OUTLOOK & ANALYSIS

Accountants Keep Upgrading Clients

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Every year, the 2025 Rosenberg MAP Survey asks the industry’s top consultants to share their observations from CPA firms across the country: How do you think the next 12 months will unfold? Trends? Predictions? Other thoughts? Also, how would you assess the last 12 months? Trends? Observations? Struggles?

Hours will become obsolete.

By Carl George
 The Rosenberg Survey

Firms will continue to upgrade their client profiles and disengage from clients who no longer fit. The result is more time will be spent on higher-value clients and emerging high-value clients. A strategy long overdue for some.

MORE: The 2025 Rosenberg MAP Survey is available from CPA Trendlines here.
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This strategy meets the challenge of transactional versus relationship-driven. The key is to put a process in place that defines a high-value client, to prioritize the plan for each client, and to develop a side strategy that affords the appropriate resources (time and people) to give the high-value clients their due.
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PE, M&A Will Consolidate Accounting Profession

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Every year, the 2025 Rosenberg MAP Survey asks the industry’s top consultants to share their observations from CPA firms across the country: How do you think the next 12 months will unfold? Trends? Predictions? Other thoughts? Also, how would you assess the last 12 months? Trends? Observations? Struggles?

Move to more corporate culture helps ease staffing shortages.

By Terry Putney
 The Rosenberg Survey

I expect to see at least 100 to 150 acquisitions made by private equity or PE-backed CPA firms in the next 12 months. I expect to see as many as 15 to 20 of the Top 100 firms either be acquired by a PE-backed Top 100 firm or take investment from PE and remain independent.

MORE: The 2025 Rosenberg MAP Survey is available from CPA Trendlines here.
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I think we will see between two and five of previous investments made in CPA firms by PE change hands in the next 12 months. Up to now, only one major flip has occurred, the New Mountain Capital sale of their interest in Citrin Cooperman to Blackstone. Incidentally, New Mountain Capital reinvested those proceeds to a great extent with an investment in Wipfli and still holds an investment in Grant Thornton.
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Hopson: Stop Turnover Before It Starts | Know-How Korner

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Use hope to shift stress, strengthen culture, and keep talent.

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Know-How Korner
With Donny Shimamoto
Center for Accounting Transformation

Know How Korner, hosted by Donny Shimamoto, aims to translate peer-reviewed findings into practical actions for firms. In a recent episode, Shimamoto interviews Katelynn Hopson, assistant professor of accounting at Arkansas Tech University, whose dissertation quantifies a deceptively soft concept—hope—and links it to how public accountants experience stress and consider leaving their firms.

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Catch more Katelynn Hopson on the Tax Season Readiness Webinar – Dec. 10, 2 p.m. ET. 

Hope, in the research literature, is not vague optimism. Psychologist C. R. Snyder frames it as goal-directed cognition comprising agency (“the will”) and pathways (“the ways”). Hopson studies state hope—how hopeful someone is about a specific time frame or event—rather than broad personality-level trait hope. State hope moves; it can be built or eroded by experience and context.

“People who have higher levels of hope are more likely to want to stay and less likely to feel burned out,” Hopson explains.

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Technology Challenges the Accounting Profession

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Every year, the 2025 Rosenberg MAP Survey asks the industry’s top consultants to share their observations from CPA firms across the country: How do you think the next 12 months will unfold? Trends? Predictions? Other thoughts? Also, how would you assess the last 12 months? Trends? Observations? Struggles?

Billable hours will remain under attack. They have to go.

By Gale Crosley
 The Rosenberg Survey

Technology will continue to challenge our ability to harness its power. Firms will need to continue to rely heavily on technology consultants to help them sort through the confusing array of options.

MORE: The 2025 Rosenberg MAP Survey is available from CPA Trendlines here.
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Beware of capabilities promised but not yet ready for prime time. Plan to be on a continuous shopping trip in multiple categories of tech because of the rapid advancement in platforms.
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Accounting Will See Agentic AI

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Every year, the 2025 Rosenberg MAP Survey asks the industry’s top consultants to share their observations from CPA firms across the country: How do you think the next 12 months will unfold? Trends? Predictions? Other thoughts? Also, how would you assess the last 12 months? Trends? Observations? Struggles?

PE groups seek their own solutions.

By Roman Kepczyk
 The Rosenberg Survey

From my perspective, private equity investments in both firm acquisitions and technology solutions focused specifically toward accounting automation will be a key driver in firm strategic discussions in the next 12 months.

MORE: The 2025 Rosenberg MAP Survey is available from CPA Trendlines here.
GoProCPA.comExclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

 

As I consult from a technology perspective, I believe we will see significant advances in the use of agentic artificial intelligence solutions being integrated into accounting production processes. Agentic solutions work autonomously to complete tasks and can analyze options and redirect themselves, minimizing human interaction until needed.

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