Ask CPA Trendlines
Now, with smarter search, deeper analysis, more detailed responses (v.2.7).
Now, with smarter search, deeper analysis, more detailed responses (v.2.7).
Trump Accounts for children launch on July 4, 2026.
MORE Art Werner | MORE CPA Trendlines Streaming Network
“The eligibility rules are going to be based on what we’ll refer to as the beneficiary, the child that we’re establishing these for,” Werner says.
Bookkeepers often feel less empowered than tax professionals.
The Disruptors
With Liz Farr
For CPA Trendlines
Nancy McClelland wants to do more than just run her firm, The Dancing Accountant. She has two big passion projects that are creating the conversations and collaborations this profession desperately needs. Her community, Ask a CPA, aims to bridge the gap between bookkeepers and tax professionals. She also co-hosts a podcast with Questian Telka, She Counts, which provides a safe space for women in accounting to discuss real issues.
MORE STREAMING: Cannon: Busy Season is Self-Inflicted | Carroll: When One Person Can Break the Firm | 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 |
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McClelland started the Ask a CPA Community when she noticed “this big gap that wasn’t about technical knowledge. It was about permission, about permission to collaborate.” While “bookkeepers are often the closest person to the financial truth of a business,” historically, “they’ve been positioned as subordinate to tax preparers, just sort of expected to hand off things and hope that they did it right,” McClelland explains.

Lead with the human first and match your expertise to those things that matter.
By Rory Henry
The Holistic Guide to Wealth Management
The future of advice is not financial, it’s human! It is about helping clients live their best lives.
Instead of emphasizing technical skills such as minimizing taxes, building a portfolio and executing a Roth conversion, our goal is to shift your thinking toward a human-first financial mindset. This approach helps you uncover a person’s entire life. By being attentive to the many aspects of well-being, we can have a transformative impact on our client relationships that goes beyond financials.
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Three questions to ask about each role.
By Jody Grunden
Building the Virtual CFO Firm in the Cloud
“Getting the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats – these are all crucial steps in the early stages of buildup…” – Jim Collins, “Good to Great”
When Adam and I first started the company, we didn’t have much organizational structure. We didn’t need it. But as the company grew, it became necessary to develop an organizational structure. There’s a great quote by Michael E. Gerber in his book “The E-Myth Revisited” that says, “Without the Organization Chart, confusion, discord and conflict become the order of the day.”
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There are four numbers worth calculating before you decide anything.
By Hitendra Patil
There is a version of the independence story in which the independent firm is the more affordable alternative to the larger private equity-backed firm. That story is worth examining carefully because, in my experience, it rarely ends the way the firm owner hoped.
Competing on price against firms with institutional capital is a long game you cannot win. PE-backed platforms can subsidize below-market pricing during a growth phase in ways that an independent firm’s income statement cannot absorb. If your primary competitive argument is that you cost less, the positioning battle is already lost.
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