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AUDIT & ASSURANCE

Vanover: 5-Star Firms Don’t Bill by the Hour | The Disruptors

Measuring impact—not hours—creates happier teams, better clients, and a stronger profession.

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The Disruptors
With Liz Farr

What will it take to kill the billable hour? Chris Vanover, founder of CPAClub, believes it’s not only “outdated and archaic,” but that today’s age of AI and automation “is a recipe for the death of the billable hour.”    

MORE STREAMING: 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 | Telka: Transform Fear into Fuel | Woodard: Move Past Reports; Deliver Results | Baker: Find True Purpose to End Burnout | Brolin: The W.I.N. Leadership Formula | Gertrudes: How EOS & “Unreasonable Hospitality” Reshaped GrowthLab | Vilms: The Power of People in a Tech-Driven World | Dickerson: From Diagnosis to Disruption | Kapilovich: Treat People Like People | Martha Yasso: From Wall Street to Main Street | Jackie Meyer: Tax Plans in 90 Seconds? Believe It  | Erica Goode: Build a $200K Firm in 15hrs/Week |

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CPAClub, formerly AuditClub, operates under a different model. As Hervochon explained in his first appearance on The Disruptors, CPAClub operates as a subscription service, where pass holders have access on a monthly or annual basis to a team of highly skilled auditors and accountants. This innovative business model undoubtedly contributed to the firm’s recognition as CalCPA’s Firm of the Year for 2025.  

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Kless: Profit Is a Result. Flourishing Is the Purpose | The Disruptors

In the age of AI, conversations, not calculations, will define the future of the profession.

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The Disruptors
With Liz Farr

Ed Kless believes accountants can do much more than monitor the numbers. Together with Ron Baker, their latest venture, Threshold, is a community that aims to support professionals in facilitating transformations in their customers. As Kless explains, transformations occur when someone makes lasting changes in one or more of the domains of human flourishing.  

MORE STREAMING: 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 | Telka: Transform Fear into Fuel | Woodard: Move Past Reports; Deliver Results | Baker: Find True Purpose to End Burnout | Brolin: The W.I.N. Leadership Formula | Gertrudes: How EOS & “Unreasonable Hospitality” Reshaped GrowthLab | Vilms: The Power of People in a Tech-Driven World | Dickerson: From Diagnosis to Disruption | Kapilovich: Treat People Like People | Martha Yasso: From Wall Street to Main Street | Jackie Meyer: Tax Plans in 90 Seconds? Believe It  | Erica Goode: Build a $200K Firm in 15hrs/Week |

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“The purpose of business is to promote human flourishing. Profit is the result of a business. And there’s nothing wrong with that,” Kless says. “I think profit is good, but it’s the result. It’s not the purpose.” Drawing from Benjamin Franklin and economist Russ Roberts, Kless explains that human flourishing has four domains: making people healthier, wealthier, wiser, or helping them live with more purpose.  

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FEATURED VIDEO

Whitman: Build Culture on ‘Progress,’ Not Change | The Disruptors

Language, collaboration, and leadership training turned competition into cohesion.

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Sponsored by Poe Group Advisors: Helping accountants buy, build, and sell exceptional firms. See Today’s Special Offer

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The Disruptors
With Liz Farr

When Alan Whitman became Baker Tilly’s CEO, he was caught between two warring camps. On one side were the legacy partners who had built the organization and “wanted to continue doing things the way that we’ve always done them because we’ve been so successful.” That side was afraid of “losing what they had built.” In the other camp were the new partners who wanted to change “to what they were promised, what they signed on to by becoming part of Baker Tilly.” The newcomers wanted “to move faster and do it differently.” 

MORE STREAMING: 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 | Telka: Transform Fear into Fuel | Woodard: Move Past Reports; Deliver Results | Baker: Find True Purpose to End Burnout | Brolin: The W.I.N. Leadership Formula | Gertrudes: How EOS & “Unreasonable Hospitality” Reshaped GrowthLab | Vilms: The Power of People in a Tech-Driven World | Dickerson: From Diagnosis to Disruption | Kapilovich: Treat People Like People | Martha Yasso: From Wall Street to Main Street | Jackie Meyer: Tax Plans in 90 Seconds? Believe It  | Erica Goode: Build a $200K Firm in 15hrs/Week |

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As Whitman describes in his new book, “Break the Mold: How to Achieve Transformational Change Scale and Grow Simultaneously, the conflict was resolved over time, one conversation, one small meeting at a time. “It would be more evolution, not revolution,” Whitman says.  

