Connect with us

Accounting

Beyond rainmakers: The new face of business development in accounting

Published

on

The rainmaker days are over.

Rainmakers, the select charismatic few — usually partners — who brought in the vast majority of an accounting firm’s clients, are becoming obsolete as firms professionalize business development and shift their reliance off the individual and onto the collective team. Looking ahead, experts say the most successful firms will be those that entrench themselves in a niche and poach clients with their hyperspecialized services.

In the past, firms’ growth strategies were rudimentary and unsophisticated, according to Gale Crosley, CEO of Crosley and Co. Firms relied on the individual contributions of rainmakers to generate the bulk of their revenue while growth strategies remained largely unchanged year to year. Now, especially since the Paycheck Protection Program stimulated growth during the COVID-19 pandemic, “driving demand is on cruise control,” Crosley said.

“The fish are jumping in the boat. They’ve been jumping in the boat for five years, and it’s not a business problem they have to solve right now,” she explained.

Modern rainmaking art.jpg

It’s a straightforward scenario where there is too much work to do and not enough talent or time to do it, meaning strategic growth is on the backburner for many firms as they manage day-to-day business operations.

“Fulfilling the demand side is sucking all the energy out of the firm,” Crosley said. “They’re totally focused on getting the laundry out the door, offshoring and technology.”

“The firms who are on it — the A+ firms who have always been on it — they’re not hitting the pause button,” she continued. “Only firms who always knew that they had to carve out that time and say, ‘We’ve got to look at growth strategies for the future,’ those are the ones who are doing it right.”

Modernizing business development

Firms are now formalizing and structuring the process of finding and bringing in new clients. The first key to modernizing business development is moving the responsibility of client acquisition beyond individual rainmakers.

“It’s taking more of a matrix, relationship-focused approach, instead of a singular source of that rainmaker being out with the client,” said Rebekah Gardner, chief growth officer at Top 25 Firm Wipfli. “You start to identify these segments, these clients and prospects, and then you look at the team that you have on your bench, and you start to match up relationships and skills, and you build that matrix.”

The second key is specialization. Competition for clients is increasing as more firms look to own entire market segments and tailor their services to those select niches. Firms that choose to stay generalists put themselves at risk of losing business.

(Read more:Pathways to Growth: Strategic client development.)

“You have got to have industry experts sitting on your team so that you build that ability to have a conversation at their level,” Gardner said. “If you can’t show up like that, I don’t think you belong in the game sometimes.”

“Specialization and niches allow firms to perform a much higher value service to their clients,” said Tim Petrey, CEO of HD Growth Partners, a member firm of private-equity-backed accounting firm platform Ascend. “They can get much deeper with a client than the surface-level tax and compliance work. As a result, you form a higher degree of trust between the accountant that owns the relationship and the client much faster. It can be difficult for a ‘generalist’ style firm to compete with industry experts.”

But it’s easier said than done. Becoming a specialist requires the difficult task of dropping low-profit, time-consuming clients, and focusing resources on high-growth, high-return clients.

“Firms need to improve by looking closely at the clients they best serve and build a marketing strategy around that,” Petrey added. “Treat your firm like a real business and it’s amazing what comes naturally from that. Treating a firm like a partnership often leaves marketing efforts stale because partners can’t agree on the strategy, the ideal client profile, the budget, or even just as simply the contribution of their staff’s time to the efforts.”

The decline of rainmakers

The accounting profession’s ongoing labor shortage impacts everything within a firm, especially business development.

“Finding great accountants is hard enough. Finding great accountants who can sell is like hunting for a unicorn,” Petrey said.

“With one person coming into an industry for every five who are leaving, staff are getting asked to do things earlier on in their careers than their predecessors. Partners and shareholders are getting younger and younger because firms need to find a way to get those great people locked in for years,” Petrey continued. “As a result, most firms never focused on building any real brand loyalty. There is loyalty to an individual but not loyalty to a brand. The rainmakers of the prior generation are still out winning business the old school way, but there aren’t enough of those rainmakers in the next generation.”

