Today's Features
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Five Platforms, 112 Deals, and the Gravitational Pull of PE in Accounting

Deal Tracker: Mega-aggregators dominate money flow.

Deal Count by Quarter: 2026 off to a fast start. (CPA Trendlines PE Deal Tracker)

CPA Trendlines 

By CPA Trendlines Research

The frantic pace of deal-making in March has officially transitioned the accounting industry from a “consolidation phase” into a “platform war.”

MORE in Private Equity | Alan Whitman Plants a Flag in the Private Equity Landscape | The PE Takeover: Audit Problem? What Audit Problem? | The 7.6x Machine: How Grassroots Firms Are Taking Private Equity for a Ride |Why the Next Big CPA Firms Won’t Look Like CPA Firms

As the first quarter concludes, the narrative is no longer just about who is buying whom, but about which investment philosophy—and which technology stack—will dominate the next decade.

The conventional narrative about private equity in accounting says capital is flooding in, the profession is democratizing, and every CPA firm in America can access institutional money for the first time. But the cold, hard data tells a different story.

READ MORE →

ABOUT US

Bissett Bullet: Why Do You Do What You Do?

Today’s Bissett Bullet: “In accounting, our impact on businesses, lives and futures is substantial. We need to pull people into that knowledge to attract them.”

By Martin Bissett

If I were to visit your website today, how many stories would I find about how you helped businesses? Really? That many? That’s what I thought. We need to communicate the “why” of what we do far more than the “what” of what we do.

Today’s To-Do:

Take a look at your website today. How many client stories can be found on it? For many firms this is zero. Look to improve that by one, today.

See more Bissett Bullets here

READ MORE →

ACCOUNTING ARC

Built Fast. Sold Faster. Broken Later? The Truth About Accounting Tech | ARC

MVP culture, investor pressure, and marketing—not product quality—often decide winners. 

Sponsored by True Advisor: The Definitive Success Guide for Client Advisory Services by Hitendra Patil |
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 step-by-step operating guide for firms building, pricing, and scaling advisory services that clients value—and pay for.

Accounting ARC
With Liz Mason and Byron Patrick
Center for Accounting Transformation

The accounting technology market looks crowded from the outside. New tools launch every month. Conference expo halls overflow with promise. And artificial intelligence is accelerating everything. 

But beneath that surface, the economics of building accounting technology tell a more complicated story—one shaped as much by venture capital and sales pressure as by innovation itself. 

MORE Accounting ARC: Recognize When You Need to Recharge Before You Burn Out | Valuing More Than the Balance Sheet | Accounting’s “Untalked-About” Frontier | Why Happiness is Hard-Fought for High Achievers | The Fastest Way to Lose Talent Is “Dick Leadership” | Post-Holiday Fatigue Isn’t a Failure; It’s a Signal | OCR, Research Bots & Meeting Assistants: What Actually Helps Now | Return Season is the New Stress Test | Small Firms May Have the Biggest Advantage in 2026 | 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 

In the latest episode of Accounting ARC, Byron Patrick, CPA.CITP, and Liz Mason, CPA, step back to examine how the industry got here—and where it is likely headed next. 

READ MORE →

ADVISORY & CONSULTING

Five Trends in Tax Advisory

two seated businesspeople with glasses meet, window wall in background

How to continue providing value for clients.

By Jackie Meyer
The Balanced Millionaire: Advisor Edition

The tax advisory world is changing faster than ever before. When I first started my firm, technology played a limited role – mostly in the form of software that helped with basic data entry, compliance and tax returns. Today, however, we’re in the midst of a true revolution, driven by automation, artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing and client expectations that are continually evolving.

MORE by Jackie Meyer
GoProCPA.comExclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

 

The days of a compliance-focused practice being enough to keep you profitable are quickly disappearing. Compliance has been commoditized – clients see it as a cost to be minimized, rather than as a value-add service. If you want to remain competitive and thrive in the years to come, it’s essential to lead with advisory, embrace technology and position yourself as an indispensable partner in your clients’ financial success.
READ MORE →