By CPA Trendlines Research
An unproductive partner can be a disaster for an accounting firm. The problem could have several sources, so sometimes a conversation can improve the situation while maintaining respect and team spirit.
Exclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.Here are 10 things to talk about.
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The “Tax Season Readiness” webinar provides quick, practical strategies to help firms prepare for the hectic demands of the upcoming months.
By CPA Trendlines
As tax professionals gear up for another challenging filing season, the Center for Accounting Transformation and CPA Trendlines Research invite practitioners, firm owners, and IT professionals to join a powerhouse panel for “Tax Season Readiness: Practical Steps for a Smoother Busy Season,” a 90-minute live webinar and Accounting ARC Live event on Dec. 10, 2025, from 2 to 3:30 p.m. ET.
For more details or to register, visit cpa.click/taxready.
The session will feature the popular Accounting ARC trio—Donny Shimamoto, Liz Mason, and Byron Patrick—alongside special guest thought leaders Dr. Jackie Meyer, CPA; Rory Henry; and Katelyn Hopson, who will bring fresh insights into tax efficiency, firm capacity, and modern advisory methods.
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?
M&A will intensify, especially for midsized firms.
By Carrie Steffen
The Rosenberg Survey
Artificial intelligence will continue to reshape the daily work of CPAs – transforming mundane tasks and enabling deeper advisory roles. Many are wrestling with what this means for new grads who are hired into entry-level roles that historically have been learning opportunities. I do wonder about how we will accelerate skills development for high-value skills like fraud detection, strategic analysis and client interaction.
My guess? We will begin to see a shift. Traditionally accounting grads went to public accounting for a few years then left for private industry (for many reasons). But my prediction is we will begin to see a slow flip of that script.
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Michael Maksymiw, CPA CGMA MSA, is executive director, Aprio Firm Alliance at Aprio. He connects growing firms with resources to advance client relationships and provides access to subject matter experts in specialties that fall outside a firm’s wheelhouse. He holds a Master of Science in Accounting from University of Connecticut. |
Put your vision into practice.
By Michael Maksymiw, CPA CGMA MSA
The Holistic Guide to Wealth Management
A successful future firm has an abundance mindset and an adaptable leadership style. The abundance mindset is based on the belief that there is enough work for everyone. That means the firm can focus on what it wants to – it can pick its niche. And the firm will utilize its network of other firms who think similarly to completely service the client.
Exclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.A generalist who tries to do everything for a client is the old model. A specialist who finds other specialists to ensure the client has the best team around them for their success is the model of the future.
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Poor onboarding frustrates clients, burns out staff, and kills profitability.
It’s Not Just the Numbers
With Penny Breslin and Damien Greathead
For CPA Trendlines
Winning the client is exciting—but in Client Accounting Services (CAS), that’s just the opening act. The real work, and the real success, depends on what happens immediately after a prospect says “yes.”
MORE Penny Breslin and Damien Greathead
MORE Advisory & Consulting
BUY “It’s Not Just the Numbers”
In this episode of It’s Not Just the Numbers, hosts Penny Breslin and Damien Greathead make the case that onboarding is one of the most overlooked, underdeveloped, and business-critical functions in CAS firms today.
“Too many firms have no clue what actually happens when a client walks in the door,” Breslin says. “You sold the work, but what happens next? What experience does the client have? And what does your team do first?”
Two-thirds of current firm leaders risk being obsolete within three years.
Accounting Influencers
With Rob Brown
A stark warning is shaking the accounting profession: 65% of current firm partners will be considered “digitally obsolete” within three years. The unsettling part? Private equity (PE) investors are not planning to retrain them—they are preparing to replace them.
On the latest episode of the Accounting Influencers Podcast, host Rob Brown uncovers how private equity–backed firms are redrawing the profession’s leadership map. The digital divide is no longer theoretical. It is already defining who will lead the future of accounting and who will be pushed aside.
Partners who cap their own comp can solve staffing, retention, and motivation in one bold move.
Gear Up for Growth
With Jean Caragher
For CPA Trendlines
When public accounting firms talk about “leadership challenges,” the conversation often turns into a soft focus on communication styles or vague culture issues.