“That’s the crux of the problem,” said Bob Lewis, president of The Visionary Group. “Why we have so much M&A going on right now is because of the lack of business development and a lack of networking skills. “

Besides, the traditional rainmaker model isn’t necessarily the best fit for modern firm culture. “When a firm has a great rainmaker that is a poor manager, leader or colleague, they’ll often look past their issues as a leader because they generate so much revenue, which causes firms to further struggle to maintain or improve culture,” Petrey said.

Instead of relying on rainmakers, some firms have turned to the internet and search-engine optimization to supplement client acquisition.

“What they missed is that the activity you generate through SEO is typically the type of clients you don’t want. It’s clients that are searching the internet looking for a new provider,” Lewis said. “The good clients go through the professional network. They go through the bankers, they go through their lawyers, they go through the insurance agencies, and they get referrals into another accounting firm.”

“I can replace the accounting part, the tax part, overnight. I can’t replace the trust part, and that’s what people have learned and figured out how to sell,” Lewis said.

The rise of the CGO

With the sunset of the rainmaker era comes the dawn of the chief growth officer.

CGOs are the newest additions to small and midsized firms’ staff. While mergers and acquisitions certainly fall within a CGO’s remit, they are also focused on trimming clients that don’t fit the firm’s portfolio, upskilling the next generation of partners, adding more advisory services, and expanding relationships with existing clients, Lewis said.

CGOs also need to be “making sure that people inside of the firm are being deployed in their highest and best use,” Wipfli’s Gardner said. “Traditionally we’ve used our own partners, rank and file, to think about these things, but sometimes it takes an outsider perspective to come in and say, ‘Hey, let’s think about this a little bit differently.”

Unlike the average accountant, CGOs specialize in general management. The addition of them into accounting firms is a new trend that has only been accelerated by the wave of private equity investment in the profession.

(Read more: The rise of the chief growth officer.“)

“Most accounting firms have historically run like a partnership rather than a real business,” Petrey said. “PE will continue to professionalize firms of all sizes to be better and smarter at business development. As a result, non-PE backed firms will need to find ways to make that investment into their firms to remain competitive.”

“​​The preexisting resource constraints and the seasonal nature of the business makes it really hard for anyone to make meaningful progress on a strategic initiative,” said David Wurtzbacher, CEO of Ascend, which is backed by PE firm Alpine Investors. Each of Ascend’s platform firms is required to have a CGO.

“For a long time, the public accounting industry couldn’t and didn’t attract general management type talent — think MBAs — because of the partnership model. It was, ‘We can’t really pay you that much, and we definitely can’t give you equity in these companies, and we’re not really growing that much,’ and so you didn’t have access to the talent markets the way other industries have access to it.”

“But the fact remains, there are people outside the industry who might be better suited for driving growth and transformation and strategic initiatives,” Wurtzbacher said.

Continue Reading
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Accounting

KPMG rolls out tool to model tariff impacts

Published

on

Big Four firm KPMG announced the release of its new Tariff Modeler tool, made to help users prepare for and respond to ongoing trade policy changes. 

The solution draws on client-specific historical data, current tariff information, and the user’s organizational objectives to generate a tailored interactive dashboard that can provide detailed financial information with trade-related insights and data visualizations. People can examine their trade data, identify areas of risk, and understand the financial impacts of said risks. The solution also does in-depth scenario modeling, letting users look at a number of different hypotheticals and examine how tariff policy impacts them. Users can also refine insights by isolating high risk areas based on product, vendor, and country of origin. 

Users get access to comprehensive tariff analysis that provides detailed insights into current and potential tariffs affecting your products and markets; real-time updates on the latest tariff changes and regulations; customizable reports to help make informed decisions and communicate effectively with key stakeholders; and an intuitive interface made to be understandable to those who are not trade experts. 

“Today’s volatile global trade landscape requires companies to fundamentally rethink how they anticipate and respond to policy shifts,” says Rema Serafi, KPMG’s vice chair of tax. “By leveraging AI to transform vast streams of global trade data into actionable intelligence, organizations can rapidly model complex scenarios and make more informed decisions. Those who embrace this AI-powered approach will not only navigate current uncertainties but also position themselves to capitalize on emerging opportunities in this new normal of trade complexity.”

Llamadex Investment

KPMG also last week announced a minority investment in a company, LlamaIndex, that makes data infrastructure for large language models. 

