Today's Features
ABOUT US

We’re Honored

Thank you, and Congratulations to the CPA Trendlines community of influencers.

By CPA Trendlines Research

CPA Trendlines Research extends its congratulations and appreciation to the 39 authors, creators, contributors, collaborators and guests who appear in this year’s edition of the Top 100 Most Influential People by Accounting Today.

“We’re very grateful to the brilliant thought leaders and changemakers who make CPA Trendlines what it is,” says CPA Trendlines founder and CEO Rick Telberg.

Accounting Today calls CPA Trendlines “a platform for a wide range of diverse voices to share exciting new ideas through articles, podcasts, videos and books, while also offering useful research data and practical intelligence on the critical issues facing the profession to an audience of more than half a million accountants.” And terms Telberg “one of the great impresarios of accounting.”

Among this year’s Top 100, including the new names to watch:

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GROWTH STRATEGIES

Maximize Impact with Tiered Service Packages

illustration of three tiers of service offeringWhat are your competitive advantages?

By Jackie Meyer

We have shifted your mindset and model: you’re focusing on advisory value and pricing for ROI. Now, let’s get practical about structuring your services in a way that attracts the right clients, maximizes value per client and simplifies your operations. Enter tiered service packages.

MORE: Eight Steps to ROI Pricing | Shift Your Value Proposition from Compliance to Advisory | How Niches Lead to Growth | Vision vs. Mission, and Why You Need One | Ten Questions to Check Your Entrepreneurship | More Revenue in Fewer Hours
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Offering your services in tiered packages (rather than ad-hoc or one-size-fits-all) can be a game-changer. It provides clarity for clients, helps you avoid scope creep and increases your revenue by capturing different levels of client needs.

At Meyer Tax Consulting (my firm), we developed a structured tiered approach, which I’ll use as an example. You can model your own tiers similarly, customized to your niche and strengths.
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ABOUT US

Bissett Bullet: Expertise Is Too Valuable to be Given Away for Free

Today’s Bissett Bullet: “When we can listen to our prospective client’s issues without giving away all the answers in our replies, we’ve got a chance of winning work.”

By Martin Bissett

It’s one of the hardest things to do in a professional selling situation. We want to oust the current accountant, we want to explain why we are a better choice and we want to demonstrate that we can solve their problems, but loyalty is a demanding mistress.

In the same way that our proposal should include the “what” not the “how,” we must appreciate that when we tell our prospective clients how to go about fixing their issues before we have their signature on a payment plan, we’re simply encouraging them to go back to their existing accountants and save themselves the pain of change.

Today’s To-Do:

Practice advising the prospective client “what” can be done to help them but not “how.”

See more Bissett Bullets here

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ACCOUNTING ARC

Downgraded: What the DOE Said About Accounting | ARC

A new definition of “professional degree” limits loan access for accounting students and raises fresh alarms about equity, access, and pipeline. 

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Accounting ARC
With Liz Mason, Byron Patrick, and Donny Shimamoto
Center for Accounting Transformation

When the U.S. Department of Education released its negotiated language for implementing the “One Big Beautiful Bill” Act’s graduate loan reforms, most accountants probably did not expect to see their field at the center of a political storm. 

But in draft rules tied to the law, accounting master’s programs are not classified as “professional degree” programs for purposes of federal student loan caps.  

MORE Accounting ARC: 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 | CPA Firm Ownership Under Fire | Walking Violation: When Showing Your CPA Gets You in Trouble | Audit Bags to TikTok Tags, Gen Z Talks Success | Students Challenge Accounting’s Traditional Career Path | True Grit: Recognizing Struggles That Shape Our Successes |More Admins, Fewer Students, No Plan | What Career Advice Gets Wrong for Gen Z – And How to Fix It | Your Identity is Not a Liability | Burnout, Be Gone: Accounting Needs a Boundary Breakthrough

That classification matters. Under the new structure, beginning in July 2026, graduate students may borrow up to $20,500 per year, with a $100,000 lifetime cap, while “professional students” are allowed up to $50,000 annually and $200,000 total. Medicine and law make the professional list. Accounting does not. Neither do nursing, education, architecture, social work, nor several other fields that traditionally are seen as high-skill professions. 

