The Fun CPA Podcast

You may never feel completely ready to start your own firm. Nick Vernon joins Yuri to share how he left a successful career as a controller and launched a tax firm without any public accounting experience. Nick explains how he built confidence one return at a time, learned to separate a healthy challenge from work he wasn’t prepared to handle, and used savings and contract work to make the transit...

Marit Burmood joins Yuri to talk about what it really takes to build an accounting firm that fits your life instead of taking it over. After years of juggling tax work, kids, and a growing client list, Marit realized she was doing far more for clients than she was actually getting paid for. Once she learned how to package that value, her firm went from earning roughly $50,000 to $60,000 a year to...

 After working with over 1,000 accounting firms, from solo practices to firms generating over $100 million, Petar Iliev has a pretty clear view of what separates firms that stay dependent on the owner from those that can actually scale.  Petar joins Yuri to talk about the shift from running a practice to building a business. What is the “standard”? What should you know, or prioritize?  They also g...

Bad tax advice has never been easier to find. Jasmine DiLucci is a tax attorney, CPA, and enrolled agent who has built a large online following by calling out illegal strategies and the people selling them. She joins Yuri to talk about why unqualified influencers gain so much credibility online, why disproving their claims takes far more work than making them, and what people misunderstand about t...

A $500,000 firm with employees may not leave its owner much better off than a $300,000 solo practice.   Aaron Zimmerman joins Yuri to talk honestly about that tradeoff and the kind of accounting firm he actually wants to build. After leaving his job and launching Brickhouse CPAs, Aaron grew the firm to roughly 75 clients and 120 tax returns while developing a niche serving real estate investors.  ...

Mike Libbey joined his father’s accounting firm straight out of college, becoming its first employee and working alongside him from the family living room. Today, Mike is a partner and COO at YBL, a modern virtual firm with approximately 30 employees and $3.75 million in annual revenue. Mike shares how the firm grew, why hiring an operations manager changed what he believed was possible, and how h...

More money does not automatically create peace of mind. Without a healthy relationship with money, greater wealth can simply magnify the same anxiety, guilt, and uncertainty that were already there.  Matt Fizell, CFP® and founder of Harmony Wealth, joins Yuri to explore the human side of financial planning. Matt shares how early experiences shape the way people save, spend, and invest, and why eve...

In this episode of The Fun CPA Podcast , Yuri sits down with Daniel Pinkous, founder and CEO of Truss, for a conversation about the messy, frustrating reality of tax workflow. They talk about why client document collection still creates so much friction for CPA firms, how Truss is trying to make that process easier, and why the best software should remove headaches instead of creating another syst...

 Mike Payne joins Yuri to talk about building BOSS Advisors, growing the firm to more than $2 million in revenue and eventually selling it.  They discuss how Mike combined accounting and legal services under one roof, landed a major client during his first week in business and dealt with the pressure that came with the firm’s growth. Mike also shares what led him to sell, how he chose the right bu...

Erin Pohan is the founder of Upkeeping, a bookkeeping and payroll firm, and Wave Seattle, a conference for women in accounting. In this episode, Erin shares what it actually looked like to build her firm, grow a team, and figure things out without ever feeling completely ready. She and Yuri talk honestly about the pressure to scale, the challenge of hiring before there is enough work, and why succ...

In this episode, Yuri reflects on the 2026 tax season, sharing the highs, lows, and lessons learned along the way. Whether you're a solo CPA or managing a growing firm, this episode offers practical insights into tools, workflows, and mindset shifts to navigate busy periods more effectively. Breakdown of the 2026 tax season experience and key challenges faced Document collection pitfalls and...

In this episode of The Fun CPA Podcast , Yuri sits down with Isaac Perdomo, CEO and founder of Opzer, to talk about automation, AI, and where accounting firms should actually start.  Isaac shares why firms do not need to overhaul everything at once, and why the best place to begin is usually with the painful, repetitive work they are already doing every day. From client reminders to workflow track...

  Credit card points can feel like a complicated game, but for business owners with regular expenses, there can be real upside if the math makes sense.  Yuri sits down with Nadia Groen, founder of Points Advisors, to break down how business owners can turn everyday spending into flights, hotel stays, and better travel experiences. They talk through Yuri’s actual credit card setup, how to think abo...

