CHARTS & GRAPHS

Tipping Point: Accountants Scramble for AI Tech

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New workflow systems expected to cut labor problems and shore up profit margins.

Coming out of tax season, more than 55% of firms are looking for new artificial intelligence solutions, up 10 points from before the season. The scramble for practice management and workflow solutions has almost doubled. (CPA Trendlines Research)

By CPA Trendlines Research

The CPA Trendlines Busy Season Barometer shows accounting firms are already planning changes to their technology and workflows, aiming to address the same pressures that defined this year’s busy season.

The research points to a profession broadly aligned with what needs to change, but much less aligned with how quickly those changes can be put into practice.


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Firms across the spectrum, whether reporting a better or worse tax season, identify similar priorities: improving efficiency, reducing manual work and making better use of technology.

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 Busy Season 2026: Clients, Pricing, Staffing… CRUNCH

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CPA Trendlines Busy Season Barometer: Modest Gains, Mixed Outlook, Cautious Tech Upgrades Ahead

Top concerns: “The returns aren’t harder—they’re just later.” (CPA Trendlines Busy Season Barometer)
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By CPA Trendlines Research

The 2026 tax season shows some gradual improvement for certain firms, but most practitioners report conditions that remain largely unchanged from a year ago, according to the latest data from the CPA Trendlines Busy Season Barometer.

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The good news is: 2026 hasn’t turned into the disaster some were expecting with a new tax law and diminished IRS. The bad news is: 2026 is turning into a relatively routine year — without the advances in workflow or the better margins from higher-value services that some were hoping for.

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PE Wars: The CPA Platform Economy Is Concentrating Fast

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After hundreds of deals, the data show a gravitational pull toward a handful of buyers now driving the profession’s future.

CPA Trendlines chart showing PE-backed accounting platform power players

CPA Trendlines PE Deal Tracker: Mega-aggregators dominate the money flow as the race tightens between Ascend, Aprio, Crete, Eisner and Ryan.

By CPA Trendlines Research

The frantic pace of deal-making this past March marks a turning point. What had been described as a consolidation phase has matured into something more defined and more consequential: a platform-driven market in which a relatively small number of repeat acquirers are shaping the profession’s future.

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As the first quarter of 2026 closes, the story is no longer simply about transactions. It is about structure. The question has shifted from who is buying whom to which investment models, operating systems, and capital strategies will define the next decade of accounting.

For years, the prevailing narrative held that private equity would democratize the profession. Capital, it was said, would spread broadly across hundreds of firms, opening access to institutional funding that had never before been available. But the data tells a different story.

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Tax Prep Wages and Salaries Hit 4-Year High

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Even as DIY returns cut into pros’ market share.

By CPA Trendlines

Wages for accountants and tax preparers are rising far faster than hiring as the 2026 filing season begins, even as early filing volumes trail last year’s pace.

Average hourly earnings in the accounting and tax preparation sector rose roughly 4 percent to 6 percent year over year, pushing pay for many accountants above $45 per hour, while employment across the tax and accounting sector is increasing only a few tenths of a percent.

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If current trends hold, the accounting industry will process about 150 million individual tax returns in 2026 — roughly 0.4 percent more than last year — with nearly the same number of workers..

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The 7.6x Machine: How Grassroots Firms Are Taking Private Equity for a Ride

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Fewer than 200 investors triggered almost 900 acquisitions.

Global issues: 1,052 total firms impacted, 177 direct PE investments, 875 roll-up acquisitions, 7.6× 2025 roll-up multiplier, 4× multiplier growth since 2021.

 

By CPA Trendlines Research

A multiplier that has grown fourfold since 2021 reveals a transformation driven not by new private equity entrants, but by platform firms consuming the mid-market at speed.

It belies the notion that PE is taking over the accounting profession. In fact, new global research argues that local and mid-size firms worldwide are taking control of their own futures and using institutional capital to pick up the tab.

MORE Private Equity | Deal Tracker: PE Platforms Accelerate the Grab for CPA Firms | With Apax Sale, CohnReznick Starts Building a National Platform | Unicorns and Funerals: From the Demise of Botkeeper to the Rise of Basis.ai | Jeremy Dubow: Raising the Bar for Talent | Big 4 Transparency | Twelve Great Reasons to Merge In a Smaller Accounting Firm

The numbers that define private equity’s advance into accounting do not look the way most people expect. The headlines feature the big firms and the brand-name investors — TowerBrook Capital and EisnerAmper, New Mountain Capital and Grant Thornton, Ares Management and Baker Tilly. But the actual architecture of the transformation is being built one level below: in the relentless, largely unnoticed roll-up of smaller practices into PE-backed platforms.

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