In this episode of Accounting ARC, co-hosts Liz Mason, CPA; Byron Patrick, CPA.CITP; and Donny Shimamoto, CPA.CITP, CGMA, unpack what that reclassification could mean for the accounting pipeline—and for how the profession sees itself. 

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MARKETING & SALES

Eleven Marketing Strategies for Smaller Firms

woman holding eyeglasses and looking at laptop screen

Including the five stages of an inbound marketing funnel.

By August Aquila
MAX: Maximize Productivity, Profitability and Client Retention

Small firm owners know they need to market, but they don’t always know which marketing activities they need to focus on. Here are 11 strategies for increasing your client base that are easy to implement.

MORE by August J. Aquila
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1. Get Known in the Marketplace

Before you start marketing, you need to answer these two questions:

  • Who are you?
  • What do you offer?

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PRICING, FEES & BILLING RATES

Some Clients Just Don’t Fit

businesswoman smiling at two clients, man and woman

Your team has to talk to them every day.

By Jody Padar
Radical Pricing – By The Radical CPA

A friend who owned a business services firm in the marketing industry once told me he would rather face waterboarding than resign a hard-won client. However, even he cast a big one aside after his key employee returned from a client meeting in tears. Some things just can’t be tolerated. Your job is to determine where the line should be and to make the decision before a bad client has the chance to negatively affect your company.

MORE by Jody Padar
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A client’s fit with your firm is every bit as important as their behavior and payment practices. After you adopt a new client-centric, value-based business model, some clients won’t fit in. Some will want to stick with the transactional model of the billable hour. They may not be comfortable with your new direction. Some clients may not even want to pay for your smallest service bundle despite the enhanced service levels it includes.
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ADVISORY & CONSULTING

Help Not-For-Profits Avoid Fraud

Five ways to reassure both regulators and donors.

By Ed Mendlowitz
77 Ways to Wow!

Again and again, stories appear in newspapers about abuse and misuse of funds in not-for-profit organizations. In many cases, these frauds have been schemes that have been going on for numerous years.

MORE by Ed Mendlowitz
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The frauds are usually carried out by long-serving employees who earned reputation and trust that resulted in relaxation of controls or oversight. Many times, this provides temptation and ample opportunity to commit and sustain fraudulent activity over long periods paired with a reduction in the “fear” of being caught!
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FEATURED VIDEO

Green: Why Clients Quit You | Big 4 Transparency

The number one complaint isn’t pricing. It’s confusion.

This is a preview. The complete video episode, with commentary and transcript, is first available exclusively to PRO Members | Go PRO here
Sponsored by Poe Group Advisors: Helping accountants buy, build, and sell exceptional firms. See Today’s Special Offer

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Poe Group Advisors consistently excels in helping our clients find the right accounting practice sales opportunity.
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Big 4 Transparency
By Dominic Piscopo, CPA
For CPA Trendlines

For many business owners, finding the right accountant feels like an impossible task. You’re trusting someone with your finances, your future, and sometimes even your peace of mind. But in an industry dominated by word-of-mouth and vague Google listings, Sam’s List has emerged as a game-changing alternative: a review-based directory for CPAs, bookkeepers, fractional CFOs, and financial advisors, designed to make trust and transparency easier for everyone. 

MORE Dominic Piscopo | MORE Private Equity | MORE Pay & Compensation

In this episode of Big 4 Transparency, host Dominic Piscopo speaks with co-founder Kimi Green, who shares the wild story of how the viral idea from entrepreneur Sam Parr (of My First Million) turned into a thriving lead-generation platform – and how she found herself leading it with no prior experience in accounting. “I despised accounting,” Green laughs. “I didn’t even ask follow-up questions when someone told me they were a CPA.” 

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OUTLOOK & ANALYSIS

Four Strategic Fronts for Accounting Firms

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?

For some, independence is a strategic choice.

By Gary Thomson
 The Rosenberg Survey

The next 12 months will see independent-minded firms pressing harder on four strategic fronts – clarifying their five-year vision, defining the priorities to get there, calculating the cost, and determining where the capital will come from. These questions will keep the mergers and acquisitions market hot, as some firms pursue scale or stability through deals while strong, well-capitalized players step into market gaps left by consolidation.

