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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.

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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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ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

 Busy Season 2026: Clients, Pricing, Staffing… CRUNCH

CPA Trendlines Busy Season Barometer: Modest Gains, Mixed Outlook, Cautious Tech Upgrades Ahead

Top concerns: “The returns aren’t harder—they’re just later.” (CPA Trendlines Busy Season Barometer)
Join the survey. Get the results.

By CPA Trendlines Research

The 2026 tax season shows some gradual improvement for certain firms, but most practitioners report conditions that remain largely unchanged from a year ago, according to the latest data from the CPA Trendlines Busy Season Barometer.

For More Busy Season Trends and Strategies: Join the survey. Get the results.

MORE Tax Season 2026

The good news is: 2026 hasn’t turned into the disaster some were expecting with a new tax law and diminished IRS. The bad news is: 2026 is turning into a relatively routine year — without the advances in workflow or the better margins from higher-value services that some were hoping for.

READ MORE →

ABOUT US

How AI Upends CPA Firm Pay Structures: Bloomberg Talks with Piscopo

Big 4 Transparency founder Dominic Piscopo makes featured appearance on Bloomberg.

By CPA Trendlines

Accounting firms are being forced to rebalance compensation structures—shifting pay and incentives away from entry-level staff and toward managers and reviewers—as artificial intelligence reshapes how work gets done, according to Dominic Piscopo, host of Big 4 Transparency on the CPA Trendlines Streaming Network.

MORE Dominic Piscopo and Big 4 Transparency | MORE CPA Trendlines Streaming Network

Piscopo’s full discussion on AI, compensation trends, and the future of accounting talent is available on Bloomberg Tax’s Talking Tax podcast. His ongoing analysis of salary data and workforce trends is featured on the Big 4 Transparency show, streaming on CPA Trendlines.

“Having transparency in those models and being willing to talk about it with people —not just have this very kind of cold process where a number is thrown out—can make all the difference, even if the number is exactly the same,” Piscopo tells Bloomberg Tax reporter Jorja Siemons.

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ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

PE Wars: The CPA Platform Economy Is Concentrating Fast

After hundreds of deals, the data show a gravitational pull toward a handful of buyers now driving the profession’s future.

CPA Trendlines chart showing PE-backed accounting platform power players

CPA Trendlines PE Deal Tracker: Mega-aggregators dominate the money flow as the race tightens between Ascend, Aprio, Crete, Eisner and Ryan.

By CPA Trendlines Research

The frantic pace of deal-making this past March marks a turning point. What had been described as a consolidation phase has matured into something more defined and more consequential: a platform-driven market in which a relatively small number of repeat acquirers are shaping the profession’s future.

MORE in Private Equity:

As the first quarter of 2026 closes, the story is no longer simply about transactions. It is about structure. The question has shifted from who is buying whom to which investment models, operating systems, and capital strategies will define the next decade of accounting.

For years, the prevailing narrative held that private equity would democratize the profession. Capital, it was said, would spread broadly across hundreds of firms, opening access to institutional funding that had never before been available. But the data tells a different story.

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LEADERSHIP

Megan Robinson: Leadership Isn’t a Promotion; It’s a Skill Firms Need to Build | MOVE Like This

“We’re expecting engagement without creating an environment people actually want to engage in.”

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 True Advisor: The Definitive Success Guide to Client Advisory Services by Hitendra Patil | See Today’s Special Offer
Subscribe to CPA Trendlines Research podcasts anywhere: Apple, Google/YouTube, Spotify, iHeart, Deezer, Amazon Music, Audible, Player FM, Audacy, RSS.
 Build a 7-figure firm in just 4 hours a week!

MOVE Like This
With Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk
For CPA Trendlines Research

In this episode of MOVE Like This, Megan Robinson, founder and CEO of E Leader Experience, joins Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk to talk about one of the most common and costly mistakes firms make: assuming strong performers will naturally become strong leaders.

MORE MOVE Like This | MORE CPA Trendlines Streaming Network

At the center of the conversation is a clear distinction. Technical excellence and leadership effectiveness are not the same skill set. Yet in many firms, top producers are promoted into management roles without the training or support needed to succeed. The result is frustration on both sides: leaders who feel unprepared and teams that don’t feel supported. READ MORE →

PRO Member Exclusive

Innovate to Create Your Firm’s Vision

flip chart with sticky notes on it; people in background

Break out the sticky notes.

By Matt Rampe

The satisfaction of a robust shared vision is often short-lived.

MORE by Matt Rampe
GoProCPA.comExclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

 

I often know it’s time to move to the next stage when a partner anxiously asks, “How are we going to do all that?” To answer that question, we move into the Innovate stage, where we will lay out the major strategies that need to happen to make our dreams into reality.
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PRICING, FEES & BILLING RATES

Standardized Service Makes You More Profitable

Six steps to take.

By Jody Padar
Radical Pricing – By The Radical CPA

The accounting profession will never resemble an automotive production line, perhaps for no other reason than we don’t look good in steel-toed boots. We’ll never be widget producers and, from my viewpoint, that’s a good thing. However, our position among the professional class shouldn’t blind us to the benefits of standardizing many of our services.

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

 

Anyone who has been an accountant for any length of time has certainly seen enough to eliminate the need to reinvent the wheel every time they start a new engagement. An entire firm has even more institutional knowledge to draw from. You can develop reliable and repeatable recipes for different services and deliverables by capturing this institutional knowledge. This is standardization, and it makes your service offerings more efficient, cheaper, consistent and predictable – all good business practices. You’ll be able to predict with better accuracy the time frames required for new projects, and you’ll be able to scope out exactly what will be required to bring the project to a successful conclusion. READ MORE →

PRO Member Exclusive

What Young Accounting Pros Need to Make Partner

older woman showing young woman something on office computer screen

Four experts provide their insights.

By Martin Bissett
Passport to Partnership

The skill in producing financial reports is limited by the quality of the information presented to the CPA by the client. The motivation of the client to influence that financial information comes in many forms, some intentional and some unintentional. Competence comes first in being able to resist pressure and present a true and accurate position of the client’s organization.

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

Sounds obvious, doesn’t it? But there’s a twist.

Competence didn’t actually rank highly in the majority of partner requirements when interviewed in our study at all.
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MARKETING & SALES

Four Ways to Identify Candidates for Cross-Selling

https://cpatrendlines.com/2016/06/11/adopt-a-marketing-mindset/

Adopt a marketing mindset.

By Ed Mendlowitz

The average tax return client thinks of accountants as being mainly involved in taxes. Also, an accounting firm’s largest volume of clients is usually for tax return services. Therefore, a good part of the public image of your firm must come from the tax department.

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

 

The tax department must be involved in:

  • strengthening the firm’s brand and name recognition,
  • getting publicity and
  • introducing tax return clients to additional services.

Unfortunately, many accounting firms provide very little guidance or training in this area.

READ MORE →