Small Firm Philosophy

This episode of the Small Firm Philosophy podcast unveils a pair of powerful toolkits designed to help accounting firms reshape and optimize their business. PCPS manager Erin Hartman,...

From engaging high schoolers to partnering with community influencers, discover how Grossman Yanak & Ford cultivates future accountants. This episode of the Small Firm Philosophy podcast features a discussion with G...

This episode of the Small Firm Philosophy podcast features an interview with David Wurtzbacher and Erin Stahmer of Ascend, a platform firm that is employing unique strategies in its business model. Join us to discuss people strategy, offshoring tips, and how to own the value of firm services.

SFP is produced by AICPA ...

This episode of the Small Firm Philosophy podcast features an interview with Dennis Sherrin, CPA, CGMA, chief value officer and strategic consultant at Avizo Group, Inc., an Alabama-based CPA firm with 35 team members in the United States and India.

Sherrin discusses how Avizo implemented Lean Six Sigma (LSS) to streamline the firm’s tax practice and slash overtime hours, even during tax se...

This episode of the Small Firm Philosophy podcast features an interview with Chet Buchman, CPA, CGMA, managing partner of Kansas-based accounting firm Swindoll, Janzen, Hawk and Loyd, LLC (SJHL). In this discussion, Buchman describes his firm’s multi-year journey to offering more advisory services, including the big mistake they made at the beginning and what they learned from it. He also explains SJHL’s strate...

This episode of the Small Firm Philosophy podcast features an interview with Carl Peterson, CPA, AICPA & CIMA’s vice president of small firm interests. Peterson addresses the new beneficial ownership information (BOI) reporting requirements and also shares his biggest takeaways from the 2023 AICPA & CIMA National Management of an Accounting Practice (MAP) Survey.

The MAP Survey, like this ...

This episode of the Small Firm Philosophy podcast features an interview with Sandy Johns, owner of Revolution Financial, a small accounting firm based in the Atlanta area. Johns discusses how she culled her firm's client roster to a manageable size and how doing so affected her well-being professionally and personally. 

SFP is produced by the AICPA & CIMA's firm practice management section, better known as the Private Companies Pra...

Nicole Davis isn't your typical CPA firm owner. She has five children, owns three businesses and has crafted a presence on social media including an account with more than 12,000 followers on X, formerly known as Twitter. She also never worked in public accounting before launching her firm, Butler Davis Tax & Accounting. 

How has Davis done all of this and what has she learned along the way? She shares her story in this episode of ...

There’s been a buzz around artificial intelligence for years, but nothing like the swarm of interest generated by ChatGPT.

Microsoft-backed research laboratory OpenAI launched ChatGPT in November 2022. By January, the la...

Johanna Sweaney Salt, CPA, CGMA, used to work 100 hours a week during busy season. As the founder and managing partner of Gray, Salt & Associates, LLP, she believed it was her responsibility to put in the time needed to make her small firm a success.

Today, Joanna remains a full-time partner at the firm, but her son, Dalton Sweaney, CPA, is now the managing partner. His desire a few years a...

A firm in a box.

A franchise on steroids.

The Uber (or Lyft) of CPA firms.

To say that the business model of Dark Horse CPAs is difficult to describe is an understatement of the highest order.

So exactly does Dark Horse do? What makes it unique? And what prompted CEO and co-founder Chase Birky to try a radically different busine...

Roman Kepczyk, CPA.CITP, CGMA, director of firm technology strategy for Right Networks and author of the AICPA & CIMA’s CPA cybersecurity checklist, joins the Small Firm Philosophy podcast to discuss current cyberthreats and what CPA firms should be doing to protect their data and networks. Host Jeff Drew also asks Roman a fun question about that technology he is most excited about, and Roman respond with an i...

Incentivize the behaviors you want. That was the theory behind GRF CPAs & Advisors’ decision to change its partner compensation model several years ago. Firm leaders knew that if they wanted their partners to operate as a cohesive team, they needed to stop paying partners in ways that drove individualistic behaviors.

More than five years later, GRF President and Managing Partner Jackie Card...

Chat bots that can write Excel macros. The internet’s first evolutionary leap since the 1990’s. And whatever happened to blockchain?

Those are just a few of the topics covered by three top accounting technology experts during a special edition of the Small Firm Philosophy podcast, produced in partnership with the Journal of Accountancy podcast. This double-length episode features the first ...

Many small accounting firms may not have heard much about digital assets beyond bitcoin and the FTX bankruptcy, but accountants have two big reasons to learn more about the topic.

First, the acceptance of digital assets as payment has steadily grown among accounting firms and especially their clients. Second, cyberattacks are increasingly targeting digital assets. The combination of these trends means that even small firms should l...

Orumé Hays, CPA, CGMA, didn’t exactly follow a traditional path to owning an accounting practice. From Africa to the Big Apple, she blazed a trail all her own.

Raised in Nigeria, Hays moved to Miami with a college degree in sociology and anthropology and a budding career in modeling and acting. Her pursuit...

The CPA’s guide to technology (and tech gifts)

There are few, if any, people in the accounting space who know more about technology than Inspector Gadget.

No, not the cartoon character with the go-go arms from the 1980s. The man wearing the trench coat in this case is David Cieslak, CPA.CITP, CGMA, executive vice president and chief cloud officer for RKL eSolutions and a popular speaker whose Inspector Gadget keynote session has be...

It's the holidays, that special time of the year when children wish for their dream gift and CPAs pray that the looming busy season won't be another nightmare. 

Rabecca Eunis, CPA, knows the feeling. As a new accountant working for her father’s firm, Eunis learned to dread and despise tax season. The mad, miserable dash to Tax Day was so stressful that Eunis launched her own practice vowing that her team wouldn’t suffer the way she...