Markets are as unpredictable as ever. One week brings optimism, and the next, uncertainty takes over. Between inflation concerns, shifting trade policies and inconsistent buying behavior, one thing is clear: volatility is the new normal.

As a CFO, I know firsthand how accounting and finance teams are asked to do more with less when the market wobbles. Expectations rise, visibility shrinks and decisions carry more weight. But this isn’t a time to retreat; this is a time to lead. Accountants in particular are being asked to step outside their traditional roles, going beyond compliance to bring more insight, agility and strategic value.

Is your accounting team still seen as a traditional back-office function, or are they driving real impact at the center of business decision-making? Here are three ways accountants can shift from support role to strategic force, helping organizations stay profitable, predictable and well-positioned, no matter what the market brings.

1. Start at the source: sales

Revenue starts long before it hits the ledger. But that doesn’t mean accountants should wait on the sidelines. Especially in services businesses where margins are tight and people are the product, accounting can, and should, get involved earlier in the sales process.

Helping shape pricing models, validate margins and confirm delivery costs ensures your company is closing profitable deals. Left unchecked, discounting habits and poorly scoped projects can erode margin before the work even begins.

AI is making this type of involvement more accessible. Tools that analyze historical bid data can suggest optimal pricing and help avoid unnecessary concessions. For instance, if sales instinctively offers a 20% discount, data may show a 5% reduction would’ve closed the deal. When that insight is applied at scale, the impact on profitability is significant. Accountants are the experts best equipped to drive that discipline.

2. Fix the handoff from sales to delivery

In theory, the transition from sales to delivery should be seamless. In practice, it’s a common source of margin loss. Missing scope items, mismatched rate cards and vague assumptions can trigger change orders, billing disputes or even client dissatisfaction.

This is where today’s accountants can be instrumental, not just in reconciling revenue after the fact, but in helping prevent leakage before it happens. By advocating for accurate project setup, enforcing controls over rate use, and identifying gaps in scope or delivery assumptions, you can bring structure to a phase that’s historically been a bit chaotic.

Invoicing is another area where accountants make or break cash flow. Manual processes, delays in approvals and spreadsheet-driven billing often lead to late invoices and slower collections. Automation shortens the billing cycle, reduces disputes and improves cash predictability. Speed matters, but what really drives value is confidence in your numbers.

3. Build more accurate forecasts with an accountant’s lens

Cash flow forecasting is part art, part science. In volatile markets, the margin for error is small. Most forecasts assume customers pay on time and expenses follow plan, but the real world rarely works that way.

Modern accounting teams are being asked to deliver sharper forecasts based on behavior, not just assumptions. AI can now analyze payment histories and customer patterns to predict actual payment timing, flagging risks before they affect liquidity. It can also suggest tactical changes, such as offering split invoicing or switching to electronic payments to accelerate cash.

This kind of insight allows you to advise your business leaders with greater confidence. When to invest. When to hold back. How to plan for best- and worst-case scenarios. Especially in unpredictable markets, that level of precision becomes a huge competitive advantage.

Embrace your role as a strategic partner

We’ve entered an era where profitable growth matters more than growth at all costs. That shift puts finance front and center. Accountants have moved well beyond compliance to become central to how organizations stay agile, make smarter decisions and protect profitability.

In uncertain economic environments, businesses look for solid ground. And time and again, it’s accountants who provide it. From reconciling revenue to advising leadership on where and when to invest, the accounting function has evolved from a back-office operation into a front-line driver of performance — offering both operational clarity and strategic stability when it’s needed most. Now is the time to keep leaning in on that.

There are many CPA firm leaders who grapple with the right approach to practice succession.

Some firms want to remain independent and look for ways to strengthen their bench internally. Yet staffing and leadership are constantly at the top of firms’ lists of things that keep them up at night.

Other firms feel that the only appropriate succession solution lies with mergers and acquisitions. Yet M&A is not the best answer for everyone — in the same way that an all-cash deal, a private equity takeover, a strategic partnership or business-as-usual may be the wrong answers. 

To figure out the best succession solution for your firm, you should ask yourself — and find answers to — some key questions.

1. Have you thought in ways that are out-of-the-box?

Doing a deal is a bold step. It is important to consider other bold options and not restrict your efforts only to M&A.

