MANAGEMENT

Why CPAs Leave to Work for a Client

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Money tree growing in the middle of green meadow

Is that grass really greener?

By Ed Mendlowitz
Call Me Before You Do Anything: The Art of Accounting

I know many CPAs who left public accountancy to take a “better” job. For many of them this was a mistake. For some it worked out, so if you are one of the lucky few, you can stop reading what I have to say.

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There are basically three types of companies the accountant could work for – a small client that does not have an in-house controller or CFO, one whose controller will be replaced by the departing CPA, or a large company that has an entire accounting staff already in place. Let’s talk about working for the small companies that do not have a controller.
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Bad Bosses or Bad Habits? The Truth About Workplace Failure | ARC

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From micromanagement to missed promotions, hosts get real about bad bosses—and when the problem is you.

 

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Accounting ARC
With Liz Mason and Byron Patrick
Center for Accounting Transformation

In a candid, unfiltered episode of Accounting ARC, Liz Mason, CPA, CEO of High Rock Accounting, and Byron Patrick, CPA.CITP, senior product manager at Karbon and co-founder of TB Academy, confront one of the profession’s most relatable—and uncomfortable—topics: bad bosses. 

But the conversation goes further than workplace horror stories. Mason and Patrick explore a more nuanced reality: sometimes the boss is the problem—and sometimes it’s the employee. 

MORE Accounting ARC: Why Relationships Still Drive Career Success | The Real Problem with AI in Accounting | AI Can Fix Your Workflow—or Break It in Seconds | Efficiency Is the Wrong Goal for AI | Accounting’s Hidden Talent Risk: The Sandwich Generation | Built Fast. Sold Faster. Broken Later? The Truth About Accounting Tech | Recognize When You Need to Recharge Before You Burn Out | Valuing More Than the Balance Sheet | Accounting’s “Untalked-About” Frontier | Why Happiness is Hard-Fought for High Achievers | 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 |

“We wanted to talk about this topic because it’s really important to understand when you’re the problem, when your boss is the problem, and what acceptable boundaries are,” Mason says early in the episode.

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

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“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 →

DiSC Profiles Boost Staff Effectiveness

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Overhead view of five people in a meeting

Better communication comes from better understanding.

By Jody Grunden
Building the Virtual CFO Firm in the Cloud

Working in a remote environment can be great, and it can also have its challenges. Communication is one of the biggest hurdles distributed companies have to overcome. To tackle this issue head on, Summit CPA has implemented many initiatives.

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One of our favorites is the DiSC profiles. Let me start off by telling you a little bit of the background on the DiSC profiles.
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Seven Reasons People Quit Public Accounting

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man in suit exiting office building

Better leadership could change this.

By Ed Mendlowitz
Call Me Before You Do Anything: The Art of Accounting

I have written about CPAs who leave public accounting and go to work in private industry. Based upon the comments and emails I’ve received, this is an involved topic and I would like to delve into it further.

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I was writing about my observations, particularly of many people in their mid-50s I have known who cannot get jobs in private industry after spending a major part of their careers there. Obviously, there are many people with extremely successful careers in private industry and I was not addressing them, but I do consider them to be in the minority. Also, we are all individuals, and we each decide on how we want to work and what we are comfortable with. No one, including me, has any right to criticize them or tell them they should have done it differently.
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