, not slogans. 

MORE MOVE

Brown starts by outlining three major workplace trends. 
READ MORE →

MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS

Eight Questions for Assessing Merger Compatibility

Overhead view of people solving a large jigsaw puzzle

Plus 23 issues to negotiate.

By Marc Rosenberg
The Rosenberg Practice Management Library

These questions can be explored via interviews or group sessions. But they are all great questions that will give insight into each firm’s culture and personality.

MORE by Marc Rosenberg
GoProCPA.comExclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

 

  1. Why do the firms really want to merge? After the merger, will the firms have the commitment and wherewithal to realize their expectations? Acid test: If some of the main reasons for doing the merger are clearly not realized 12 months later, which issues and failures would make you the most upset and frustrated?
  2. How would the new firm be better than the sum of the two individual firms?

READ MORE →

OUTLOOK & ANALYSIS

Tech, Talent, Advisory Will Fuel Growth

Every year, the 2025 Rosenberg MAP Survey asks the industry’s top consultants to share their observations from CPA firms across the country: How do you think the next 12 months will unfold? Trends? Predictions? Other thoughts? Also, how would you assess the last 12 months? Trends? Observations? Struggles?

Accounting firms are finding themselves in one of two camps.

By Scott Moore
 The Rosenberg Survey

Growth-oriented firms will continue to explore their options to sustain their longevity and competitiveness. Whether they remain independently owned or become investor-backed, key areas of focus will be to seek ways to harness technology, optimize their talent strategies and elevate client value with advisory models.

MORE: The 2025 Rosenberg MAP Survey is available from CPA Trendlines here.

A renewed focus on growth has gained momentum, fueled by investor interest, technological advancements and the adoption of advisory models.
READ MORE →

MARKETING & SALES

It’s Not Selling, It’s Service

Have you thought about what you’re building?

By Martin Bissett
Business Development on a Budget

Being a successful person according to your own measurement of that, and your own goals and your own standards is different for everyone.

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

If you’re comfortable with yourself, it’s very likely that others will be too. If you understand the value that you offer (how you can improve a client’s situation to move them closer toward their personal and professional aspirations), you’re likely to be able to convey that value in front of a prospect.

READ MORE →

FEATURED VIDEO

Carroll: When One Person Can Break the Firm | The Disruptors

Firms built on heroics instead of systems eventually crack.

This is a preview. The complete episode 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

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

The Disruptors
With Liz Farr

Build a 7-figure firm in just 4 hours a week!

Ashley Carroll thinks burnout is a design flaw, not a personal failing.

“I’m a big believer that burnout is a business model flaw,” she says. In response, Carroll created Operations House to help founders reduce burnout and “step out of that role as the provider, the doer, the practitioner, and into an ownership level role.” 

MORE STREAMING: 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 |

GoProCPA.com Exclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

According to Carroll, burnout stems not only from long hours but also from processes that lack four key qualities: reliability, efficiency, integration with existing systems, and psychological safety.

READ MORE →

CHARTS & GRAPHS

2026 Outlook: Why Small Firms, PE Giants, and the Middle Are Headed in Different Directions

A profession splitting in three.

By CPA Trendlines Research

The U.S. accounting profession is no longer moving along a single growth continuum. It is splitting into three distinct economic paths—each governed by a different logic, facing different challenges, and offering different prospects. In 2026, these paths are likely to diverge further.

MORE Outlook & Analysis

At one end, solo and micro-firm accountants are increasingly choosing independence and control over scale. At the other end, large firms backed by private equity are consolidating aggressively in areas where profits are already concentrated. Between them sits the traditional mid-size firm, caught between two models that are pulling the profession apart.

For many mid-size firms, 2026 will force a choice: Grow larger and enter the consolidation race? Or deliberately shrink, specialize, and adopt a more solo-like economic model?

For smaller practices, it means they will find a supportive environment, provided they specialize and price their services intelligently. Large firms will accelerate consolidation and extract scale-driven returns. And mid-size firms will face increasing pressure to choose a direction. READ MORE →

CLIENT SERVICE OPPORTUNITIES

Make Distinctive Service a Process

Businesswoman in a meeting with a male colleague smiling at him as they sit at a table discussing paperwork over coffee

What a client service plan can add.

By Domenick J. Esposito
8 Steps to Great

Derived from the understanding that each client has a different set of needs, your firm needs to develop a client service plan that tailors your services to match client needs.

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

 

The client service plan ensures the highest level of quality service by focusing your engagement team on exceeding a client’s expectations.
READ MORE →