AI

Win at M&A Without Overpaying

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https://cpatrendlines.com/2021/11/09/why-its-time-for-an-acquisition/

Seven tips for being a strong acquirer.

By Ira Rosenbloom

In today’s hyperactive CPA firm M&A market, buyers are circling many of the same opportunities. Private equity and alternative investors can often offer more cash but that doesn’t mean they always win – or that the highest offer does.

MORE by Ira Rosenbloom
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Securing the deal you want depends on the right ingredients for a strong outcome. Based on our knowledge of the success factors for winning, we offer the following recommendations – especially if you are a more traditional acquirer:
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Kenji Kuramoto: When AI Does the Work, What Are Firms Selling? | The Disruptors

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Intelligent agents will reshape accounting workflows, pricing models, employee development, and the value firms deliver to clients.

Sponsored by Radical Pricing: Optimize Profits, Delight Clients, and Build a Top-Value Firm

Subscribe to CPA Trendlines podcasts anywhere: Apple, Google/YouTube, Spotify, iHeart, Deezer, Amazon Music, Audible, Player FM, Audacy, RSS.

The Disruptors
With Liz Farr
For CPA Trendlines

The Break-Through Blueprint for Revolutionizing the CPA Firm Business Model

Kenji Kuramoto says accounting firms will be changing how they work — and even who does the work.

“The future of accounting firms,” Kuramoto says, “is going to be made up of a workforce that has two components. It’ll have people and agents.”

His current company, Basis, where he serves as managing partner in residence, is building those agents. Kuramoto says approximately 30% of the top 25 accounting firms are using them across client accounting services, tax, and audit. The agents perform multistep workflows such as reconciliations, account categorization, and first-pass tax return preparation, including work on complex partnership returns.

MORE Disruptors with Liz Farr | CPA Trendlines Streaming Network

By the end of the year, Kuramoto expects some practice lines to achieve efficiency gains of 60% to 80% by using agents. Within a year, “we should probably be able to see agents working and collaborating together, overall, being directed and architected by people,” he says.

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Your AI Agent Should Show Its Work | ARC

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Accountants should demand systems that reveal their work, respect boundaries, and produce results humans can verify.

Sponsored by Radical Pricing by the Radical CPA, Jody Padar | See Today’s Special Offer
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Optimize Profits, Delight Clients, & Build a Top-Value Firm!

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

Agentic AI does not have to replace an accountant to transform accounting. Its more  practical role may be far less dramatic — and far more useful.

In this episode of Accounting ARC, Donny Shimamoto, CPA.CITP, CGMA; Liz Mason, CPA; and Byron Patrick, CPA.CITP, explore how narrowly focused AI agents can help professionals retrieve information, analyze data, navigate systems, and make better-informed decisions.

MORE Accounting ARC: AI Isn’t Erasing Tax Careers. It’s Rewriting Them. | Accounting Internships Need an Upgrade | The CPA Career Nobody Talks About | Conference Season Exposes Accounting’s Knowledge Gap | The Feedback Mistake That Costs You Your Best People | Is Your Boss Really the Problem? | Most Accountants Are Missing This AI Shift | AI Can Fix Your Workflow—or Break It in Seconds | Efficiency Is the Wrong Goal for AI | Accounting’s Hidden Talent Risk: The Sandwich Generation | Built Fast. Sold Faster. Broken Later? The Truth About Accounting Tech | Recognize When You Need to Recharge Before You Burn Out | Valuing More Than the Balance Sheet

Their conversation challenges one of the dominant narratives surrounding agentic AI: that firms should build autonomous digital employees capable of handling everything a staff accountant does. Instead, the hosts envision specialized agents that operate within structured systems, perform clearly defined tasks, and show users how they reach their conclusions.

“If you have agentic AI that’s built into an architecture that already exists, there’s a whole lot more that has to happen from a training perspective,” says Mason, CEO of High Rock Accounting.

That architecture, she explains, can include multiple agents working together rather than one agent attempting to handle an entire assignment.

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How to Cultivate Holistic Wealth

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

A deep dive into the SHiFT framework.

By Jackie Meyer

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: Five Hard-Earned Lessons from Exiting an Accounting Firm | It’s Never Too Early to Plan Your Exit Strategy | Beyond Blocking: More Time Management Strategies | Reclaim Your Hours with Time Management and Productivity Hacks | Hiring Strategies for Your Dream Team | Streamline Your Operations with Systems and Processes | From Compliance to Advisory: Shifting the Value Proposition | How I Became an Accidental Entrepreneur | Build a Seven-Figure Firm in Four Hours a Week
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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.
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Who Will Review Tax Returns When AI Trains No One? | ARC

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Firms must build new pathways that develop reviewers, judgment and client-facing skills.

 

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

Subscribe to CPA Trendlines podcasts anywhere: Apple, Google/YouTube, Spotify, iHeart, Deezer, Amazon Music, Audible, Player FM, Audacy, RSS.

Optimize Profits, Delight Clients, & Build a Top-Value Firm!

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

Artificial intelligence may not eliminate the entry-level tax professional. But it is dismantling the job that many firms still use to train one.

That’s the conversation driving a new episode of the Accounting ARC podcast featuring Donny Shimamoto, CPA.CITP, CGMA, founder and managing director of IntrapriseTechKnowlogies LLC and founder and inspiration architect for the Center for Accounting Transformation; and Liz Mason, CPA, CEO of High Rock Accounting.

The conversation begins with a small tax firm that hires six interns each year and teaches them to prepare returns much as earlier generations learned: working from paper documents, identifying relevant numbers, mapping those figures to tax forms, and entering the data into tax software.

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

The firm owner sees the process as an apprenticeship that helps students bridge the gap between an individual tax course and real-world preparation. Shimamoto sees value in teaching interns how information moves from source documents to a completed return. Mason agrees with the objective but challenges the method.

“From a holistic learning exploration, sure, yes, that is a way to learn,” Mason says. “From a where-we-are-today perspective, I think that’s a giant disservice to these interns.”

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