CPA Trendlines Podcasts

"They get a check every month, and they don’t have to do any work.” The Disruptors With Liz Farr Blake Oliver noticed a consistent pattern with firm owners. “The hardest part for them, it seems, just based on my conversations, is getting started and then building that initial team, creating that firm from scratch, going from zero to something is really, really, really difficult,” he explains.   Th...

Money conversations need structure, not spontaneity. By Rory Henry CFP®, BFA™ For CPA Trendlines Money is one of the things that people think about most. Yet most people aren’t comfortable talking about it openly. In this episode of Holistic Guide to Wealth Management , I sit down with Erika Wasserman, CFT, a certified financial therapist, keynote speaker, and author of " Conversations with Your F...

Agility, transparency, and judgment matter more than billion-dollar platforms. Accounting Voices With Rob Brown The Big Four are spending billions on artificial intelligence, cutting thousands of jobs, and reshaping how accounting work gets done. That scale can feel intimidating—especially if you’re running or working inside a small or mid-tier firm. But here’s the counterintuitive truth explored...

Firm leaders can no longer ignore this conversation. Gear Up for Growth With Jean Caragher For CPA Trendlines Technology is no longer something CPA firms use to get work done. It’s what defines how firms compete, scale, attract talent—and increasingly, how they’re valued. That was the clear, unambiguous message from Roman Kepczyk, director of Firm Technology Strategy at Rightworks, during his rece...

E-commerce growth forces firms to rethink accruals, margins, and sustainability. Accounting ARC With Liz Mason, Byron Patrick, and Donny Shimamoto Center for Accounting Transformation Holiday shopping has never been easier. With a few taps on a smartphone, consumers can buy gifts from bed, track deliveries in real time, and return unwanted items with minimal friction. But behind that convenience l...

Integrated planning, not heroics, creates life-changing outcomes for clients. Big 4 Transparency By Dominic Piscopo, CPA For CPA Trendlines What happens when you fuse a CPA firm with a wealth advisory under one roof and design the operations from a blank page? In this two-guest episode of the Big 4 Transparency, host Dominic Piscopo sits down with Owen Pryor and Steve Blake, managing and senior ma...

Firms that wait until a partner is ready to retire have already waited too long, plus 19 more key takeaways. The Disruptors With Liz Farr Erin Daiber, founder and CEO of Well Balanced Accountants, keeps seeing the same issue in firm after firm. A partner announces their intention to retire within a year or two, and the firm suddenly realizes no one is ready to take over. “Firms are not starting th...

A former IRS agent breaks down the red flags, revenue thresholds, and compliance work that advisors can’t ignore. The Concierge CPA With Jackie Meyer For CPA Trendlines The Concierge CPA hosts a deep dive into captive insurance planning this week, as host Dr. Jackie Meyer, CPA, and guest Vardan Pogosian, CPA, unpack both the risk-management foundations and tax-planning implications of small captiv...

Transparency, empowered administration, and intentional tech design separate advisory leaders from firms stuck in task work. It's Not Just the Numbers With Penny Breslin and Damien Greathead For CPA Trendlines Client Accounting Services (CAS) has moved well beyond bookkeeping. For firms serious about advisory, CAS is now a fundamentally different operating model, one that demands new roles, new sy...

The Big Four pull ahead by treating AI as a system, not a shortcut. Accounting Voices With Rob Brown Artificial intelligence is no longer a side project in accounting. It is the main event. The largest firms are moving aggressively, clients are asking sharper questions, and expectations around speed, accuracy, and insight continue to rise. In the latest episode of Accounting Voices , the focus shi...

It accelerates advisory work, but only if firms rethink pricing and risk. Gear Up for Growth With Jean Caragher For CPA Trendlines On this episode of Gear Up for Growth , host Jean Caragher sits down with John Higgins , founder and CEO of Higgins Advisory , to explore how ChatGPT and generative AI are reshaping advisory services, pricing models, and the way CPAs work. Higgins is blunt about the op...

Less legacy infrastructure could mean faster adoption and outsized opportunity. Accounting ARC With Liz Mason, Byron Patrick, and Donny Shimamoto Center for Accounting Transformation In their New Year’s episode, the hosts of Accounting ARC do something many industry commentators avoid: they revisit last year’s predictions, mark what proved accurate, and adjust what did not. Donny Shimamoto, CPA.CI...

Firms that treat communication as strategy—not admin—move faster, scale smarter, and keep trust intact. MOVE Like This With Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk For CPA Trendlines On this episode of MOVE Like This , host Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk explores a deceptively simple question with Alice Grey Harrison, founder of AGH Consulting: Why do so many firm transformations stall—not because of strategy, but because of...

