• Visibility Is the New Accounting Authority | Accounting Voices
    Jan 17 2026

    Reputation now grows through clarity and communication, not tenure.


    Accounting Voices
    With Rob Brown

    After two episodes dissecting the Big Four’s AI arms race, the final chapter of the mini-series turns the lens inward. This episode of Accounting Voices makes the case that staying competitive in an automated profession has less to do with budgets and bots — and everything to do with judgment, visibility, and trust.

    AI has changed what clients and employers value. Hours and output no longer differentiate. Clarity, confidence, and credibility do.

    • MORE Accounting Influencers with Rob Brown

    In accounting, reputation once followed hierarchy. Today, it follows visibility.

    When a client, prospect, or employer searches your name, they are not just checking credentials. They are looking for proof of thinking. Insight. Perspective. Signals that you understand what the numbers mean — and when they should be questioned.

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    24 mins
  • Jan Lewis: Workforce Development Is the Next CPA Imperative | Gear Up For Growth
    Jan 16 2026

    Training and growth—not just recruitment—will determine the profession’s future.

    Gear Up for Growth
    With Jean Caragher
    For CPA Trendlines

    When Jan Lewis, vice chair of the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA), says, “The world is a complicated place, and who better than a CPA to help cut through the noise?” she’s not offering a slogan. She’s issuing a call to action.

    • More Jean Caragher here | Get her best-selling handbook, The 90-Day Marketing Plan for CPA Firms, here | More Gear Up for Growth
    • More CPA Trendlines videos and podcasts here

    In a wide-ranging and refreshingly candid conversation with host Jean Caragher on Gear Up for Growth, Lewis makes the case that this moment—right now—is one of the most consequential and opportunity-rich periods the CPA profession has ever faced.

    One of Lewis’s strongest messages is also one of the most misunderstood: advocacy isn’t theoretical—it’s working.

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    31 mins
  • OCR, Research Bots and Meeting Assistants: What Actually Helps This Year? | ARC
    Jan 15 2026

    Firms use AI, planning, and “hope” to make tax season more manageable.

    Accounting ARC
    With Liz Mason, Byron Patrick, and Donny Shimamoto

    Center for Accounting Transformation

    As firms head into tax season, the hosts of Accounting ARC make a case for lowering the temperature — and the workload — with practical tech choices, proactive planning and a stronger focus on people.

    • MORE Accounting ARC: Return Season is the New Stress Test | Small Firms May Have the Biggest Advantage in 2026 | Downgraded: What the DOE Said About Accounting | Savage: Using Your License as a Megaphone | Baker: Interpreting Pricing Psychology | Don’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 Us | Gen Z Redefines Careers | Bootleggers, Baptitsts & CPAs: Rethinking Licensure

    In a special Tax Season Readiness episode, Donny Shimamoto, CPA.CITP, CGMA; joins co-hosts Liz Mason, CPA; and Byron Patrick, CPA.CITP, CGMA; to preview new tax platform research, spotlight emerging AI tools and talk candidly about what helps teams sustain momentum from January through April.

    Shimamoto, founder and managing director of IntrapriseTechKnowlogies LLC and founder and inspiration architect for the Center for Accounting Transformation, sets the tone early. He says he intentionally avoids calling it “busy season,” noting that practitioners tell him the upcoming cycle may feel lighter than the past few years. The conversation that follows keeps returning to the same core question: What, specifically, helps firms reduce friction before deadlines hit?

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    1 hr and 31 mins
  • Kristi Epp and Amber Schrock: Firms that Listen Keep Their People | MOVE Like This
    Jan 14 2026

    Paychecks and perks are no longer enough for retention.

    MOVE Like This
    With Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk
    For CPA Trendlines

    In this episode of MOVE Like This, Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk sits down with Kristi Epp, a tax partner, and Amber Schrock, an advisory partner and Las Vegas market leader at Frazier & Deeter, to explore how the accounting profession is evolving and what firm leaders can do to better support their people. Both guests share their career journeys and how they found long-term professional homes at the firm, emphasizing mentorship, growth opportunities, and a culture that values people as much as performance.

