Accounting
Book explains how CPAs can break into wealth management
A financial planner working at the intersection of wealth management and tax wrote and compiled a guide on how accountants can leap into the related but often separate field.
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“Historically,
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He cited examples of how that’s beginning to change, such as the rollout this year of a new certification in tax planning from
Rory Henry
“For CPAs, offering holistic wealth management services can be a game changer for your practice,” Kelly Waltrich, co-founder of financial services and technology marketing consultancy Intention.ly, writes in a section of the book devoted to the communications aspect of branching into wealth management. “These services are a clear opportunity to provide top-notch guidance to clients while fueling additional revenue streams. But let’s be real — simply hanging out a ‘wealth management’ shingle won’t cut it in an industry in which competition is abundant, and differentiation is key. Making your clients and prospects aware of your expanded offerings and growing your business as a result of those offerings requires a much more targeted approach.”
Other sections consist of those outlining the services in a full wealth management menu, the practice management lessons for CPAs trying to figure out what their advisory practices will need to make the transition, an appendix that delves into mental and physical health and business transformation and an opening group of essays introducing Henry’s approach.
Henry drew collaborators among some other names familiar to many financial advisors and tax professionals like planning entrepreneur, writer and podcaster Michael Kitces, Nitrogen (formerly Riskalyze) founder Aaron Klein and commission-free annuities firm CEO David Lau of DPL Financial Partners.
In his introductory essay, Henry shares the common refrains that CPAs often say when asked why they don’t provide wealth management — which are similar to those of advisors who may hesitate
- “I don’t have the time to get the appropriate licenses and certifications.”
- “I don’t know how to service the clients.”
- “I’m afraid that a bad investment outcome during a bear market could cost me a lifetime tax client.”
- “I don’t understand the investment and wealth protection side well enough.”
- “I don’t want to sell my clients investment products.”
- “I don’t know how to price the services when it’s not a deliverable like a tax return.”
- “I’m not able to set up and manage the back end sufficiently.”
- “It’s not a right fit for our firm.”
“As a CPA, you are the trusted guide in your client’s financial life,” Henry writes. “I’ve always believed in putting the spotlight on other people, i.e., your clients, rather than yourself. You should take pride in helping them become successful. It goes back to my notion of
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As an illustration of how opening the new line of business may require a different way of thinking about money and careers, Henry’s introduction discusses how being in an improv class has been integral to his professional development and what he gleaned from talented siblings as a middle child with a father in the banking business and a mother who was a school principal.
Rory Henry
“Mom was always reading books when I grew up, and she encouraged my siblings and I to do the same,” Henry writes. “She once appeared on the TV game show, ‘The $25,000 Pyramid,’ and walked away with $25,000 in prize money after sailing through the rounds without missing a question. In fact, she only got one question wrong on her SATs. I also have no doubt that my mom is the source of my creative thinking and my thirst for lifelong learning. That curiosity, combined with being a voracious reader, allowed me to obtain both the CFP (certified financial planner) and BFA (behavioral financial advisor) accreditation in less than six months.”
The personal side of money and finance leads directly to adapting holistic planning into previously tax or investment-management dominant businesses, Henry said.
“The glue that puts everything together is really the human-first approach, so I wanted people to learn more about Rory the human,” he said. “I believe so much in relationships because I believe that’s going to carry us on into the future.”
Big Four firm PwC announced new agentic AI capacities, including a model that proactively identifies areas of value leakage and acts inside the tools teams already use to fix them itself.
The new solution,
The software, which is supported by PwC’s recently released
The system connects directly into ERP environments, continuously monitors key metrics, and acts inside the tools teams already use. For example, a supply chain agent might detect rising shipping costs and automatically reroute deliveries to reduce spend. Finance agents can spot and correct billing errors before they reach the customer. Clients typically see measurable efficiency gains in the first quarter, with continued improvements over time as the system learns and adapts.
“Too many transformations still rely on one-off pilots and stale data, stretching the gap from insight to impact and suffocating ROI,” said Saurabh Sarbaliya, PwC’s principal for enterprise strategy and value. “Agent Powered Performance flips the economics by distilling PwC’s industry transformation playbooks into AI agents that turn static insights into compounding gains, without rebooting each time.”
Agent Powered Performance is platform-agnostic and built on an open architecture so it can work across different LLMs based on client preferences and task-specific needs. It works with major enterprise platforms including Oracle, SAP, Workday and Guidewire.
