Today's Features
CLIENT ACCOUNTING SERVICES

The Hidden Friction Killing CAS Profitability | It’s Not Just the Numbers

CAS success isn’t accidental. It’s engineered.

Originally published November 2025
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It’s Not Just the Numbers
With Penny Breslin and Damien Greathead
For CPA Trendlines

Client Advisory Services (CAS) continue to outperform every other service line in accounting. But firms that treat CAS as “enhanced bookkeeping” quickly hit a ceiling. The firms that scale profitably make harder—and smarter—choices: who they serve, how they staff, how they price, and how they explain their value in a world obsessed with automation.

MORE Penny Breslin and Damien Greathead | MORE Advisory & Consulting | BUY “It’s Not Just the Numbers”

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In this episode of It’s Not Just the Numbers, co-hosts Penny Breslin and Damien Greathead get refreshingly practical about what actually drives CAS success. Their message is clear: strong CAS practices are built intentionally, not incrementally.

One question cuts straight to the tension many firm owners feel: Should teams see profitability numbers?

Breslin and Greathead don’t argue for radical openness—or secrecy. Instead, they advocate for profit literacy.

Teams don’t need to know margins by client. They do need to understand three things:

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ACCOUNTING INFLUENCERS

The Job Crisis Is a Myth; the Job Remix Is Not | Accounting Voices

Automation deletes tasks, then dares accountants to create new value on purpose.

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

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Accounting Voices
With Rob Brown

Artificial intelligence is no longer a concept that accountants debate in panels or pilot projects. It is actively reshaping how firms hire, train, and define value.

In this episode of Accounting Voices, host Rob Brown delivers a blunt assessment of what many professionals are already sensing, but few are saying out loud: AI is not coming for your job. It is coming for what your job does.

That distinction changes everything.

Brown frames the moment as an AI talent shock—a structural shift that is quietly altering career paths across public accounting, corporate finance, and advisory work. This is not about fearmongering or futurism. It is about reality on the ground.

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FEATURED VIDEO

Dunn: Time’s the Wrong Growth Metric | Gear Up For Growth

Stop counting minutes. Start creating meaning.

Originally published May 2025
This is a preview. The complete 1-hour video episode, with commentary and transcript, is first available exclusively to PRO Members | Go PRO here
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Gear Up for Growth
With Jean Caragher
For CPA Trendlines

In a re-energizing episode of Gear Up for Growth, Paul Dunn makes the case that the billable hour isn’t just outdated—it’s holding firms back. The four-time TEDx speaker and cofounder of B1G1 challenges accounting leaders to rethink how success is measured and to lead with purpose, not punch clocks.

Gear Up for Growth spotlights the best strategies for smart and efficient growth in today’s competitive landscape. More Gear Up for Growth here | More Jean Caragher here | Get her best-selling handbook, The 90-Day Marketing Plan for CPA Firms, here | More CPA Trendlines videos and podcasts here

Talking with host Jean Caragher, Dunn reframes the profession’s obsession with time as a distraction from what clients actually value. “It’s not about the inputs,” he says. “It’s about the outcomes.” When firms anchor their work to results—and to the human impact behind those results—growth follows naturally.

More than two decades after coauthoring “The Firm of the Future,” Dunn remains a vocal critic of six-minute increments. While some firms are inching toward value pricing and advisory-led models, he argues the real shift requires courage. Measuring work by time, he notes, is “the opposite of human flourishing.” Measuring by impact, on the other hand, elevates both clients and teams.

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ADVISORY & CONSULTING

Why Offer Three Service Levels?

Hand drawing a rainbow-colored 3

You still can add on other services.

By Jody Padar
Radical Pricing – By The Radical CPA

A tiered service offering should provide your clients with three options. According to experts in mindset and pricing, if you provide three options, people will usually choose the one in the middle. That’s the one you are aiming for them to buy.

Also, don’t forget that people buy the payment, not the car. There’s an entire mentality around monthly pricing. If you tell a client it’s a $24,000 engagement, they will balk. They would rather pay $2,000 a month than the full amount all at once. Of course, some clients will offer to give you the full engagement amount up front if the price is discounted. From a cash flow perspective, you can offer a small discount if a client is willing to pay this way.

Creating your service packages is not a one-size-fits-all activity. There should be different tiered service options for each client persona. It is also important for clients to know that they can upgrade or downgrade their service level when needed.
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ADVISORY & CONSULTING

The Details of Due Diligence

Do you have everyone you need on your team?

By Ed Mendlowitz
77 Ways to Wow!

In 2012, Hewlett-Packard announced an $8.8 billion deduction claiming that they overpaid for an acquisition because of the failure of many other people who were responsible for due diligence. I don’t know many of the details, but it seems that someone screwed up big-time.

MORE by Ed Mendlowitz
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Due diligence is an essential activity in an acquisition that involves confirming the representations made by the seller, evaluating the strategic fit and terms and conditions of the deal and validating financial, legal, operational and technological aspects of the transaction. Keen due diligence can even help determine the final price.
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CLIENT SERVICE OPPORTUNITIES

Gallegos: HR1 Is Signed; the Advisory Clock Is Ticking | Big 4 Transparency

Break down the new law, the unanswered questions, and why waiting for certainty is a strategic mistake.

This is a preview. The complete video episode, with commentary and transcript, is first available exclusively to PRO Members | Go PRO here
Sponsored by Poe Group Advisors: Helping accountants buy, build, and sell exceptional firms. See Today’s Special Offer

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Big 4 Transparency
By Dominic Piscopo, CPA
For CPA Trendlines

What does it take to turn dense tax law into business wins? In this episode of the Big 4 Transparency, host Dominic Piscopo sits down with Mark Gallegos, tax partner at Porte Brown, to explore how a self-described “tax geek” became an eminence engine by teaching, writing, and speaking across the country while translating the new HR1 legislation into clear moves for clients. 

MORE Dominic Piscopo | MORE Private Equity | MORE Pay & Compensation

Gallegos serves on the AICPA Strategic Tax Reform Advisory Group (“strike force”), where volunteer experts parse bills, surface practitioner pain points, and help shape the letters and asks that go to Treasury, IRS, and Capitol Hill. That inside track, pressure-testing interpretations with national peers, feeds his day job: delivering 50,000-foot explanations that prompt the most valuable question in professional services: “What should we do next?” 

Gallegos and Piscopo dive into HR1’s planning levers. 

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OUTLOOK & ANALYSIS

Ten Predictions: PE, Alternate Practice Structures and More

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?

Valuations have changed … and risen.

By Phil Whitman
 The Rosenberg Survey

While many trends will continue, here are my Top 10 predictions:

  1. Traditional M&A activity, CPA firm to CPA firm, will continue to be very robust.

Not all CPA firms will qualify for investment by private equity and other strategic investors. As such, firms will combine for a variety of reasons including: succession and transitions, increasing profitability and gross revenues, expansion of service offerings, expansion of geographic coverage as well as adding additional depth and breadth in existing service lines.

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

  1. Valuations of CPA firms will increase as private equity creates bidding wars between each other. We have already seen demand of CPA firms of certain sizes exceeding supply. As such, we believe that even the larger private equity-backed firms will see acquisitions of smaller firms as not only lucrative additions but significantly more supply. Approximately 10,000 +\- firms with two or more partners that are members of the AICPA. Many of these smaller firms are very profitable and have been seeing multiples of two to three times gross revenues.

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MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS

Twelve Benefits of Merging Up

man and woman high-fiving each other in office

Plus 16 reasons it causes anxiety.

By Marc Rosenberg
CPA Firm Mergers: Your Complete Guide

While selling to a larger firm may ultimately be the most viable succession plan available to a small firm, the prospect of the merger creates a great deal of anxiety among small firms nonetheless. The larger firm’s sensitivity to these concerns is critical for a successful meeting of the minds during the negotiation phase.

MORE by Marc Rosenberg
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Why Small Firms Are So Anxious about Merging Up

  1. Loss of control, loss of control and loss of control
  2. Loss of their job or a substantial reduction in their role. It’s possible that some of the smaller firm’s partners may not be invited to be partners in the new firm.

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MARKETING & SALES

Reframe Your Thinking about Selling

Businessman with head in hands

Four reasons some accountants find it difficult.

By Martin Bissett
Business Development on a Budget

Let’s take a look at the last 20-plus years of my experience and my research as to where new clients come from in an accounting practice. I don’t think there are going to be too many shocks here.

MORE by Martin Bissett
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What I’ve found is that 82 percent of all new clients in a given year who come into an accounting firm come in from a referral source. This may be a bank or a lawyer or some other source, perhaps an existing client, who has recommended that a particular business meet with your firm and come on board as a client.
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BUSY SEASON MANAGEMENT

Cannon: Busy Season is Self-Inflicted | The Disruptors

Exhaustion, chaos, and missed lives are the result of design choices—not destiny.

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
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The Disruptors
With Liz Farr

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

Brenda Cannon, co-founder of Cannon and Associates, has been pioneering a creative approach for taming tax season madness: every return is scheduled like an appointment. “We know how long it takes us to prepare a tax return. Why could we not control each week and the number of tax returns we prepare each week?” she recalls thinking after hearing Jason Staats introduce the concept on a podcast in 2022.  

MORE STREAMING: 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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Over the last three tax seasons, Cannon and her team, which includes her husband and co-founder, Randy Cannon, have been refining the process. Clients choose a date on a calendar on which they will deliver their documents to her office, with the understanding that their return will be ready three weeks after that date.  

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MARKETING & SALES

Cross-Sell and Upsell to Earn More Business

person handing a folder to another person

It’s easier and quicker to sell to existing clients than to new ones.

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

While most accountants and consultants struggle with trying to sell their services to the next new client, there are two ways to get new and additional business without moving too far out of your comfort zone.

MORE by August J. Aquila
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One way is cross-selling and the other is upselling. Cross-selling is persuading a client to buy other products or services to complement a purchase. Upselling encourages a buyer to purchase a higher-end, more expensive product or service. For example, let’s say you are currently providing estate-planning services to the client, and you get the client to invest in your wealth-management services. Or you have a wealthy tax client, and you advise her to use the firm’s estate-planning or retirement-planning services.
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PRO Member Exclusive

Focus on Working Capital

Woman with tablet showing man something on laptop

Show clients issues and opportunities in the current process.

By Domenick J. Esposito
8 Steps to Great

Presented below is an example of an effective tool for distinguishing your firm from the rest – the EBITDA/working capital improvements memorandum. This tool can be used when your client is owned by a large private equity group or other investment vehicle.

MORE by Domenick J. Esposito
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The EBITDA/working capital improvements memorandum is designed as a unique byproduct of your attest services. At the conclusion of your attest services, you share preliminary thoughts and observations on how to improve EBITDA/working capital with senior management of the portfolio company as well as with an outside investor such as a private equity group.
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FEATURED VIDEO

Dyo: It’s Not a Loophole; It’s a Missed Opportunity | The Concierge CPA

Charitable gift financing has been IRS-validated for decades, yet many still avoid it.

This is a preview. The complete video episode, with commentary and transcript, is first available exclusively to PRO Members | Go PRO here
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.
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The Concierge CPA
With Jackie Meyer
For CPA Trendlines

In this episode of the Concierge CPA podcast, host Dr. Jackie Meyer, CPA, puts a spotlight on a charitable tax strategy that sounds suspiciously modern — yet has been sitting in the tax code since 1978.

The strategy is called charitable gift financing, and, according to Meyer’s guest, Aleksander Dyo, founder and managing director of Wealth Excel, it remains largely invisible to many accountants despite decades of IRS validation.

More Jackie Meyer

Dyo frames the idea with a blunt comparison: Americans finance homes, cars, equipment — even vacations. So why not charitable giving?

Charitable gift financing allows high-income taxpayers to make significant philanthropic contributions by combining personal funds with borrowed capital, while claiming a charitable deduction for the full amount transferred to charity in the year of the gift.

This isn’t a loophole or a creative interpretation, Dyo says. It’s rooted in long-standing IRS guidance on the deductibility of charitable contributions made with borrowed funds, provided the funds are transferred to the charity in the same tax year.

In practice, that timing is everything.

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