LlamaIndex’s suite of services enables organizations to connect their proprietary data to large language models (LLMs). The company’s flagship offerings include LlamaParse, which provides parsing for complex documents with embedded tables and figures, and LlamaCloud, a managed ingestion and retrieval service for Retrieval Augmented Generation implementations.

KPMG’s investment is spearheaded by KPMG Ventures, which is dedicated to collaborating with and investing in early-stage start-ups in areas like agentic AI, data infrastructure, cybersecurity, and more. KPMG Venture’s minority equity investment follows recent investments in other AI-driven startups including Ema, Wokelo and Rhino.AI.  

“As we continue to innovate and push boundaries in applied AI, a robust data foundation is essential for building effective AI systems, particularly sophisticated knowledge assistants and agentic solutions,” said Swami Chandrasekaran, KPMG principal for AI and data labs. “LlamaCloud and LlamaIndex provide the frameworks necessary to access, curate, and ingest data at-scale, enabling KPMG to develop differentiated, industry-specific solutions that deliver measurable business outcomes for our clients.”

KPMG’s investment was made in parallel to another made by the data and AI company Databricks. Together, these investments will accelerate the development and adoption of LlamaIndex’s innovative LlamaCloud and LlamaParse services, which have emerged as critical tools for enterprises implementing production-grade AI solutions.

Continue Reading

Accounting

DOGE downsizing, IRS commissioner switch complicate tax season

Published

on

Complimentary Access Pill

Enjoy complimentary access to top ideas and insights — selected by our editors.

Tax season usually marks the busiest time of the year for IRS professionals, but for the 30,000 staff who have accepted buyouts or been laid off by the agency this year, the calendar has  been painfully clear. 

Higher-ups have not been immune to the upheaval, with four IRS commissioners and multiple unit chiefs departing. Michael Faulkender, former deputy secretary of the Treasury, was announced as the newest acting commissioner on April 18 — replacing a predecessor who had been in place for less than a week.

“The fight against weaponization and politicization at the IRS is a top-tier priority for the Trump administration, and Deputy Secretary Faulkender will continue to make the needed changes both durable and lasting,” a Treasury spokesperson noted. “We urge Congress to act quickly to confirm permanent leadership at the IRS to ensure its ability to best serve taxpayers going forward.”

Read more: Treasury union asks for relief as IRS plans more layoffs

The uncertainty surrounding the IRS started on inauguration day, when previous Commissioner Danny Warfel resigned, citing President Trump’s intention to name former congressman Billy Long, R-Missouri, as the next commissioner. Long has yet to be confirmed however, leading to a power vacuum that has been filled by a series of acting commissioners, most recently Faulkender. 

As the revolving door at the top of the IRS continues to spin, Elon Musk’s Department of Governmental Efficiency has introduced its own initiatives to the agency. This tax season seemingly saw the end of the government’s Direct File program, after DOGE shut down development work on the project for 2026. This came following a report weeks earlier from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, which claimed that the IRS had underreported the cost of the program by millions of dollars. 

“Reported totals did not include an estimated $8.8 million for costs incurred by the Office of Management and Budget for employees detailed to the IRS to help develop and pilot Direct File and costs incurred to create or leverage existing accounts through the IRS’s credential service provider,” said the report regarding the main source of the costs discovered.

Though a significant portion of the funding for enforcement, taxpayer services, and tech modernization are being eliminated by Congress, mass layoffs may be the most salient example of DOGE’s transformation of the IRS.

“My real concern is that anything where you need people at the IRS will take more time,” said David Shapiro, partner and chair of the tax, compensation and benefits practice at law firm Saul Ewing LLP. “That goes for even the most mundane matters. For example, to establish a domestic entity you can just go online and get a tax ID, or do it by phone. A foreign entity can’t do that. So it’s harder for foreigners who want to do business in the U.S. Likewise for low-income taxpayers to resolve an issue through an offer in compromise. This will all go away without agents to help.”

Read more: Tennessee, Arkansas weather victims get tax relief

See below for the latest headlines out of the IRS this month at the conclusion of filing season.

The IRS headquarters in Washington
The IRS headquarters in Washington.

Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

Leadership changes and layoffs at the IRS

Tax Day 2025 marked the 70th anniversary of the April 15 filing deadline. As tax season has wound down, the uncertainty at the IRS has not.

