Accounting Internships Need an Upgrade | ARC

As AI handles more routine work, how do young accountants develop judgment, communication and leadership?

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Accounting ARC
With Donny Shimamoto and Liz Mason

Center for Accounting Transformation

The accounting internship is due for an upgrade.

For decades, internships often give aspiring accountants their first real taste of the profession by dropping them into the work: Learn the process, complete the assignment, survive busy season and figure out the unwritten rules along the way.

But as artificial intelligence takes over more of the entry-level work traditionally assigned to new accountants, Donny Shimamoto, CPA.CITP, CGMA, and Liz Mason, CPA, argue the profession needs to reconsider what an internship is actually supposed to teach.

MORE Accounting ARC: The CPA Career Nobody Talks AboutConference Season Exposes Accounting’s Knowledge GapThe Feedback Mistake That Costs You Your Best People | Is Your Boss Really the Problem? | Most Accountants Are Missing This AI ShiftAI Can Fix Your Workflow—or Break It in Seconds | Efficiency Is the Wrong Goal for AI | Accounting’s Hidden Talent Risk: The Sandwich GenerationBuilt Fast. Sold Faster. Broken Later? The Truth About Accounting Tech | Recognize When You Need to Recharge Before You Burn OutValuing More Than the Balance Sheet

In this episode of the Accounting ARC podcast, Shimamoto, founder and managing director of IntrapriseTechKnowlogies LLC and founder and inspiration architect for the Center for Accounting Transformation, and Mason, CEO of High Rock Accounting, explore why tomorrow’s accountants need more than technical proficiency.

They need what Shimamoto calls “power skills.”

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Aynsley Damery: Learn the Early Warning Signs That Can Point to Business Failure | The Disruptors

 Scaling models that work for large firms don’t necessarily translate to small businesses.

The complete video episode, with commentary and transcript, is first available exclusively to PRO Members | Go PRO here
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The Disruptors
With Liz Farr

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

It’s not your fault that scaling advisory hasn’t worked. According to Aynsley Damery, CEO and co-founder of Clarity, the advisory model most accountants have been using was never designed for small businesses. “The model we were given is the same model that was used in the 70s and 80s by Bain and McKinsey,” Damery explains. “It was built for large corporates, and I’m not sure was ever really built for small business owner.”

MORE DISRUPTORS: Oliver: Build a Biz that Runs Without You | 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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The problem with this model is that it doesn’t scale. “The model we’ve been given is partner-reliant. It’s bespoke. Everything’s ad hoc. It takes a lot of time,” says Damery. In support of this thesis, Damery cites a Xero study in Canada that found that when firms that bolted bespoke advisory onto compliance, their profitability dropped by 30%. Damery’s own benchmarking among Clarity users confirmed this.

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Rachel Farris: The CPA Career Nobody Talks About | ARC

The next generation is blending entrepreneurship, AI, and advisory into careers that barely existed a few years ago.

Sponsored by Radical Pricing by the Radical CPA, Jody Padar | See Today’s Special Offer

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Accounting ARC
With Donny Shimamoto

Center for Accounting Transformation

For decades, the accounting profession has followed a familiar script: earn a CPA license, join a firm, climb the ladder and perhaps become a partner.

Rachel Farris, CPA, MBA, is proving there is another way.

After building a highly specialized tax advisory practice serving U.S. citizens relocating to Puerto Rico, Farris launches Tax Stack AI, a company that helps accounting firms implement artificial intelligence securely and strategically.

MORE Accounting ARC: Conference Season Exposes Accounting’s Knowledge GapThe Feedback Mistake That Costs You Your Best People | Is Your Boss Really the Problem? | Most Accountants Are Missing This AI ShiftAI Can Fix Your Workflow—or Break It in Seconds | Efficiency Is the Wrong Goal for AI | Accounting’s Hidden Talent Risk: The Sandwich GenerationBuilt Fast. Sold Faster. Broken Later? The Truth About Accounting Tech | Recognize When You Need to Recharge Before You Burn OutValuing More Than the Balance Sheet

She has since sold her CPA practice to focus on AI consulting and education, demonstrating that today’s accounting professionals can create careers far beyond traditional public accounting.

In this episode of Accounting ARC, Donny Shimamoto, CPA.CITP, CGMA, founder and managing director of IntrapriseTechKnowlogies LLC and founder and inspiration architect for the Center for Accounting Transformation, sits down with Farris to explore entrepreneurship, AI, networking and the expanding possibilities available to CPAs willing to embrace change.

Their conversation becomes less about one accountant’s journey and more about the profession’s future.

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Mandy Gallagher: Caregiving Isn’t a Side Issue – It’s a Workforce Issue | MOVE Like This

“Flexibility should be used as a tool for success. It shouldn’t be the exception.” 

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 Radical Pricing by Jody Padar, CPA | See Today’s Special Offer

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MOVE Like This
With Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk
For CPA Trendlines Research

In this episode of MOVE Like This, Mandy Gallagher, lead manager of Women’s Initiatives at the AICPA, joins Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk to discuss why caregiving has become such an important conversation in accounting, what firms may misunderstand about caregivers, and how greater flexibility and support could influence retention and leadership pipelines across the profession. Gallagher’s work focuses on advancing women’s initiatives, supporting professional development, and amplifying women’s perspectives throughout the profession. 

 

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One reason caregiving is getting more attention now is that it is both more visible and much broader than many people have traditionally assumed. Demographic shifts mean multiple generations are simultaneously balancing careers with responsibilities for children, aging parents, siblings, partners, friends, and others who rely on them. COVID also changed expectations around where and how work can happen. Employees experienced firsthand that they could remain productive while having enough flexibility to pick up a child or take a parent to a medical appointment. As more organizations return to traditional office expectations, those competing demands have become harder to reconcile.

 

The conversation challenges another long-standing assumption: that caregiving is primarily a women-with-young-children issue.

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