    • MORE MOVE

    Epp and Schrock note that the past five years, particularly the post-COVID period, have fundamentally reshaped accounting. Remote work, automation, and regulatory complexity are now the norm, while consolidation and private equity activity are accelerating change across the profession. Frazier & Deeter’s recent growth initiatives, including acquisitions, reflect this shifting landscape and the need for firms to think differently about scale, talent, and integration.

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    41 mins
  • Blake Oliver: Build the Biz, Don't Run It | The Disruptors
    Jan 13 2026

    "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.

    That “hardest part” echoes his own experience.

    • MORE STREAMING:MORE STREAMING: Daiber: Use Succession as a Growth Strategy | Cannon: Busy Season is Self-Inflicted | Carroll: When One Person Can Break the Firm | Rampe: Build a Roadmap Even When the Road's Not There | Chang: Killing SALY, One Agent at a Time | Vanover: 5-Star Firms Don't Bill by the Hour | Kless: Profit Is a Result. Flourishing Is the Purpose | Whitman: Build Culture on 'Progress,' Not Change | Shein: No PE? No M&A? No Problem | Hood and Weber: Time to RISE | Proctor: Turn Dumb Ideas into Brilliant Solutions | Carter-Gray: How 1 Poor Review Strengthened the Firm | Hartman: Upwork to “40 Under 40” in 3 Years

    Before he became known to the accounting world as the co-host of the Accounting Podcast and founder of Earmark, Oliver had his own firm. “I spent five years building a firm from scratch…going from zero to a million dollars in revenue in five years,” he says. Because he was largely figuring it out on his own, the process was far harder than it needed to be.

    His new book, "Building a Sustainable Firm: Strategies for the Modern Accounting Practice," distils the lessons he learned from talking to firm owners and from his own experiences into a blueprint for creating an accounting business that supports your team, your clients, and your own life.

    “If you’re going to take the leap to go start your own firm…you should have something that you’re happy with at the end,” he explains.

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    51 mins
  • Erika Wasserman: How to Have Better Conversations Around Money | Holistic Guide to Wealth Management
    Jan 12 2026

    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 Financial Therapist: Stories and Scripts to Grow Your Money Mindset," to talk about why money conversations about are so often avoided and how advisors, families, and individuals can begin to change that dynamic.

    • MORE Rory Henry and The Holistic Guide to Wealth Management
    • BUY the Holistic Guide to Wealth Management
    Wasserman’s journey into financial therapy was shaped by personal experience. She grew up in a rare household where talking about money was normal. She earned a finance degree from the University of Florida, and began her career consulting with IBM. Over time, major life transitions including international moves, marriage, divorce, and raising three children deepened her understanding of how money decisions intersect with emotion, identity, and relationships.
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    35 mins
  • How Smaller Firms Can Outsmart the Big Four on AI | Accounting Voices
    Jan 10 2026

    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 in a recent episode of Accounting Voices:

    The Big Four aren’t winning because of their budgets. They’re winning because of their discipline.


    • MORE Accounting Influencers with Rob Brown

    This episode breaks down what smaller firms and ambitious professionals can borrow from the AI strategies of PwC, KPMG, Deloitte, and EY—without trying to copy their scale.


    The lesson is clear: clarity beats capability, and governance beats gadgets.

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    11 mins
  • Roman Kepczyk: Technology IS the New Business Model | Gear Up For Growth
    Jan 9 2026

    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 recent appearance on Gear Up for Growth, hosted by Jean Caragher.

    • Gear Up for Growth spotlights the best strategies for smart and effficient growth in today's competitive landscape. More Gear Up for Growth every Friday here.| More Capstone Conversations with Jean Caragher every Monday | 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

    With nearly 30 years spent advising CPA firms of all sizes, Kepczyk didn’t mince words: firms that fail to standardize, automate, and strategically invest in technology are already falling behind—whether they realize it or not.

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    37 mins