Many high-level IRS officials have left or been pushed out in the waning months of the filing period, chief information officer Rajiv Uppal being the most recent on a list that includes four commissioners and former acting chief counsel William Paul.

IRS heads are not the only personnel at risk — 30,000 employees have taken buyouts or been laid off and 7,000 probationary workers have been placed on paid leave. A study by Yale’s Budget Lab concluded that 18,200 employees being cut would lead to a $1.4 billion savings in salaries but a $8.3 billion loss in tax revenue. 

Read more: IRS marks Tax Day amid layoffs, cutbacks

Michael Faulkender
Michael Faulkender

Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg

New acting commissioner appointed

After serving as acting commissioner for just three days, Gary Shapley was replaced by Deputy Treasury Secretary Michael Faulkender — the fifth IRS head of the year. Shapley had achieved notoriety as a whistleblower after testifying against Hunter Biden to the House Oversight Committee as an IRS Criminal Investigation special agent in 2023. 

Reportedly, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent complained to the Trump administration that Shapley had been appointed without his consultation. Shapley had been named a senior advisor to Bessent last month.

Read more: Acting IRS commissioner replaced by Treasury official

direct-file-pilot.png

Direct File ending next year after Elon Musk’s IRS reorganization

After Elon Musk posted on X that he had “deleted” the team that built the IRS Direct File system last year, further reporting found that IRS staff had been told to stop preparing the system for 2026. Though tax prep software firms have long opposed the program, former IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel had outlined plans to make the project permanent just last year. 

Lobbying group the American Coalition for Taxpayer Rights advocates for nurturing the public-private Free File partnership. In 2025, nonprofit Code For America helped bring the Direct File program to 25 states, up from 12 the year before. 

“Direct File was a massive success, saving taxpayers millions in fees, saving them time and cutting out an unnecessary middleman that took money out of Americans’ pockets for no good reason. Trump and Secretary Bessent are robbing regular American families to pay back lobbyists that spend millions to make tax filing more expensive and more difficult,” said Senate Finance Committee ranking member Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, in a statement.

Read more: IRS Direct File reportedly ending next year 

irs-nametags.jpg
Nametags with the IRS logo in a conference room at the Internal Revenue Service campus in Austin, Texas

Jordan Vonderhaar/Photographer: Jordan Vonderhaar/

DOGE creating super API next step in IRS data deregulation

Elon Musk plans to organize the IRS data system around a single API by early May— possibly with the help of Peter Thiel’s Palantir. APIs are necessary for data to transfer from one computer program to another, and the IRS already has several existing ones that this effort would centralize. 

Layoffs and privacy concerns seem to both be impediments to DOGE’s plans. The IRS has announced 20,000 future layoffs, and its 50 senior tech leaders are currently on paid administrative leave. Many special permissions are currently required to access the sensitive data that would be included in this API, and unifying this data would make it all the more a target to bad actors. 

Read more: DOGE to centralize IRS data under one API

irs-building-engraving.jpg
The Internal Revenue Service headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Samuel Corum/Bloomberg

Basis shifting crackdown ended by Trump administration

Citing a February executive order from the Trump administration that established the DOGE deregulatory initiative, the Treasury Department and IRS announced plans to stop designating basis-shifting among partnerships and related parties as “transactions of interest.” Previous regulations had imposed possible penalties under Sections 6707A(a), 6707(a), and 6708 as the IRS had seen the practice to be a possible tax avoidance strategy.

After the IRS found tens of billions of dollars in dubious deductions while auditing a group of basis-shifting transactions last year, then-Commissioner Danny Werfel announced a new unit within the Office of Chief Counsel to target such tax loopholes.

“Taxpayers and their material advisors have criticized the Basis Shifting TOI Regulations as imposing complex, burdensome, and retroactive disclosure obligations on many ordinary-course and tax-compliant business activities, creating costly compliance obligations and uncertainty for businesses,” said a notice from the Treasury and IRS.

Read more: IRS proposes to end crackdown on basis-shifting transactions

Continue Reading

Accounting

The Importance of Backing Up Bookkeeping Data

Published

on

Importance of Backing Up Bookkeeping Data

Protecting Your Business’s Financial Lifeline

In today’s digital business environment, backing up bookkeeping data is not just a good practice—it’s a critical part of financial management. Your financial records are among your company’s most valuable assets. Losing them can lead to serious consequences, from lost revenue and legal penalties to a complete breakdown of operations. Whether you’re a small business owner or a large enterprise, understanding the importance of data backup in bookkeeping can save you from irreversible damage.