Agent OS Model Context Protocol
PwC also
By integrating this standard, agent systems registered as MCP servers can be used by any authorized AI agent. This reduces redundant integration work and the overhead of writing custom logic for each new use case. By standardizing how agents invoke tools and handle responses, MCP also simplifies the interface between agents and enterprise systems, which will serve to reduce development time, lower testing complexity, and cut deployment risk. Finally, any interaction between an agent and an MCP server is authenticated, authorized and logged, and access policies are enforced at the protocol level, which means that compliance and control are native to the system—not layered on after the fact.
This means that agents are no longer siloed. Instead, they can operate as part of a coordinated, governed system that can grow as needs evolve, as MCP support provides the interface to external tools and systems. This enables organizations to move beyond isolated pilots toward integrated systems where agents don’t just reason, but act inside real business workflows. It marks a shift from experimentation to adoption, from isolated tools to scalable, governed intelligence.
Research Composer
Finally, a PwC spokesperson said the firm has also launched a new internal tool for its professionals called Research Composer, a patent-pending AI research agent embedded in the firm’s ChatPwC suite, designed to accelerate insight generation by combining web data with PwC-uploaded content.
Professionals will use the Research Composer to produce in-depth, citation-backed reports for either the firm or its clients. The solution is intended to enhance the quality of client work by equipping teams with research and strategic analysis capabilities.
The AI agent prompts users through a step-by-step research workflow, allowing them to shape how reports are packaged—tailoring the output to meet strategic needs. For example, a manager in advisory services might use Research Composer to evaluate white space opportunities across industries or geographies, drawing from internal reports and up-to-date market data.
Eide Bailly, a Top 25 Firm based in Fargo, North Dakota, is growing its presence in the Pacific Northwest by adding Traner Smith, based in Edmonds, Washington, effective June 2, 2025.
Traner Smith’s team includes two partners and 16 staff members and specializes in tax compliance and advisory services. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Eide Bailly ranked No. 19 on
Eide Bailly already has offices in Seattle, but hopes to grow further in the Pacific Northwest. “We’re pleased to welcome the talented team at Traner Smith to Eide Bailly,” said Eide Bailly managing partner and CEO Jeremy Hauk in a statement Monday. “Their expertise with high-net-worth individuals, real estate and privately held businesses aligns well with our strengths, and their client-centric approach is a perfect cultural fit. Having an office in Edmonds, Washington, is a great complement to our existing presence in Seattle. Together, we’re poised to deliver even greater value to families and businesses in the Seattle metro area.”
“Joining Eide Bailly is a natural next step for us — it provides access to deeper technical resources in areas like state and local tax, national tax, succession planning and international tax while allowing us to continue the personalized service our clients value,” said Kevin Smith, a partner at Traner Smith, in a statement.
“With this expanded support and platform, we’re excited to grow our reach, elevate what we do best, and help more clients than ever before,” said Shane Summer, another partner at Traner Smith, in a statement.
Eide Bailly has announced several other mergers in recent weeks. Earlier this month, it added
In 2023, Eide Bailly added
Top 100 firm
“We began working with Knuula in Spring 2024 to streamline our engagement letter process,” said Don Murphy, Managing Member of BMSS. “It quickly became clear that Knuula was not only a strong solution for us, but also an ideal partner in advancing industry-wide automation.”
While the specific terms of the deal were not disclosed, a spokesperson with Knuula said that, after this investment, BMSS and a collection of 21 of their partners now own 13% of the company. The investment represents not some passive revenue deal but an active collaboration between the two companies, with the spokesperson saying they will be working closely together on things like product development, new features, improvements, and networking.
The deal comes about a year after Knuula integrated with QuickFee, a receivables management platform for professional service providers, which allowed users to have engagement letters directly connecting to their QuickFee billing platform, tying the execution of the letter directly to the billing process.
“We’ve long sought to partner with a firm focused on strategic innovation in the accounting space,” said Jamie Peebles, founder of Knuula. “To develop a perfect solution for large firms, it is ideal to have a partner that is willing to work closely together and iterate quickly. This requires constant feedback between our two teams. The IT team from BMSS worked with our development team constantly and helped us iterate rapidly. We also had consistent input from partners, manager, and administrative staff to help us make valuable changes to Knuula. BMSS was a perfect partner for us.”
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