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Shein: No PE? No M&A? No Problem | The Disruptors

There’s more than one way to scale.

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 Poe Group Advisors: Helping accountants buy, build, and sell exceptional firms. See Today’s Special Offer

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Poe Group Advisors consistently excels in helping our clients find the right accounting practice sales opportunity.

The Disruptors
With Liz Farr

Steve Shein thought small accounting firms need a different option than private equity or the traditional M&A route. So he founded Franklin Alliance, which operates differently from either of those models.  

Unlike traditional private equity models that typically focus on cost reduction and mandate immediate process changes, Franklin Alliance operates as an investment partner with a fundamentally different structure. “We’re trying to build this intentionally, with the goal of being a differentiated partner, specifically for small firm owners who care about things like culture, autonomy, and their firm identity,” Shein explains. 

MORE STREAMING: 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 | Telka: Transform Fear into Fuel | Woodard: Move Past Reports; Deliver Results | Baker: Find True Purpose to End Burnout | Brolin: The W.I.N. Leadership Formula | Gertrudes: How EOS & “Unreasonable Hospitality” Reshaped GrowthLab | Vilms: The Power of People in a Tech-Driven World | Dickerson: From Diagnosis to Disruption | Kapilovich: Treat People Like People | Martha Yasso: From Wall Street to Main Street | Jackie Meyer: Tax Plans in 90 Seconds? Believe It  | Erica Goode: Build a $200K Firm in 15hrs/Week |

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“We built this platform as an operating company specifically so we’re not a fund,” Shein explains. “It’s backed by venture capital and family offices, which basically means that the profile of the investors that we’ve taken capital from has a longer-term time horizon.” 

This structure enables what Shein calls a “culture of growth rather than a kind of cost rationalization,” which is a better fit for many small firms. The approach contrasts with acquisitions by regional firms, where acquired firms are generally forced to adopt new processes, workflows, and technology within 90 days. 

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FEATURED VIDEO

Hood and Weber: Time to RISE | The Disruptors

RISE2040 challenges the accounting profession to stop reacting and start shaping its own future.

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 Poe Group Advisors: Helping accountants buy, build, and sell exceptional firms. See Today’s Special Offer

Subscribe to CPA Trendlines podcasts anywhere: Apple, Google/YouTube, Spotify, iHeart, Deezer, Amazon Music, Audible, Player FM, Audacy, RSS
Poe Group Advisors consistently excels in helping our clients find the right accounting practice sales opportunity.

The Disruptors
With Liz Farr

What will the future of accounting be like? As listeners to The Disruptors know, I’ve been asking accountants about their predictions for the state of accounting in ten years. However, a new initiative from the AICPA and CIMA, RISE2040, is taking that further by asking accountants worldwide for their vision of accounting in 2040. I recently spoke with Tom Hood, CPA.CITP, CGMA, executive VP of Business Growth and Engagement for the AICPA, and Lexi Weber, CPA, senior manager for Emerging Professionals Initiatives at the AICPA, about RISE2040. 

CPA TRENDLINES CELEBRATES:The 100th Episode of The Disruptors

MORE STREAMING: 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 | Telka: Transform Fear into Fuel | Woodard: Move Past Reports; Deliver Results | Baker: Find True Purpose to End Burnout | Brolin: The W.I.N. Leadership Formula | Gertrudes: How EOS & “Unreasonable Hospitality” Reshaped GrowthLab | Vilms: The Power of People in a Tech-Driven World | Dickerson: From Diagnosis to Disruption | Kapilovich: Treat People Like People | Martha Yasso: From Wall Street to Main Street | Jackie Meyer: Tax Plans in 90 Seconds? Believe It  | Erica Goode: Build a $200K Firm in 15hrs/Week |

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Hood explains, “This is a project to co-create a vision for the global accounting and finance profession writ large. That means public accounting, management accounting, CPAs, and CGMAs globally.” The timing reflects the convergence of three events: the conclusion of Horizons2025, the maturation of the AICPA-CIMA joint venture created in 2011, and new leadership under CEO Mark Koziel. 

Weber sees this as an empowering project for younger accountants. “From the emerging professionals’ perspective, I think it’s a really beautiful project, because we have a say in what the future is going to be like.”

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