New App Allows Local Firms to Swipe Right on Potential Buyers

Cringe logo April Fools

A satirical blog post in celebration of April Fool’s Day, as featured in Accounting Today. With all the M&A activity in public accounting today, buyers and sellers alike will benefit from Cringe, a new agentic AI matchmaking app that surveys potential buyers and sellers on your behalf and constructs responses as if they’re from you,…

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Talent Pipeline and Development of Women Leaders in Accounting

Leadership

It’s no secret that our industry needs leadership talent, successors who want to be CPA firm partner-level contributors. There’s a big group of them right at the doorstep, but we continue to struggle to bring the number of women leaders in accounting organizations anywhere near parity with the number in the profession. According to the…

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Difficult Partner Dynamics: The Issues and Timelines

Maze

You’ve been there, or you’re in the middle of it now: a challenge with one particular partner (or maybe more than one) that’s making partner relations, progress, profitability, or all three difficult. We polled CPA firm leaders to find out what the most pervasive issues are, how long they’ve been around (or how long they persisted, if resolved), and…

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How To Select the New Managing Partner

blocks with x on them and one with a check mark

QUESTION FROM A READER: I am looking for information on how second-generation firms select a successor managing partner. I’m also interested how this process plays out when a firm has multiple MP candidates. What role should the current MP play in the process? What if there is no obvious successor?   ROSENBERG RESPONSE: What criteria…

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Local Firm Slashes Staff Starting Salaries

stick figure next to salary going up

A satirical blog post in celebration of April Fool’s Day, as featured in Accounting Today. To improve firm profitability, local firm Watts, Taber and Fiske has made an innovative move to reduce full-time starting salaries for new college recruits to $38,000. WTF managing partner Bill Billings noted, “With all the newly available IRS agents and…

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Help Wanted: Looking for a CPA Firm Managing Partner

help wanted sign

One of my favorite words is “apocryphal.” An apocryphal statement is one that probably didn’t happen, but it’s so believable that it’s wildly believed to be true. Here’s one of my favorite examples. Clark Clifford was a super-lawyer and a cabinet-level advisor to four presidents in the 20th century. Fortune 500 companies pleaded with him…

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AI Successfully Completes Busy Season, Two Weeks Early

AI symbol

A satirical blog post in celebration of April Fool’s Day, as featured in Accounting Today.   New technology from progressive generative AI firm C.P.A.AI has been put to the test this year. In January, their AI Busy Season Bot was launched to an audience of CPAs eager to get their hands on the advanced technology.…

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Truth is Never Disrespectful

street sign with arrow to right that says "the truth"

To non-sports people, forgive me for telling a sports story I heard on a radio program. Our local basketball team, the Chicago Bulls, have a player named Zach Levine, who has been an all-star and is in the prime of his career. But he missed a month due to injury. Prior to his injury, the Bulls…

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How Partner Meetings Waste Time (and How to Avoid It)

meeting in progress

Well-intentioned and passionate partners have a lot to say about matters at your CPA firm. Often, these contributions are critical to leadership and strategic direction. Your firm wouldn’t be where it is today without hearing the perspectives from those who lead and run your practice. And, sometimes, your partners get stuck on a less important…

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