Michael Meihaus goes straight for the hard truths.
On Gear Up for Growth, hosted by Capstone Marketing president Jean Caragher, Meihaus—owner of Meihaus CPA in Escondido, California—lays out the structural leadership failings he sees across the profession: outdated ownership models, harmful work expectations, broken incentives, and leaders who resist change because the current system works for them, even as it burns everyone else out.
More Gear Up for Growth here. | More Jean Caragher here |
Get her best-selling handbook, The 90-Day Marketing Plan for CPA Firms, here | More CPA Trendlines videos and podcasts here
“It’s simply that we don’t change unless we have to,” he tells Caragher. In a profession that’s been “stable, profitable, successful” for decades, too many people at the top have little incentive to transform how firms actually operate.
And three questions to answer.
By August Aquila
MAX: Maximize Productivity, Profitability and Client Retention
There are, of course, a lot of things you can do to have a successful marketing campaign, but here are five that you should seriously consider.
Exclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.
Mechanics do it and so can you.
By Jody Padar
Radical Pricing – By The Radical CPA
Change orders are the result of a well-scoped process. They occur when a client adds a service not included in their original engagement or when a manager or partner requests a service be scoped and priced separately. The client decides whether or not to proceed with the change.
Exclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.The process of a change order is similar to taking your car to the mechanic for an oil change. During a diagnostic, they find you need a tire alignment as well. The alignment is not included in the services you bought, but you’re curious to know how much it would cost. Depending on the price, you’ll add it to the original quote, or you won’t.
Directors must read and understand financials.
By Ed Mendlowitz
77 Ways to Wow!
Hardly a week goes by that I do not read about a theft, fraud, misappropriation, defalcation or egregious wasteful spending at some charitable organization. Some are perpetuated over many years – perhaps as many as seven years.
Exclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.Lack of controls, oversight, disinterest or lackadaisical care creates an atmosphere where an already weak person can spot an opportunity, or perhaps an uncaught or unguarded careless mistake gives birth to a pattern of ongoing criminal action by someone who never had an unlawful thought.
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“Being efficient got me more work, not more money. So I left.”
Big 4 Transparency
By Dominic Piscopo, CPA
For CPA Trendlines
When Mike Maksymiw first joined the Big 4 Transparency podcast, listeners were struck by his candor, clarity, and willingness to challenge the profession’s long-standing norms. Now, as host Dominic Piscopo welcomes him back as the show’s first repeat guest, Maksymiw brings even more insight—this time shaped by Aprio’s rapid growth, his own unconventional career path, and a message for accountants who feel stuck in roles that no longer fit.
MORE Dominic Piscopo | MORE Private Equity | MORE Pay & Compensation
Maksymiw currently serves as executive director of the Aprio Firm Alliance, a national network of nearly 100 firms that share resources, expertise, and support across specialties and geographies. And—thanks to Aprio’s recent acquisition of the PS Plus Alliance from RSM—the Alliance has nearly doubled in size.
“It broadens how we can go find answers,” he explains. “Now there are a hundred people you can ask, and maybe fifty have done what you’re trying to do. Maybe there are seven different ways to make it work.”
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?
Hours will become obsolete.
By Carl George
The Rosenberg Survey
Firms will continue to upgrade their client profiles and disengage from clients who no longer fit. The result is more time will be spent on higher-value clients and emerging high-value clients. A strategy long overdue for some.
Exclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.
This strategy meets the challenge of transactional versus relationship-driven. The key is to put a process in place that defines a high-value client, to prioritize the plan for each client, and to develop a side strategy that affords the appropriate resources (time and people) to give the high-value clients their due.
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Eight ways to derail a merger.
By Marc Rosenberg
CPA Firm Mergers: Your Complete Guide
As you will see from reading these examples of issues I have seen arise at second meetings, touchy or sensitive items are much more easily dealt with before the letter of intent is prepared than after.
Exclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.The discussion at this second meeting steers the parties closer to a mutually acceptable transaction in the direction that the seller is looking for, thus minimizing contentious issues that often arise when an LOI is issued that amounts to a “stab in the dark” by the buyer.
Here are some agenda items for second meetings I have recently led:
