Cultivate Holistic Wealth with the SHiFT Framework

Calm balanced businessman sitting outdoors on bench in Yoga lotus pose meditating, with office building and blue sky in background

The assets in your life fall into four categories.

By Jackie Meyer
The Balanced Millionaire: Advisor Edition

Success is often defined in dollar signs and business metrics, but as a seasoned advisor you know that true wealth extends far beyond the financial statement. After all, what’s the point of a seven-figure firm if your health is in shambles, your relationships are strained, or you have no time to enjoy life?

MORE by Jackie Meyer
GoProCPA.comExclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

In this article, we’re going to zoom out and look at the whole picture of what it means to be a “Balanced Millionaire.” This is about cultivating holistic wealth across all areas of life, using the SHiFT Framework – Social, Health, Financial, Time. These are the four pillars of holistic wealth and well-being that support a truly balanced and fulfilling life for a high-achieving professional.
READ MORE →

Unicorns and Funerals: From Botkeeper’s Demise to Basis AI’s Rise

How AI Accounting Went From Pioneering to Inevitable in 1 Month and 11 Years.

By CPA Trendlines Research

The $90 Million Education: Botkeeper spent 11 years and nearly $90 million teaching the accounting profession that AI could do real work. Basis, Fieldguide, and Accrual raised $250 million in a single month to finish what Botkeeper started.

In a matter of days, AI in accounting produced its most celebrated funding round and its most instructive collapse. Both developments were years in the making. Neither was a surprise to anyone paying close attention.

The leap from Botkeeper’s machine learning to Basis’s agentic AI didn’t just change the technology. It changed which companies survive.

MORE AI | Outlook 2026: Agentic AI Reaches the Tipping Point in Tax and Accounting FirmsGen AI in Accounting: Epic Transformation, or Overheated Hype?AI Tax App Crashes Financial Stocks on Wall StreetThe $125 Billion Challenge: Intuit’s AI Platform Redraws the Accounting MapBot Wars: Wolters Kluwer, Intuit, Thomson Reuters Battle for AI Dominance in CPA FirmsHow TaxDome and Juno Just Changed the Tax Tech Game | Meet Basis, the New AI Bookkeeper on the Block

The juxtaposition is not just ironic. It is clarifying.

What happened in February 2026 was not a story about whether AI works in accounting. The research says it does.

It was a story about which business models survive the moment when AI actually arrives — and which ones get caught between the old world and the new one, having spent years and tens of millions of dollars building toward a future that materialized faster, and harder, than anyone expected.

READ MORE →

Jody Padar: The New Playbook Is AI-Powered and Human-Centered | Big 4 Transparency

AI Won’t Replace Accountants. Instead, It Will Rewire the Business Model.

This is a preview. The complete episode 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

Subscribe to CPA Trendlines podcasts anywhere: AppleGoogle/YouTubeSpotifyiHeartDeezer, Amazon Music, AudiblePlayer FMAudacy, RSS.

Big 4 Transparency
With Dominic Piscopo, CPA

Jody Padar, widely known as “The Radical CPA” and author of Radical Pricing, argues the future of accounting won’t be won by automation alone, but by a business model shift that elevates human judgment, advisory, and client relationships.

MORE Dominic PiscopoAIPay & Compensation

In the new episode of the Big 4 Transparency Podcast, Padar joins host Dominic Piscopo to trace her path from early cloud-firm pioneer to venture-backed operator and to explain why her newest venture, Xcel Labs, is focused on training CPAs to think and lead differently in an AI-first world. Xcel Labs’ Navi aims to build empathy and leadership at scale.

READ MORE →

Why the Next Generation May Be Accounting’s Greatest Competitive Advantage | SLC

Young professionals bring adaptability and media literacy that firms need in an AI-driven era.

Sponsored by The Balanced Millionaire: The Advisor Edition by Dr. Jackie Meyer | See Today’s Special Offer

Subscribe to CPA Trendlines podcasts anywhere: AppleGoogle/YouTubeSpotifyiHeartDeezer, Amazon Music, AudiblePlayer FMAudacy, RSS.

Student-Led Conversations
With Arpan Grewal 
Center for Accounting Transformation

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

Student-Led Conversations opens its second season with a conversation that reflects a larger shift underway in the accounting profession: rapid technology change, accelerating adoption of artificial intelligence tools, and an increasing push to bring younger voices into the discussion. 

Arpan Grewal, a Center for Accounting Transformation intern and business student in Indiana, welcomes Liz Mason, CPA, CEO of High Rock Accounting, as the first guest of Season 2. Grewal describes the discussion as “full circle,” noting Mason is among the first professionals she interviewed when Student-Led Conversations launched last year. 

MORE Accounting ARC: Downgraded: What the DOE Said About Accounting | Savage: Using Your License as a MegaphoneBaker: Interpreting Pricing PsychologyDon’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 UsGen Z Redefines Careers | Bootleggers, Baptitsts & CPAs: Rethinking Licensure

Mason, a co-host of Accounting ARC, argues the profession is no longer talking about incremental change. It is, she says, in the early stages of something much larger. 

The word that continues to surface for her is “revolution.” 

READ MORE →

Use Tech to Make Employees Happier

Stop scouring for talent that doesn’t exist. 

By Jody Padar
The Radical CPA

If you’ve posted a job for an accountant in the past few years, you know people are hard to come by. The number of responses you received was likely down if you were lucky enough to find any at all.

MORE by Jody Padar
GoProCPA.comExclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

According to a recent AICPA Trends Report, the number of people graduating with a bachelor’s degree in accounting is down, and we’ve seen a steady decline since 2015. All this while half of U.S. CPA firms have increased the number of new graduates they want to hire. A lot of us are looking for staff that simply does not exist.

READ MORE →