Center for Accounting Transformation, Author at CPA Trendlines

Why Happiness is Hard-Fought for High Achievers| ARC

Learn how easily pros tie well-being to success—and how fear of failure can distort self-worth.

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

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Accounting ARC
With Byron Patrick and Donny Shimamoto
Center for Accounting Transformation

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

Busy season may still be a days out, but the stress response already starts to hum for a lot of accounting professionals — the calendar fills, the inbox tightens, and the margin for error feels like it shrinks to a sliver. In the latest Accounting ARC, Donny Shimamoto, CPA.CITP, CGMA, and Byron Patrick, CPA.CITP, take that reality head-on with a surprisingly practical lens: modern stoicism.

MORE Accounting ARC: 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

They start by naming the misconception most people bring to the word “stoic” — that it means emotionless, rigid, “stone-faced.” Shimamoto, founder and managing director of IntrapriseTechKnowlogies LLC and founder and inspiration architect for the Center for Accounting Transformation, admits that’s how he learned it, too: a kind of unfeeling resilience.

But the article that sparks the episode — a Psychology Today piece on the science of stoicism — reframes it as something more useful (and more human): a set of attitudes and behaviors linked with resilience, lower anger and higher life satisfaction.

ACCOUNTING ARC

The Fastest Way to Lose Talent Is “Dick Leadership” | ARC

Label intent, clarify tone and choose the right channel so feedback lands as coaching, not conflict.

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
With Liz Mason, Byron Patrick, and Donny Shimamoto
Center for Accounting Transformation

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

Leaders in accounting do not need to choose between being “nice” and being effective.

In this ARC episode, Donny Shimamoto, CPA.CITP, CGMA; Byron Patrick, CPA.CITP; and Liz Mason, CPA, make the case that the best bosses aim for something tougher — kindness with clarity.

The conversation starts with a story familiar to anyone who has ever hovered over the “Send” button on a difficult message.

MORE Accounting ARC: 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

Mason, founder and CEO of High Rock Accounting, recalls proposing a conference talk with a deliberately provocative title — a reminder that most professionals feel the tension between holding the line and keeping the peace. The point, she says, is not to sanitize reality. It is to learn how to hold people accountable without turning it into a personal attack.

ACCOUNTING ARC

Post-Holiday Fatigue Isn’t a Failure; It’s a Signal. | ARC

Decode your energy signals, redesign your calendar, and stay sharp even when you’re running low.

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
With Liz Mason, Byron Patrick, and Donny Shimamoto
Center for Accounting Transformation

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

As the calendar flips and the pace of work accelerates, many accounting professionals find themselves running on fumes. The holidays are over. Travel lingers in the body. Busy season looms. And yet, expectations snap back to full speed almost overnight.

In this Accounting ARC, Donny Shimamoto, CPA.CITP, CGMA, and Liz Mason, CPA, take on a topic many professionals quietly struggle with but rarely discuss openly: how to work through fatigue without burning out—or dialing down performance.

MORE Accounting ARC: 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

Their conversation is refreshingly candid, practical, and grounded in lived experience. And it challenges one of the profession’s most persistent myths: that being tired means you’re doing something wrong.

Both hosts open the episode admitting they are exhausted—but not from overwork. Shimamoto is coming off a stretch of nonstop weekends filled with visitors, events, and travel. Mason is freshly jet-lagged after nearly two weeks in London, balancing client work with museums, family time, and international flights.

The point lands quickly: fatigue doesn’t only come from too much work. It comes from full lives.

And pretending otherwise, they argue, is where professionals get stuck—pushing through exhaustion with guilt instead of strategy.

ACCOUNTING ARC

OCR, Research Bots & Meeting Assistants: What Actually Helps Now | ARC

Firms use AI, planning, and “hope” to make tax season more manageable.

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
With Liz Mason, Byron Patrick, and Donny Shimamoto
Center for Accounting Transformation

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

As firms head into tax season, the hosts of Accounting ARC make a case for lowering the temperature — and the workload — with practical tech choices, proactive planning and a stronger focus on people.

MORE Accounting ARC: 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 | 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

In a special Tax Season Readiness episode, Donny Shimamoto, CPA.CITP, CGMA; joins co-hosts Liz Mason, CPA; and Byron Patrick, CPA.CITP, CGMA; to preview new tax platform research, spotlight emerging AI tools and talk candidly about what helps teams sustain momentum from January through April.

Shimamoto, founder and managing director of IntrapriseTechKnowlogies LLC and founder and inspiration architect for the Center for Accounting Transformation, sets the tone early. He says he intentionally avoids calling it “busy season,” noting that practitioners tell him the upcoming cycle may feel lighter than the past few years. The conversation that follows keeps returning to the same core question: What, specifically, helps firms reduce friction before deadlines hit?

CLIENT ACCOUNTING SERVICES

WEBINAR: IRS Tightens Crypto Reporting as 1099-DA Comes Online

New IRS Form 1099-DA raises the stakes for compliance—and tax professionals are racing to prepare.

By Center for Accounting Transformation

Cryptocurrency has evolved from a niche curiosity to a mainstream economic force — and U.S. tax authorities are finally catching up.

As digital assets, such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, NFTs, and stablecoins, become common investment choices for individuals and businesses alike, the IRS has quietly but significantly overhauled how crypto income must be reported and taxed. However, despite these changes, many taxpayers still fail to comply, and tax professionals are scrambling to keep up.

WEBINAR: Nuts & Bolts of Cryptocurrency Taxation & 1099-DAs | Jan. 27 |1 p.m. ET | 2 CPE

That’s the backdrop for “Nuts & Bolts of Cryptocurrency Taxation & 1099-DAs,” a live 2-hour webinar scheduled for Jan. 27, which will provide accountants and tax advisors with a practical roadmap to navigate this rapidly evolving terrain. READ MORE →

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