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ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Jeff Seibert: Digits Software Moves Toward Real-Time Accounting | The Disruptors

Dovetailing finance and product engineering can transform accounting.
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The Disruptors
With Liz Farr
For CPA Trendlines 

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When Jeff Seibert, CEO and founder of Digits, was at Twitter, he was astonished by the difference in data quality and timeliness between the product engineering and the finance sides of the business.

On the product engineering side, testing tools, dashboards, and analytic tools provided real-time data on “exactly what your users are clicking on, what your servers are doing every second.” At the same time, “I was waiting two to three weeks for our accountant to give me a black and white P&L,” he recalls, even with “100 people in corporate finance.”

MORE DISRUPTORS: Candy Bellau: The $350 Pricing Mistake that Nearly Broke this Boutique Firm | The Disruptors | Poe: What P.E. Really Wants from Firms | The Disruptors  | Blake Oliver: Build a Biz that Runs Without You | Daiber: Use Succession as a Growth Strategy | 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 |

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That experience led him to start Digits in 2018, an AI-native accounting platform, which is going “head to head with QuickBooks and Xero.”

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ACCOUNTING VOICES

Tyler Anderson: Audit Transformation Is a Mindset, Not a Destination | The Disruptors

“Audit” and “transformation” shouldn’t contradict each other.

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The Disruptors
With Liz Farr
For CPA Trendlines

The words “audit” and “transformation” don’t often appear together. Some might say they contradict each other. But for Tyler Anderson, Director of A&A Innovation at Accountability Plus, audit transformation is something that has been needed for many years.

MORE Tyler Anderson on Re-Inventing Accounting

MORE DISRUPTORS Candy Bellau: The $350 Pricing Mistake that Nearly Broke this Boutique Firm | The Disruptors | Poe: What P.E. Really Wants from Firms | The Disruptors  | Blake Oliver: Build a Biz that Runs Without You | Daiber: Use Succession as a Growth Strategy | 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 |

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Anderson, along with his colleagues Corey Schmidt and Alan Anderson from Accountability Plus, served as subject matter experts for the 2025 Audit Benchmark Survey conducted by CPA.com, which sought to understand the current state of audit transformation. The CPA.com team included Emily Remington (Director of Audit Product Management), Amy Bridges (Senior Manager of Practice Development), and survey methodologist Katherine Blackburn. The resulting report, The Audit Transformation Report, was released at Digital CPA in December 2025. Liz Farr, host of The Disruptors, served as the report writer. 

Audit transformation is often misunderstood as a destination or a future state reserved for large firms with deep pockets and advanced technology. But according to Anderson, transformation is far more practical and accessible. “I see it as the process, not really like it’s an end state or anything, but it’s really the evolution of audit,” he explains.    READ MORE →

ADVISORY & CONSULTING

Sarah Flischel: The End of the SALY Audit | The Disruptors

Transformation in audit can help predict clients’ futures.

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Sponsored by The Balanced Millionaire: Advisor Edition: Building a 7-Figure Firm in 4 Hours a Week by Dr. Jackie Meyer, CPA, CCA   

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PODCAST

Sharrin Fuller: Build It Better, Then Let It Run Without You | The Disruptors

Freedom comes from systems.

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The Disrupters
With Liz Farr
For CPA Trendlines

Sharrin Fuller isn’t your typical accountant. For one, she’s not a CPA. She doesn’t have an accounting degree. She didn’t even go to college. But despite lacking what most consider the usual credentials and following “the most unconventional and broken path possible,” she managed to build and sell two successful accounting firms. Fuller recounts this story in her new book, Unfollow the Rules: The Messy Truth About Burnout, Bad Decisions, and Building Until It Works. 

MORE DISRUPTORS: Candy Bellau: The $350 Pricing Mistake that Nearly Broke this Boutique Firm | The Disruptors | Poe: What P.E. Really Wants from Firms | The Disruptors  | Blake Oliver: Build a Biz that Runs Without You | Daiber: Use Succession as a Growth Strategy | 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 |

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Fuller wrote this book to help entrepreneurs see behind the social media images of success. “All you see are their wins and their glorified wins, but you don’t know what it took to get them there,” she explains. Her book was originally intended to be a how-to guide, but halfway through the process, she changed her mind. “I don’t want to write this book telling people this is how you should do it,” she explains. “I needed to be vulnerable so people could understand how I got to the point that I got to.” 

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ADVISORY & CONSULTING

Oz Demirdoven: Why U.S. Firms Lag the World in Advisory | The Disruptors

Success breeds complacency – and obsolescence.

Sponsored by True Advisor: The Definitive Success Guide for Client Advisory Services by Hitendra Patil

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The Disruptors
With Liz Farr

Success, long the defining strength of U.S. accounting firms, is fast becoming their most dangerous liability, according to Oz Demirdovan, a PKF executive with a global portfolio.

Flush with steady profits, deep client rosters, and decades of compliance-driven demand, many firms see little reason to change—just as the ground beneath them shifts, Demirdovan tells Liz Farr in this episode of The Disruptors.

MORE DISRUPTORS: Candy Bellau: The $350 Pricing Mistake that Nearly Broke this Boutique Firm | The Disruptors | Poe: What P.E. Really Wants from Firms | The Disruptors  | Blake Oliver: Build a Biz that Runs Without You | Daiber: Use Succession as a Growth Strategy | 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 |

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The paradox is stark: the very stability that built the profession now insulates it from the urgency to adapt, leaving some of its most successful players at greatest risk of falling behind.

Demirdoven has worked in accounting worldwide, spending more than five years at Allinial Global. From his perspective, the most striking difference between accounting in the U.S. and the rest of the world isn’t just our complex regulatory environment.