Look at reengineering your practice so you’re providing more concentrated levels of service, eliminating services, working off a required service model which includes meetings and consultations, or focusing on specific industries. 

Consider joint ventures or cooperative relationships with other providers so you and your team are not stymied by not having enough — or the right kind of — help to serve clients in the best ways. You may need to strengthen your team by seeking out different types of partners, for instance, consultants with different specialties, outsourced accounting services, or experts with advanced degrees who are not CPAs. 

Explore the viability of adding non-CPA owners that provide key service expertise, capital, and/or connections.

2. What is your level of market intelligence?

Understand how today’s M&A deals, transitions and integrations are handled. Become familiar with common positives and negatives for moving forward — and be prepared to handle related steps. Have a realistic timeframe for completion.

If you’re considering internal succession, become knowledgeable about best practices. Know the terms and benefits most attractive to successors — and understand how you can best find or cultivate the right ownership candidates. You may want to tap into outside experts who can help bolster next-gen leadership. If you’re looking outside your current firm, identify recruiters who specialize in accounting firm leadership and strongly consider a retained search based on sufficient due diligence.

Talk with other firms who have been through the process. Ask them about the highs and lows. Often, talking with strangers can be more valuable than speaking only with the people you know.

3. What are your clients looking for?

This may seem like an easy question. Yet firm owners looking at succession must look at future state needs, not just current ones.

Find out what services are important to your clients that you’re not currently providing. Might you lose clients if you don’t start providing them? 

Ask clients what they would need from you if you were going to change leadership. This may be a scary question to consider. No one wants to alert clients of something that hasn’t yet happened, but all firms have clients that have deep and trustworthy relationships. 

It is normal for clients to ask their CPAs about their plans. They want to think ahead and not be left in the lurch at crunch time.

Ask them: “If our practice were to move forward with a merger, what kind of firm would compel you to stay?” 

Surveys might be appropriate. Small focus groups may be another way to learn more on a deeper level. You might even use someone else’s deal to get a barometer on client perspectives. 

Gather the data — and memorialize it. Partners should all have a good handle on the needs of everyone’s top 10 clients.

4. What are you looking for?

Gather the criteria you need to guide your decisions on succession. What synergies do you expect on day one — whether it’s a new firm or a new leader? Understand the firm culture needed. Learn what service or industry niches you need to perpetuate the firm.

What is keeping the partners and managers up at night? The last thing you want in a merger is a surprise. 

When asked, firm leaders often say their primary concerns are personnel, technology including AI, industry regulations and leadership. For successful succession, leadership is even more relevant. No machine is going to lead the firm. 

5. Have you built consensus — and trust?

Consensus and trust are important to any transition. The team must be a unified front whether you’re considering a merger, a leadership change or PE ownership.

A normal place to start is within the partners/owners group. But it’s crucial to also cultivate the entire management group, including, for example, the firm administrator, head of HR and CFO. 

Admittedly, it is a bit scary to open the discussion broadly. And you must be prepared for new ideas and compromises. However, if you don’t have consensus, trust will become a bigger issue — and could derail any process. 

When it comes to succession, firms often feel the easy solution is a merger. A successful merger is not easy. Succession is a hard, complex and customized process. The answers to the hard questions will clear the way to the right road for your firm.

President Donald Trump’s appetite for new tariffs remains undeterred, even after a pair of court decisions hit his signature duties with their most devastating blow yet. 

White House officials quickly signaled Thursday that Trump will aggressively pursue legal challenges and, if they fail, move forward with many of the same levies through other authorities.

The administration said it would go to the U.S. Supreme Court as soon as Friday if a federal appeals court does not keep the initial order from taking effect while its appeal continues. The Court of International Trade on Wednesday blocked the president’s sweeping global tariffs, citing his reliance on the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA.

“America cannot function if President Trump — or any other president, for that matter — has their sensitive diplomatic or trade negotiations railroaded by activist judges,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Thursday. “Ultimately, the Supreme Court must put an end to this for the sake of our Constitution and our country.”

Later Thursday, a second federal judge declared a number of Trump’s tariffs enacted using emergency powers unlawful, but limited his decision to the family-owned business that sued and delayed the order from taking effect for 14 days to allow the Justice Department time to appeal.

But for a president eager to use trade policy to reshape global commerce, other policy options are far from a quick fix.