MORE: The 2025 Rosenberg MAP Survey is available from CPA Trendlines here.
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Artificial intelligence and automation will move from experiments to deliberate deployment, with clear expectations for efficiency, insight and safeguards. Outsourcing will remain a growth lever, but firms will also invest more heavily in their people – expanding career opportunities, developing leaders and using culture as a talent magnet.
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MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS

Smaller, Larger Accounting Firms Have Different M&A Concerns

Four businesspeople greeting each other

Seven topics for the first negotiation meeting.

By Marc Rosenberg
CPA Firm Mergers: Your Complete Guide

Mergers succeed in direct proportion to the effort made by both firms to

  1. ask lots of questions,
  2. agree on as many merger implementation issues as possible before the merger takes place and
  3. openly share as much of their “dirty laundry” as possible to minimize surprises.

MORE by Marc Rosenberg
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Don’t assume anything. When you sit down for your first merger negotiation meeting:

  1. Start the meeting by confirming and agreeing on the agenda.

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MARKETING & SALES

Get Your Personal House in Order

Eight questions to ask yourself.

By Martin Bissett
Winning Your First Client

You know the identity of your first client, and if you buy into you, then there’s a good chance of potential clients being prepared to do so, too.

MORE by Martin Bissett
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This is what we must remember about the purchasing of professional services such as accounting. If your prospective client is a Grade A or B style opportunity for your firm, then they are not buying the services you provide per se. The services are the vehicles of delivery; the means to the end.

The client is buying the relationship, and they are asking themselves:
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FEATURED VIDEO

Rampe: Build a Roadmap Even When the Road’s Not There | The Disruptors

Only disciplined planning, accountability, and open communication will cut through the industry’s rapidly thickening fog.

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 Tax Season Readiness: Practical Steps for a Smoother Busy Season, Dec. 10, 2 p.m., 1.5 CPE  | See Today’s Special Offer

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The Disruptors
With Liz Farr

Matt Rampe sees the accounting industry as one “under a lot of pressure to change, and it’s changing very quickly.” The combination of a staffing crisis, retiring baby boomers, AI, private equity, and tax law is creating “the fog,” a period in which the path forward isn’t just unclear; it’s fundamentally unknowable. 

To address “the fog,” his new book, CPA Firm Strategic Planning: Your Roadmap for Long-Term Success, lays out a framework grounded in decades of consulting experience with Rosenberg Associates, combined with research on organizational change, leadership psychology, and what drives team performance. “Strategic planning, in my mind, is the venue by which you analyze and think through those issues, put them up, not just out of reactivity,” Rampe explains. It means “really stepping back and looking at the big picture of the industry and your firm and your situation, and then making choices that you’re aligned with.” 

MORE STREAMING: Chang: Killing SALY, One Agent at a Time | Vanover: 5-Star Firms Don’t Bill by the Hour | Kless: 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 RISE | Proctor: Turn Dumb Ideas into Brilliant Solutions | Carter-Gray: How 1 Poor Review Strengthened the Firm | Hartman: Upwork to “40 Under 40” in 3 Years |

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According to Rampe’s research, strategic planning fails most often at the execution stage. Nearly two-thirds of respondents reported that “execution fails after the planning meeting.” Firms gather, generate good ideas, identify priorities, and then get pulled into their day-to-day work, and nothing happens. Or they put off strategic planning altogether until some imaginary day when they might have time.  

“One of the insights is you need to spend time working on the business, not just in the business, because the in the business is going to drown you,” Rampe explains. The way you solve that is “not working harder in the business. It’s working, prioritizing, working on the business.” 

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PRO Member Exclusive

Give Tax Clients Better Instructions

Eleven steps that will help them help you.

By Ed Mendlowitz
Tax Season Opportunity Guide

Providing instructions of what a client needs to do must be clear enough so that the client doesn’t call you to find out what to do.

MORE by Ed Mendlowitz
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Sometimes taking an extra minute to lay out what the client should do can eliminate that call or indecisive moment a client might feel.
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