CPA Trendlines Podcasts

Accounting is undergoing a quiet power shift as AI, new ownership models, and changing expectations challenge traditional careers and leadership paths. The conversation explores why mid-tier firms feel squeezed, how succession pressures are reshaping partnerships, and why uncertainty can deepen anxiety. It also examines the growing importance of judgment, relevance, and clarity in navigating change.

What if your next accounting hire could code instead of calculate? This conversation explores how an AI graduate transformed duplicate-transaction research, eased task switching, and helped an accounting team reclaim capacity. It also examines resistance to automation, bloated tech stacks, embedded engineers versus consultants, and why every AI project should serve a real business need.

Joey Kinney, a virtual CFO and professional development advocate, and Hannah Hood, an accountant and virtual CFO specializing in forecasting and controllership, explore how to launch a meaningful accounting career. They discuss why bookkeeping builds essential fundamentals, how remote firms create flexible career paths, and ways to make the profession more inclusive. They also spotlight communication, coachability, technology, mentorship, and practical experience as keys to standing out.

Accounting’s “loyalty tax” is putting career stability and firm economics at odds. Explore pay gaps between internal promotions and external hires, why job-hopping can become the highest-paid path, and how U.S. and Canadian trends differ across accounting, consulting, and advisory roles. The conversation also examines churn costs and smarter approaches to retention and compensation benchmarking.

Karen Reyburn, chartered accountant, author, and marketing adviser, explores why creativity matters in accounting. She discusses problem-solving, curiosity, team collaboration, remarkable client experiences, and systems with human ownership. The conversation also covers differentiation, creative habits, rest, community, and how AI may make accounting more human.

Technology, consolidation, and changing expectations expose weaknesses in business strategies.Accounting VoicesWith Rob BrownAccountants help clients plan for growth, manage risk, and prepare for uncertainty. But what happens when they turn that same scrutiny on their own firms?The answers may be uncomfortable.In this episode of Accounting Voices, reflections from 48 interviews conducted in late 2025 reveal a recurring concern: The profession’s ability to solve other people’s business problems does not always translate into a willingness to confront its own. MORE Accounting Voices with Rob Brown The discussion centers on a deceptively simple question: What changes your thinking about accounting? Across conversations with firm leaders, technology specialists, coaches, consultants, and others, familiar assumptions begin to unravel — about who should run a firm, what makes advisory services valuable, and how much protection technical expertise actually provides.One challenge, attributed in the episode to leadership and organizational development specialist Alice Gray Harrison, brings the issue into sharp focus: If your firm were your client, would you fire yourself for lacking a five-year strategic plan?It is a question that makes the episode less a reflection on the past than a test of what leaders are willing to change now.

The expectation that tax preparation can happen instantly is creating real pressure.It's Not Just the NumbersWith Penny Breslin and Damien GreatheadFor CPA TrendlinesTax season is supposed to be predictable. The work comes in, the work goes out, the deadlines hold. But this year, something broke for accounting firms across the board — and it wasn't the tax code.The culprit wasn't client volume or staffing shortages. It was prioritization and communication, specifically, the gap between where priorities were being set and where the people doing the work were actually looking. MORE Penny Breslin and Damien Greathead | MORE Advisory & Consulting JOIN From Scorekeeper to Strategist CAS Workshop | BUY "It's Not Just the Numbers" If your firm made it through but felt like you were always reacting, always chasing, always a step behind — this breakdown is for you.

ARC hosts debate credentials, accountability, and the risks of advice that exceeds a provider’s expertise.Accounting ARCWith Liz Mason, Donny Shimamoto, and Byron PatrickCenter for Accounting TransformationA business owner asks for financial reports. A bookkeeper delivers them. For years, the arrangement appears to work — until another accountant examines the numbers and discovers that the reports do not add up.The owner receives exactly what he requests. What he misses is someone qualified to question the request.That story, shared by Byron Patrick on the Accounting ARC podcast, captures a problem that reaches beyond bookkeeping: Small-business owners may know they need financial help without knowing how to evaluate the people providing it. MORE Accounting ARC: Stop Waiting for the Perfect Time to Get Involved | Your AI Agent Should Show Its Work | 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 For accountants, that creates both a responsibility and an opportunity. Explaining professional value requires more than listing credentials or promising accurate books. It means showing owners what an effective accounting relationship can help them understand, decide, and accomplish.

When leaders admit they don’t have all the answers, they create room for others to contribute.MOVE Like ThisWith Bonnie Buol RuszczykFor CPA Trendlines ResearchRandy Crabtree founded an accounting firm, then came to a difficult realization: Being its founder didn’t make him the right person to lead it. His decision to step aside as managing partner of Tri-Merit opens a bigger conversation about what happens when leaders admit they don’t have all the answers.On MOVE Like This, Crabtree joins host Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk to explore how vulnerability can build trust, help people find roles that fit their strengths, and give teams the confidence to try something new. Now retired from Tri-Merit and focused on speaking, advising, and The Unique CPA podcast, he challenges a leadership model that asks people to appear invulnerable while carrying more than they can sustain. MORE MOVE Like This | MORE CPA Trendlines Streaming Network Crabtree’s perspective on vulnerability is deeply personal. Twelve years ago, he suffered a stroke. While his physical recovery was relatively quick, the mental recovery took years as he dealt with panic attacks, PTSD, and depression. That experience forced him to acknowledge something leaders are often conditioned to resist: he couldn’t do everything himself. It also prompted him to question other things he had long accepted as true about work and leadership, including the idea that leaders always need to have the answers, hide weakness, and prove their value by how much they can carry.That questioning eventually led Crabtree to one of the most difficult decisions of his career.

Logan Graf, CPA, owner of The Graf Tax Co. and founder of Counter, champions a smarter way to run an accounting firm. He discusses designing efficient workflows, scheduling tax returns, hiring strategically, and replacing burnout with sustainable growth. The conversation also explores modern firm ownership, leadership, resistance to change, and how AI could reshape accounting work.