Most people do not put “accounting” and “creative” in the same sentence. Drew Carrick has built a career doing exactly that. Yuri sits down with Drew Carrick, also known as The Rapping CPA, to talk about how a public accounting career turned into rap videos, conference hosting, content strategy, and a bigger conversation about where the accounting profession is headed. They get into Drew’s path fr...

 Pricing is one of the hardest conversations in the accounting profession, but the problem usually starts before the client ever pushes back.  Yuri sits down with Carlos Garcia, co-founder of Reframe, to talk about value, confidence, communication, and why so many accountants underprice themselves even when they know they are delivering real results.  They get into the mindset behind pricing, how...

Scaling a CPA firm sounds exciting until you hit the messy middle. Yuri sits down with Anomaly CPA owners John Malone and Greg O’Brien to talk about what it actually takes to grow from a solo firm into a 40-person, multi-million-dollar operation. They get into the early decisions that shaped Anomaly, why Greg moved away from the traditional hourly model, how John’s non-accounting background became...

  Yuri sits down with Mike Mazzanna to talk about the real path from big firm tax work to launching a solo CPA firm.  Mike shares the 109-hour billable week that pushed him toward firm ownership, why flexibility mattered more than simply working fewer hours, and how he built his practice with contracting revenue, LinkedIn relationships, and a clear focus on systems.  They also get into tax softwar...

  AI isn’t coming for tax. It’s already changing how tax professionals research, review, and deliver advice.  Yuri sits down with Benjamin Alarie, tax law professor at the University of Toronto and founder of Blue J, to talk about the future of tax research, why AI became an existential question for him, and what it took to build a tax technology company long before AI became the thing everyone wa...

This week on The Fun CPA Podcast, Yuri talks with Macgill Davis, co-founder and CEO of Rize, an AI-powered time tracking tool for accounting firms and professional service businesses. They talk about why time tracking sucks, how AI can remove manual timesheets, and how firm owners can use better time data to understand client profitability, pricing, interruptions, and focus. Macgill also shares th...

What does it actually look like to build a modern CPA firm without losing yourself in the process?   Yuri sits down with Logan Graf to talk through the real decisions behind firm ownership, from taking the leap into entrepreneurship to figuring out whether buying a firm even makes sense.    They get into pricing, hiring, content creation, social media addiction, and the tension between making more...

Most accounting firms don’t have a tech problem. They have a trust problem. In this episode, Yuri sits down with Jonathan Shkolnik, a developer turned founder building Portali, an AI bookkeeping tool designed to take the pain out of cleanups and month-end work. They talk through why accountants are so change resistant, how to evaluate new tools without getting burned, and what “automation” actuall...

In this episode of the Fun CPA podcast, Yuri sits down with Blake Oliver, CPA and host of "The Accounting Podcast," to discuss the evolving landscape of the accounting profession.  Blake shares his unique journey from professional cellist to firm owner, and eventually to a leading voice in accounting technology and media. Blake also shares his POV on automation and AI, firm management, s...

This episode is a little different — no guest, just Yuri pulling back the curtain on how his firm actually runs during the middle of tax season. Recorded on March 3rd, Yuri walks through what tax season looks like inside his firm right now: how he tracks returns, why he still uses a spreadsheet workflow, and what he’s experimenting with to improve operations. He also shares the reality of running...

Marketing doesn’t need to be pain wrapped in mystery. But it’s such a necessary factor to growing and expanding your business the way that you want. Yuri is joined by Karen Reyburn, a CPA turned Scotland based agency owner who’s spent 15 years helping accountants and bookkeepers attract better clients without forcing themselves into content or marketing activities they hate.  They dig into why “ni...

Mental health isn’t a “nice to have” in accounting, it’s the difference between making it through tax season and quietly burning out. In this episode of The Fun CPA, Yuri sits down with Cassie and Brandon Christensen from Modern Therapy to talk about the intersection of burnout, anxiety, and the culture of overwork in the profession. They unpack why being “always available” doesn’t make you a bett...