Some of the other powers are laborious to use and would take months or more to execute, while others are capped in scope and duration. Administration officials made clear they intend to restore the levies one way or another, even as the government appeals 

“We’ve got a very strong case with IEEPA, but the court basically tells us if we lose that, we just do some other things,” White House trade adviser Peter Navarro told Bloomberg Television on Thursday. “So nothing’s really changed. I want to say this to the world: ‘You’re cheating us. We’re coming after you. Deal, and let’s make this right.'”

For all of the confidence on Trump’s team, Wednesday’s court ruling marked one of the biggest setbacks of the president’s second term. Trump campaigned on using tariffs to combat what he calls other nation’s unfair treatment of the U.S., and the emergency law gave him the fastest avenue to deliver on his pledge. 

The ruling would reduce the effective U.S. tariff rate to below 6% from a high of almost 27% last month, according to Bloomberg Economics calculations, an astronomical level that risked stagflation for the US. 

The legal order also injected even more uncertainty into a world economy already rattled by Trump’s ever-changing posture on import taxes. It may sap Trump’s leverage as his team negotiates with numerous trading partners seeking tariff relief. 

The decision blocked tariffs on Mexico, Canada, China as well as a flat import tax on almost every U.S. trading partner. Trump invoked the law on the grounds that fentanyl and trade deficits are each emergencies necessitating the broad use of executive power. The court ruled he went too far.

The White House on Thursday said it is looking at other options, but advisers acknowledged the potential for them being more time-consuming. 

“There are different approaches that would take a couple of months to put these in place and using procedures that have been approved in the past or approved in the last administration, but we’re not planning to pursue those right now,” National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said Thursday on Fox Business.

Yet amid mounting concern about the vulnerability of Trump’s IEEPA-based tariffs, the administration had already embraced separate legal authorities to pursue other levies. 

The Trump administration has invoked Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act to set the stage for sweeping levies that could touch everything from smartphones to jet engines. 

Since Trump took office in January, the Commerce Department has already enacted Section 232 tariffs on steel, aluminum, vehicles and auto parts, and launched investigations on trucks, copper, lumber, semiconductors, critical minerals, pharmaceuticals and aircraft.

Those tariffs are seen as less legally vulnerable than Trump’s ad-hoc nation-by-nation approach, but take months to enact. The probes typically produce findings within 270 days, but administration officials have stressed they can go faster.

Navarro said that U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer would address other avenues soon. “Any trade lawyer knows it’s just a number of different options we can take,” Navarro said.

A shift in strategy could be time-consuming, dragging out both the uncertainty of Trump’s tariff policy and the timeline for him to see some domestic political impact.

Ticking clock

“The idea that Trump is going to turn to plan B and do tariffs by other means has problems,” said James Lucier, managing director at the research firm Capital Alpha Partners. “Yes, he will do it. But he is running out of time to do tariffs and get results before the midterm elections.”

Even so, taking the time to build an ironclad case for tariffs using other legal authorities is key to ensuring they survive court scrutiny and, perhaps, future elections, analysts said.

“If Trump jumps through the hoops and does all the paper for Section 232 tariffs, then he may have tariffs that are legally sustainable,” Lucier said. “If he wants to complete a sloppy pro forma process in six weeks, the same deep-pocketed anti-tariff folks who came after him on IEEPA will come after him on 232.”

The court’s ruling also nodded to Section 122 powers — which Trump could use to impose tariffs on nations of as much as 15%, but only for about five months — as another avenue. Navarro conceded the administration had avoided doing so originally because of restrictions on how long those tariffs could remain in place. 

“Well, Section 122 only gives you 150 days. So there’s your answer right there,” he told Bloomberg Television. 

Trump has also used authorities under Section 301 of the U.S. Trade Act of 1974 to enact previous tariffs on China. Whether he will now try to enact more duties through that authority, including on China, is unclear.

Section 301 empowers presidents to take a range of actions — not just tariffs — to address unfair policies seen as restricting U.S. commerce. Affected industries have previously sought Section 301 investigations on shipbuilding, solar and other imports, but a president can initiate those probes on his or her own.

Investigations on auto and steel tariffs dating back to his first four years in office allowed Trump to move more quickly on those levies than on other sectors where he was starting from scratch.