Today's Features
BUSY SEASON MANAGEMENT

Busy Season 2026: Chaos Looms as DOGE Cuts and OBBBA Changes Collide

Downsizing and backlogs become national policy.

By CPA Trendlines Research

The Internal Revenue Service is heading into the 2026 filing season with fewer employees, more complex tax law changes, and less capacity to resolve problems when returns go wrong — a combination federal watchdogs say will leave tax professionals managing the fallout even as headline service metrics appear stable.

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National Taxpayer Advocate Erin M. Collins says most taxpayers with straightforward, electronically filed returns should see few disruptions. But she warned that the true test of the filing season will be how the IRS handles the millions of returns that require human intervention — at a time when the agency’s workforce has been cut by more than a quarter.

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PRO Member Exclusive

Subscriptions Make Clients Feel Like Members

man talking to pair of people seated across from him

Why they beat AUM and hourly fees for wealth management.

By Rory Henry
The Holistic Guide to Wealth Management

Recently I listened to a lively debate about financial advisor compensation between Ramit Sethi, author of the best seller “I Will Teach You To Be Rich,” and Michael Kitces, host of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast. Sethi was highly critical of the traditional 1 percent of assets under management (AUM) model that so many wealth advisors charge. Instead of 1 percent of AUM, Sethi argued that advisors should think of themselves as accountability partners (i.e., personal trainers for clients’ money) and instead charge them based on how they help them modify their behaviors to produce better outcomes.

MORE Rory Henry and The Holistic Guide to Wealth Management
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For instance, a good advisor can help clients adopt good behaviors such as saving more of every paycheck and sticking to their investment plan during volatile times. Good advisors, said Sethi, also help clients from engaging in their old wealth-destructive behaviors such as speculating on hot stocks in the news or cashing out of the market at the first sign of trouble. By the way, helping clients modify behaviors and produce better outcomes is what an Advis-ROR™ does.

Let’s explore how an AUM/subscription model using a virtual family office is a win for both firms and the clients they serve.
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PRO Member Exclusive

How Workflow Helps Transfer Clients to New Employees

three businessmen sharing handshake

Use your software to guide the training.

By Jody Grunden
Building the Virtual CFO Firm in the Cloud

When it comes to onboarding new employees, workflow management software can be extremely helpful in streamlining the process. In most cases, as we grow, new employees take over existing clients from other team members. They still need to meet with the other team members to discuss what’s needed for each client, but the workflow management software serves as their roadmap during that time.

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Although much of the process may be very similar from one client to the next, each client has its own individual needs. The roadmap is an important tool that guides new employees through the day-to-day workflow for each individual client.
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ABOUT US

Bissett Bullet: Saving for a Rainy Day

Today’s Bissett Bullet: “Debt leverage is a very risky business, especially for smaller firms. I appreciate that it’s not always avoidable, but proactively planning and saving for a rainy day is a far better strategy.”

By Martin Bissett

In an ideal world, if the unexpected occurs and you need to draw on an emergency fund, you turn to your cash reserves, the money you have saved to allow you to continue drawing from your business in the event of a temporary shortfall in income. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, those businesses with a three- to six-month reserve saved for a rainy day found that it didn’t rain quite so hard as it might have done.

The lesson? Be financially wise. Treat the funds in your business as sacred and plan for the unknown. You will sail through whatever emergencies come your way without accumulating debt to repay.

Today’s To-Do:

How much can you reasonably afford to save each month to build your rainy day fund? Plan to start doing so immediately.

See more Bissett Bullets here

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FEATURED VIDEO

Jeremy Dubow: Raising the Bar for Talent | Big 4 Transparency

Why equity is the new standard for talent retention.

This is a preview. The complete 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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Big 4 Transparency
By Dominic Piscopo, CPA
For CPA Trendlines

Jeremy Dubow, CEO and co-founder of Chicago-based, private-equity-backed Prosperity Partners, explains how entrepreneurship in accounting has shifted from demand-driven to capacity-constrained, and why transparent equity programs are becoming the new standard for talent retention.

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Dubow joins Dominic Piscopo on Big 4 Transparency to discuss how accounting-firm entrepreneurship and the operating model required to scale have changed since he co-founded NDH in 2003. NDH later sold to private equity and rebranded as Prosperity Partners, which Dubow described as a case study in how firms are adapting to labor constraints, expanding client complexity, and rising expectations around technology and talent strategy.

Quotables
“The demand for accounting services is greater than it ever has been. The challenge is providing the service at a high level in a labor-constrained environment.”
“AI in and of itself is not right now the solution to solve all our problems. Using automation and offshoring gives us the operational leverage to create that capacity.”
“I recognize that my people are being attempted to be poached every single day of the year.”
“Why have a stock price if you don’t disclose what it is?”
“‘’If I worked that 80-hour week, you should too.’ Well, guess what? That doesn’t work anymore.”

Dubow argues the profession has shifted from a demand constraint to a capacity constraint. Client needs continue to expand, but firms increasingly struggle to staff and deliver services proactively at scale.

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