“The biggest difference isn’t only regulation, it is mindsets,” he explains. “I would say, in North America, especially in the United States, firms are still very compliance anchored.”   READ MORE →

PODCAST

Rebecca Driscoll: A Millennial and a Boomer Walk into a Bar… | The Disruptors

The Collaboration Room turns online peer networks into practical tools for pricing strategy, tax planning, succession, and psychological safety.

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

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

The Disruptors
With Liz Farr

Before they co-founded The Collaboration Room, Rebecca Driscoll and Mike Sylvester, CEO of SBS CPA Group, had both been helping accountants with challenges on an informal basis.

“It felt kind of like disorganized, and we just needed one place,” Driscoll explains.

IN THIS EPISODE: The Collaboration Room | Brenda Cannon | Mike Sylvester | SchedulEase | Take Your Life Back Tax Pro Community | Tax Retreat | 

MORE DISRUPTORS: Candy Bellau: The $350 Pricing Mistake that Nearly Broke this Boutique Firm | The Disruptors |Poe: What P.E. Really Wants from Firms | The Disruptors  | Blake Oliver: Build a Biz that Runs Without You | Daiber: Use Succession as a Growth Strategy | 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 |

After Brenda Cannon, co-founder of Cannon & Associates and founder of SchedulEase and the Take Your Life Back Tax Pro Community, connected them, they spent months testing ideas, questioning assumptions, and allowing the concept to grow organically before launching in the fall of 2024. “It doesn’t have to be perfect, and we’ll let it evolve and see what it becomes,” Driscoll says.   READ MORE →

MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS

Candy Bellau | The $350 Pricing Mistake That Nearly Broke This Boutique Firm | The Disruptors

How to reset pricing, rebuild margins, and stop “helping” clients into bankruptcy.

The complete video episode, with commentary and transcript, 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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Build a 7-figure firm in just 4 hours a week!

The Disruptors
With Liz Farr

Candy Bellau didn’t set out to build a firm that could operate without her. But her hand was forced when her mother became ill.

“I kept dropping the ball at my own company and my team, the long-term members kept picking it up, and slowly but surely, they just absorbed the client work I was doing,” Bellau recalls. 

MORE DISRUPTORS: Oliver: Build a Biz that Runs Without You | Daiber: Use Succession as a Growth Strategy | 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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Her team at Kramerica Business Solutions not only maintained the business but made it better. “They did things that were so much better, and they looked out for me,” Bellau says.  

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MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS

Brannon Poe: Is Your Firm PE-Ready? | The Disruptors

Most firms aren’t. Here’s how to change that.

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

The Disruptors
With Liz Farr

Brannon Poe, founder of Poe Group Advisors, says the key to a successful firm transaction is fit.  

“I think having a good deal is really about having a good fit,” he says. Besides technical skills, “you have to have management styles that mesh well, you have to have client service philosophies that are aligned,” he explains.  

MORE STREAMING: Oliver: Build a Biz that Runs Without You | Daiber: Use Succession as a Growth Strategy | 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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For sellers, choosing the right buyer matters as much as the price. “I find that the sellers in particular, who keep their focus on fit and choose the right buyer, usually are the happiest with their exit.” 

The last few years have created favorable conditions for accounting firm sales, but not for everyone.  

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LEADERSHIP

Oliver: Build a Biz that Runs Without You | The Disruptors

“They get a check every month, and they don’t have to do any work.”

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

The Disruptors
With Liz Farr

Blake Oliver noticed a consistent pattern with firm owners. “The hardest part for them, it seems, just based on my conversations, is getting started and then building that initial team, creating that firm from scratch, going from zero to something is really, really, really difficult,” he explains.  

That “hardest part” echoes his own experience. 

MORE STREAMING:MORE STREAMING: Daiber: Use Succession as a Growth Strategy | 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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Before he became known to the accounting world as the co-host of the Accounting Podcast and founder of Earmark, Oliver had his own firm. “I spent five years building a firm from scratch…going from zero to a million dollars in revenue in five years,” he says. Because he was largely figuring it out on his own, the process was far harder than it needed to be.  

His new book, “Building a Sustainable Firm: Strategies for the Modern Accounting Practice,” distils the lessons he learned from talking to firm owners and from his own experiences into a blueprint for creating an accounting business that supports your team, your clients, and your own life.

“If you’re going to take the leap to go start your own firm…you should have something that you’re happy with at the end,” he explains.   

READ MORE →

GROWTH STRATEGIES

Erin Daiber: Use Succession as a Growth Strategy | The Disruptors

Firms that wait until a partner is ready to retire have already waited too long, plus 19 more key takeaways.

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

The Disruptors
With Liz Farr

Erin Daiber, founder and CEO of Well Balanced Accountants, keeps seeing the same issue in firm after firm. A partner announces their intention to retire within a year or two, and the firm suddenly realizes no one is ready to take over.  “Firms are not starting that conversation soon enough,” Daiber says.

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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“They’re not thinking about succession planning as a strategy,” she explains. Instead of treating succession as an ongoing process, firms see it as simply the point in time when a partner exits the firm. According to Daiber, succession planning should ideally begin with hiring decisions and culture building so that firms can be confident that they won’t lose clients or staff due to uncertainty about what might happen as partners get older.  

When succession planning fails, firms lose key employees before they even reach partnership consideration. “We’re losing them much sooner than that, which creates a big hole in the pipeline,” Daiber notes. She identifies an inability to have difficult conversations as the root cause, particularly when dealing with founders who view the firm as their legacy. 

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