PAY & COMPENSATION

Grunt Work Is Dead | It’s Not Just the Numbers

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…And accounting careers are better for it. 

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It’s Not Just the Numbers
With Penny Breslin and Damien Greathead
For CPA Trendlines

For decades, accounting careers followed a familiar script: grind through repetitive work, earn your stripes, and maybe—eventually—get to the interesting stuff.

That script is officially broken.

In this episode of It’s Not Just the Numbers, hosts Penny Breslin and Damien Greathead tackled one of the most misunderstood shifts in the profession: how artificial intelligence and outsourcing are reshaping early-career accounting work—and why that’s actually good news for graduates and firm leaders.

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The big question isn’t whether AI and outsourcing are here to stay. They are. The real question is whether firms will use them to strip away opportunity—or to finally fix a broken talent model.

Let’s be honest: repetitive data entry, reconciliations, and manual cleanup were never great learning tools. They were time-consuming, error-prone, and often disconnected from how firms actually create value.

Yet for years, they were treated as a rite of passage.

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Students Redefine “Career Readiness” | ARC – SLC

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…And it has less to do with technical skills than firms expect.

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Accounting ARC – Student-Led Conversations
With Arpan Grewal and Harshita Multani
Center for Accounting Transformation

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

As the accounting profession continues to grapple with talent shortages, shifting expectations, and generational change, one podcast is addressing those challenges from a rarely centered perspective: students themselves.

In an end-of-year episode of Student-Led Conversations, hosts Arpan Grewal and Harshita Multani reflect on a year of interviews alongside Donny Shimamoto, CPA.CITP, CGMA, founder and inspiration architect of the Center for Accounting Transformation. The episode serves as both a retrospective and a case study of what happens when students are entrusted with real platforms and real responsibility.

MORE Accounting ARC: Downgraded: What the DOE Said About Accounting | Savage: Using Your License as a Megaphone |  Baker: Interpreting Pricing Psychology | Don’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 Us | Gen Z Redefines Careers | Bootleggers, Baptitsts & CPAs: Rethinking Licensure

The idea for Student-Led Conversations emerged after Grewal appeared on an episode of Accounting ARC, where she interviewed seasoned professionals about their careers. What surprised her most was not the technical content, but the personal stories.

“I realized accounting isn’t just about numbers,” Grewal says during the episode. “It’s about people.”

That realization became the foundation for a student-hosted series that explores career paths, mental health, failure, advocacy, and professional identity — topics often absent from traditional recruiting or classroom discussions.

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Brown: Employer Brands Talk | MOVE Like This

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Real employee stories, not polished slogans, are winning the war for talent.

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MOVE Like This
With Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk
For CPA Trendlines

In this episode of MOVE Like This, host Bonnie Ruszczyk sits down with Rob Brown, founder and host of Accounting Voices and previous host of Accounting Influencers, to talk about what’s really driving change in the accounting profession.

Speaking from the UK with deep experience across the U.S. and global markets, Brown shares what he’s seeing in firms of all sizes: pressure from talent shortages, shifting expectations from younger professionals, and the growing importance of a strong employer brand rooted in real stories, not slogans. 

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Brown starts by outlining three major workplace trends. 
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Starting Salaries in Accounting Must Rise

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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?

Plans for succession and capital are critical.

By Kristen Rampe
 The Rosenberg Survey

Over the next year, more firms will feel comfortable with their position in the marketplace. Either because they have completed or are in the process of a transaction, or because they determined their best option was to continue as they have been (with ongoing improvements, of course). This is unlikely to reduce the hourly calls from private equity investors just yet but will make the decision on what to do with all those calls easier.

MORE: The 2025 Rosenberg MAP Survey is available from CPA Trendlines here.

I am hopeful that, as an industry, we will continue to increase staff starting salaries. Looking at today’s economics of adult life, which many young accounting professionals are interested in, such as buying a home or starting a family, the current pay rates are insufficient. We can make the changes necessary here to continue to support communities, employees and the profession of accounting.
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