OCR, Research Bots & Meeting Assistants: What Actually Helps Now | ARC

Firms use AI, planning, and “hope” to make tax season more manageable.

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Accounting ARC
With Liz Mason, Byron Patrick, and Donny Shimamoto

Center for Accounting Transformation

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

As firms head into tax season, the hosts of Accounting ARC make a case for lowering the temperature — and the workload — with practical tech choices, proactive planning and a stronger focus on people.

MORE Accounting ARC: Return Season is the New Stress Test | Small Firms May Have the Biggest Advantage in 2026 | Downgraded: What the DOE Said About Accounting | Savage: Using Your License as a MegaphoneBaker: Interpreting Pricing PsychologyDon’t Get Fired by Your Own Automation | What Amazon Doesn’t Tell You | Royalties, Residuals, and Reality Checks | ARC-SLC | Free Speech Is a Right; Respect Is a Responsibility | Cash Bags, Casinos & Audits: How First Jobs Shape UsGen Z Redefines Careers | Bootleggers, Baptitsts & CPAs: Rethinking Licensure

In a special Tax Season Readiness episode, Donny Shimamoto, CPA.CITP, CGMA; joins co-hosts Liz Mason, CPA; and Byron Patrick, CPA.CITP, CGMA; to preview new tax platform research, spotlight emerging AI tools and talk candidly about what helps teams sustain momentum from January through April.

Shimamoto, founder and managing director of IntrapriseTechKnowlogies LLC and founder and inspiration architect for the Center for Accounting Transformation, sets the tone early. He says he intentionally avoids calling it “busy season,” noting that practitioners tell him the upcoming cycle may feel lighter than the past few years. The conversation that follows keeps returning to the same core question: What, specifically, helps firms reduce friction before deadlines hit?

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Epp and Schrock: Firms that Listen Keep Their People | MOVE Like This

Paychecks and perks are no longer enough to retain talent.

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

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

MOVE Like This
With Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk
For CPA Trendlines Research

In this episode of MOVE Like This, Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk sits down with Kristi Epp, a tax partner, and Amber Schrock, an advisory partner and Las Vegas market leader at Frazier & Deeter, explore how the accounting profession is evolving and how firm leaders can better support their people. Both guests share their career journeys and how they found long-term professional homes at the firm, emphasizing mentorship, growth opportunities, and a culture that values people as much as performance. 

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Epp and Schrock note that the past five years, particularly the post-COVID period, have fundamentally reshaped accounting. Remote work, automation, and regulatory complexity are now the norm, while consolidation and private equity activity are accelerating change across the profession. Frazier & Deeter’s recent growth initiatives, including acquisitions, reflect this shifting landscape and the need for firms to think differently about scale, talent, and integration.  READ MORE →

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

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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-InflictedCarroll: When One Person Can Break the FirmRampe: Build a Roadmap Even When the Road’s Not ThereChang: Killing SALY, One Agent at a Time | Vanover: 5-Star Firms Don’t Bill by the HourKless: 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 RISEProctor: Turn Dumb Ideas into Brilliant SolutionsCarter-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  

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Wasserman: Have Better Money Conversations | Holistic Guide to Wealth Management

These delicate dialogues need structure, not spontaneity.

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

By Rory Henry CFP®, BFA™
For CPA Trendlines

Money is one of the things that people think about most. Yet, most people aren’t comfortable discussing it openly.

In a new episode of Holistic Guide to Wealth Management, we sit down with Erika Wasserman, CFT, a certified financial therapist, keynote speaker, and author of “Conversations with Your Financial Therapist: Stories and Scripts to Grow Your Money Mindset,” to talk about why money conversations about are so often avoided and how advisors, families, and individuals can begin to change that dynamic. 

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Wasserman’s journey into financial therapy was shaped by personal experience. She grew up in a rare household where talking about money was normal. She earned a degree in finance from the University of Florida and began her career consulting with IBM. Over time, major life transitions, including international moves, marriage, divorce, and raising three children, have deepened her understanding of how financial decisions intersect with emotions, identity, and relationships. 

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How to Outsmart the Big Four on AI | Accounting Voices

Agility, transparency, and judgment matter more than billion-dollar platforms.

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!

Accounting Voices
With Rob Brown

The Big Four are spending billions on artificial intelligence, cutting thousands of jobs, and reshaping how accounting work gets done. That scale can feel intimidating—especially if you’re running or working inside a small or mid-tier firm.

But here’s the counterintuitive truth explored in a recent episode of Accounting Voices:
The Big Four aren’t winning because of their budgets. They’re winning because of their discipline.

This episode breaks down what smaller firms and ambitious professionals can borrow from the AI strategies of PwC, KPMG, Deloitte, and EY—without trying to copy their scale.

The lesson is clear: clarity beats capability, and governance beats gadgets.

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