Why is McDonald’s easy to price and why is their product so consistent no matter where in the world you are? You know that if you get a Big Mac in Chicago or one in New York, it will taste and cost the same. This is because of standardization, and you shouldn’t underestimate the role digitized data plays in maintaining this consistency.
Your firm can standardize and price just like McDonald’s does, if you have the right tech infrastructure, in addition to standards related to both clients and workflow. READ MORE →
Venture capital crashes the private equity party in accounting.
Consolidation constellation: Sponsors in blue, platforms in red, targets in gold.
By CPA Trendlines Research
The CPA Trendlines CPA PE Deal Tracker™ shows the steep rise in deal flow, hitting more than 450.
Private equity’s push into accounting is entering a new and more complicated phase: platform building, sponsor recycling, technology investments, blended tax and wealth services — and now, a new pipeline of cash from venture capital.
This month’s CPA Trendlines CPA-PE Deal Tracker™ shows nine new deals in April, down from the first-quarter deal-closing frenzy but bringing the year-to-date deal count through April 30 to 78, well ahead of the 44 logged in the same window of 2025.
The broader verified dataset now includes 452 in-scope events, giving CPA Trendlines a clearer view of what private capital is doing after its first wave of accounting-firm investments.
The latest data does not show a retreat. It shows a transformation. The new gambits go well beyond roll-ups, and include service line extensions, corporate carve-outs, cross-industry tie-ups, recapitalizations, continuations and a buzzy new venture-backed startup.
World domination
The deal models are sprawling in all directions as big money battles for a dwindling number of prime firms and squeezes for synergies in the firms they’ve acquired.
In the mix, accounting is morphing from a profession into a platform. A launchpad from which to sell a growing, and traditionally conflict-laden, range of products and services. From tax planning to wealth management, from outsourced accounting systems to internal audit, and from risk management to insurance sales.
A once incongruous, even contradictory, collection of services are being acquired, aligned and advanced. The ambition is market encirclement. The impulse is world domination.
When you have three people in your firm, each doing things their own way, you won’t be able to standardize until you get them all on the same page. Technology makes it easy to do that.
Technology is spurring innovation and driving automation – and that’s reshaping the future of accounting. Automation is simply using technology to complete tasks that are typically done by humans, and it will help you standardize by providing: READ MORE →
We were once contacted by the IRS because they thought our server had been compromised. When the field officer who came to our office asked to see our server, we explained that we didn’t have a server. She was a little surprised by that information and then asked where we kept our files. We explained that we use cloud storage and programs designed specifically for encryption and security. READ MORE →
Artificial intelligence is moving fast—fast enough that even the people experimenting with it daily admit they’re still figuring it out in real time. On the latest episode of Accounting ARC, Byron Patrick, CPA.CITP, and Liz Mason, CPA, take listeners inside that reality: a profession eager to unlock AI-driven efficiency, but still learning how to manage the risks that come with it.
The conversation centers on a deceptively simple idea—just because AI can do something doesn’t mean it should. And in accounting, the consequences of getting that wrong can be immediate.
The discussion begins with a practical example: integrating AI tools like Claude into everyday workflows, particularly in systems such as QuickBooks or Excel.
What makes these tools powerful is also what makes them risky.
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