Why Financial Data Backup Matters

Financial data backup is essential because data loss can happen at any time. It can come from hardware failures, cyberattacks, software crashes, natural disasters, or even simple human mistakes. One accidental deletion or system crash could wipe out years of financial records, including invoices, receipts, tax filings, payroll data, and customer information. Without a solid backup plan, restoring that information can be impossible, leading to compliance violations and major setbacks.

Business Continuity and Bookkeeping Reliability

One of the main goals of any data backup strategy is business continuity. When your financial information is backed up and easily restorable, your business can continue to function even after an unexpected event. This minimizes downtime and ensures your bookkeeping stays accurate and up to date. Whether you face a cyberattack or a flood, a reliable backup ensures you can access your critical financial records and get back on track quickly.

Follow the 3-2-1 Backup Rule

A best practice for data backup is the 3-2-1 rule, which stands for:

  • 3 copies of your data (one primary and two backups)
  • 2 different types of media (for example, a computer hard drive and an external USB drive)
  • 1 copy stored off-site, such as in a secure cloud-based system

This approach protects your financial data from all types of risks, including physical theft or natural disasters that could destroy all on-site backups.

Use Cloud Backup Solutions

Modern cloud accounting software like QuickBooks Online, Xero, and FreshBooks often include automatic data backup features. These platforms store your information in secure, off-site servers and regularly update your data in real time. While this offers a great layer of protection, businesses should still maintain independent backups—either through cloud storage providers like Google Drive or Dropbox or through physical external drives.

Automate Your Backup Schedule

To avoid the risk of forgetting manual backups, it’s smart to set up automated backup schedules. Most businesses benefit from:

  • Daily incremental backups (to capture changes made each day)
  • Weekly full backups (to maintain a complete and up-to-date copy)

Additionally, consider making extra backups after major financial activities, such as closing the month or completing annual reports. This ensures that your most important financial data is stored securely at critical checkpoints.

Test Your Backup Systems Regularly

Backing up your data is only half the job. The other half is making sure you can successfully restore it when needed. Many businesses make the mistake of assuming their backup systems work, only to discover too late that their files are corrupted or inaccessible. Set a quarterly schedule to test your backup restoration process. Restore files in a test environment and make sure they are complete, accurate, and usable.

Keep Backup Data Secure

Your financial data contains sensitive business information, including banking details, employee records, and customer data. This means your backup system must be just as secure as your main systems. Use strong encryption, require password protection, and enable multi-factor authentication (MFA) on your cloud accounts. Make sure that only authorized personnel have access to backup files, and regularly audit access permissions.

Store Physical Backups Off-Site

If you use external hard drives or USB devices for backup, store at least one copy off-site. Keeping all backups in the same location exposes your data to risks like fires, floods, or theft. Consider storing a copy at a trusted partner’s office, a secure storage facility, or even using a backup vaulting service.

Stay Compliant with Legal and Tax Requirements

In many industries, financial records must be retained for several years to meet legal and tax obligations. Failing to back up your bookkeeping data can result in penalties during audits or investigations. Keeping reliable backups helps you meet these requirements, providing a digital paper trail of your financial activities.

Make Backup Part of Your Financial Strategy

Treat your bookkeeping backup system as an essential part of your business strategy. It’s not just about preventing disaster—it’s about preserving your financial history, supporting compliance, and keeping your business running smoothly. Regular data backups give you peace of mind and a safety net to fall back on when the unexpected happens.

Conclusion: Backup for Long-Term Success

Backing up your bookkeeping data is one of the smartest moves you can make to protect your business. With cyber threats rising and unexpected issues always a possibility, a strong data backup system ensures your financial records are always safe, accessible, and intact. By following best practices like the 3-2-1 rule, automating schedules, securing your data, and regularly testing your system, you build a reliable foundation for your financial operations. Make data backup a non-negotiable part of your bookkeeping routine, and you’ll be well-prepared for whatever challenges come your way.

Continue Reading

Trending