SALY isn’t useless—but it shouldn’t be lazy. The Disruptors With Liz Farr Audit has spent decades digitizing the past—paper binders moved to the cloud, workflows wrapped in prettier software, and manual testing dressed up as “innovation.” According to Jin Chang, that’s not transformation. It’s inertia. Chang knows because he lived it. Early in his career as an auditor, he found himself doing exact...

New repayment rules and borrowing caps are forcing a rethink of long-term planning. By Rory Henry CFP®, BFA™ For CPA Trendlines Student loan debt has quietly outgrown its stereotype. What was once viewed as a challenge for early-career professionals is now showing up in family balance sheets, tax returns, and retirement plans. Parents nearing retirement—and retirees themselves—are increasingly car...

CAS success isn’t accidental. It’s engineered. It's Not Just the Numbers With Penny Breslin and Damien Greathead For CPA Trendlines Client Advisory Services (CAS) continue to outperform every other service line in accounting. But firms that treat CAS as “enhanced bookkeeping” quickly hit a ceiling. The firms that scale profitably make harder—and smarter—choices: who they serve, how they staff, how...

Automation deletes tasks, then dares accountants to create new value on purpose. Accounting Voices With Rob Brown Artificial intelligence is no longer a concept that accountants debate in panels or pilot projects. It is actively reshaping how firms hire, train, and define value. In this episode of Accounting Voices , host Rob Brown delivers a blunt assessment of what many professionals are already...

Stop billing. Start thrilling. Gear Up for Growth With Jean Caragher For CPA Trendlines  In a re-energizing episode of Gear Up for Growth , Paul Dunn makes the case that the billable hour isn’t just outdated—it’s holding firms back. The four-time TEDx speaker and cofounder of B1G1 challenges accounting leaders to rethink how success is measured and to lead with purpose, not punch clocks.  Gear Up...

Break down the new law, the unanswered questions, and why waiting for certainty is a strategic mistake. Big 4 Transparency By Dominic Piscopo, CPA For CPA Trendlines What does it take to turn dense tax law into business wins? In this episode of the Big 4 Transparency, host Dominic Piscopo sits down with Mark Gallegos, tax partner at Porte Brown, to explore how a self-described “tax geek” became an...

Exhaustion, chaos, and missed lives are the result of design choices—not destiny. The Disruptors With Liz Farr Brenda Cannon, co-founder of Cannon and Associates, has been pioneering a creative approach for taming tax season madness: every return is scheduled like an appointment. “We know how long it takes us to prepare a tax return. Why could we not control each week and the number of tax returns...

Charitable gift financing has been IRS-validated for decades, yet many still avoid it. The Concierge CPA With Jackie Meyer For CPA Trendlines In this episode of the Concierge CPA podcast, host Dr. Jackie Meyer, CPA, puts a spotlight on a charitable tax strategy that sounds suspiciously modern — yet has been sitting in the tax code since 1978. The strategy is called charitable gift financing, and,...

...And accounting careers are better for it. It's Not Just the Numbers With Penny Breslin and Damien Greathead For CPA Trendlines For decades, accounting careers followed a familiar script: grind through repetitive work, earn your stripes, and maybe—eventually—get to the interesting stuff. That script is officially broken. In this episode of It’s Not Just the Numbers , hosts Penny Breslin and Dami...

Trust remains the profession’s currency, even in an automated future. Accounting Voices With Rob Brown Artificial intelligence is transforming accounting at breakneck speed. It writes reports, summarizes research, drafts client communications, and accelerates analysis. But when AI gets it wrong, it does not whisper. It declares falsehoods with confidence. That is the warning at the center of a new...

The question is: Do you know what it’s doing? It's Not Just the Numbers With Penny Breslin and Damien Greathead For CPA Trendlines Artificial intelligence has arrived in accounting, but not in the way many expected. It’s not a single app or a single process. It’s everywhere, embedded in workflows, changing how firms scope engagements, price cleanup work, and train their people.  MORE Penny Breslin...

Here's what it takes to grow a CPA firm from zero to the Top 100—without losing your soul. Gear Up for Growth With Jean Caragher For CPA Trendlines When Lou Grassi started his firm at age 24, he couldn’t afford to pay himself. There was no client base, no safety net, and no guarantee it would work. More than four decades later, Grassi is the 56th largest accounting firm in the U.S., with $146.5 mi...