Your best senior manager just handed in her resignation. Despite competitive compensation, flexible scheduling options, and a clear partnership track, she’s leaving. Her reason? “I need a life outside of work.”

Despite significant investments in retention strategies, accounting firms continue to struggle with keeping top talent. The conventional approach of striving for work-life “balance” falls short in our profession, where tax seasons, client deadlines, and regulatory requirements create inherent intensity cycles.

The reality is that accounting doesn’t lend itself to consistent equilibrium between work and personal life. Your teams know this. You know this. So why do we keep pursuing a framework that fundamentally conflicts with the nature of accounting?

Accounting continues to face unprecedented challenges. According to the Thomson Reuters Institute 2024 State of Tax Professionals Report, firms are struggling with attracting and retaining talent with essential tax and technical skillsets, managing time effectively to meet deadlines, keeping up with changing regulations, and addressing billing and cash flow issues.

These challenges create a perfect storm that impacts team well-being. When we’re short-staffed, the burden falls on the remaining team members. When we’re racing against deadlines with complex regulatory changes, stress multiplies. The traditional response has been to simply work harder and longer — a strategy that’s proving increasingly unsustainable.

A perfect work-life balance is a myth. Accounting has natural rhythms and seasonal demands that make equal distribution of time impossible. When we frame the goal as “balance,” we set ourselves up for failure and create unnecessary guilt during intensive work periods.

“Work-life harmony” acknowledges that sometimes work will be the dominant priority, particularly during tax season or major client deadlines. Other times, personal life takes precedence. The key is creating intentional integration rather than forced separation between these aspects of our lives.

One firm I worked with transformed its approach by embracing this concept. Instead of pretending busy season wouldn’t be demanding, they built intentional recovery periods into their annual schedule. They created “no meeting Fridays” during non-peak times and implemented mandatory vacation periods after major deadlines. The result? Improved retention, higher client satisfaction, and increased profitability.

The business case for work-life harmony

When I talk to managing partners about work-life harmony, I often hear: “Sounds nice, but what’s the impact on our bottom line?” This is where the conversation gets interesting.

Through years of working with accounting firms, I’ve consistently seen that prioritizing professional well-being directly improves business performance. This connection between well-being and results is what I call “Fulfillment ROI.”

The research is compelling. Organizations implementing comprehensive wellness approaches see investment returns of 150% or higher, compared to just 0-50% returns for limited programs. These improvements come through reduced healthcare costs, lower turnover, and measurable productivity gains across the organization.

What might this look like in your firm? Consider the economics of retention alone: Replacing a salaried professional who leaves due to burnout typically costs 100-150% of their annual salary. For a $100,000 senior accountant, that’s up to $150,000 in replacement costs — before factoring in lost client relationships, team disruption, and knowledge transfer gaps.

These costs add up quickly, but there’s good news. When professionals learn to implement work-life harmony practices, they become both happier and more effective. In my workshops and leadership programs, the data shows:

• 89% of participants successfully implement time management strategies that enhance both productivity and well-being;
• 93% improve their ability to delegate effectively; and,
• 87% experience measurable reductions in workplace stress and burnout

These individual improvements directly impact your firm’s performance. As people feel more engaged, client service improves and productivity increases. Gallup’s research confirms this connection, showing that highly engaged business units achieve 23% higher profitability while fostering environments where employee well-being is 70% higher than in disengaged units.
The most skeptical managing partners often become the strongest advocates once they see the tangible improvements in both team retention and client satisfaction. When professionals find harmony between their work and personal lives, their energy, creativity, and commitment to clients naturally increase, creating a sustainable competitive advantage for the firm.

Creating harmony in your firm: Practical implementation

Ready to transform your firm’s approach? Here are five approaches that can transform your firm:

1. Implement team coverage models. Replace the outdated expectation of constant individual availability with structured team coverage systems. Consider creating client service teams with primary, secondary and tertiary contacts clearly identified. This approach ensures clients receive consistent support while allowing individual team members to fully disconnect during designated periods. The key is clear communication about how the system works and setting appropriate expectations up front
2. Design intentional seasonal workflows. Map your firm’s natural cycles and build recovery systems directly into your annual planning. Rather than pretending every week looks the same, acknowledge the rhythm of your business. Front-load client preparation during less intense periods, schedule mandatory breaks after major deadlines, and reserve slower periods for professional development and innovation.
3. Establish communication boundaries. Create clear technological guidelines that respect personal time. Try implementing a communication protocol that specifies which channels (email, messaging, phone) should be used for different urgency levels, with corresponding response time expectations. For instance, configure systems to delay non-urgent email delivery outside working hours, or establish “email-free” periods during the day to allow for focused work.
4. Integrate strategic recovery periods. Build brief renewal periods into your daily and weekly rhythms. This might include “deep work” blocks where no meetings or interruptions are permitted, implementing 10-minute breaks between all meetings, or establishing “no-meeting” days during non-peak times. The idea isn’t to work less but to work differently. Strategic pauses increase focus, creativity, and decision-making quality.

Takeaway

The firms gaining a competitive advantage today recognize that professional excellence and personal well-being reinforce each other. They’re creating sustainable high-performance cultures where intensity and recovery work in tandem.

The most successful accounting firms of the next decade will be those that recognize team wellbeing as a strategic advantage rather than a concession. Where will your firm stand?

House Republicans narrowly passed President Donald Trump’s economic package after a series of all-night negotiations and 11th-hour compromises.

The legislation now heads to the Senate where lawmakers are looking to make their own stamp on the bill. The core of the package — an extension of the president’s 2017 first-term tax cuts — is likely to stay, but the senators could make some changes to a slew of new tax and spending measures that touch many aspects of the economy.

Here’s a rundown of the House bill’s main provisions impacting people and businesses: 

$40,000 SALT limit

The limit on state and local tax deductions would rise to $40,000, up from the current $10,000. The legislation places a new income test on eligibility for the tax deduction, phasing it out for individuals earning more than $500,000. Both the deduction cap and income threshold would increase by 1% a year for 10 years. 

The bill also separately creates a new limit on the value of itemized deductions for those in the top 37% tax bracket that partly erodes the value of the new SALT cap.

Tips, overtime and autos

Tips and overtime pay would be exempt from income tax through 2028, the end of Trump’s second term, fulfilling — at least for four years — his campaign promise. The GOP bill would also make interest on auto loans deductible through 2028, addressing another Trump pledge from the trail. All three provisions would be retroactive to the beginning of this year.

Medicaid

The bill would accelerate new Medicaid work requirements to December 2026 from 2029 in a gesture to satisfy ultraconservatives who wanted more spending cuts.

The December 2026 deadline would fall just one month after midterm elections, with Democrats eager to criticize Republicans for restricting health benefits for low-income households. In an appeal to conservative hardliners, the legislation prohibits Medicaid from funding gender transition therapies or procedures for minors or adults.

Food stamps

The bill aims to save $300 billion by forcing states to pay more into the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. It would also apply work requirements for longer. Beneficiaries must work through age 64, up from 54 under current law.

Interest expensing

Private equity and other heavily indebted business sectors won a major fight in the tax bill on interest expensing. The bill adds depreciation and amortization when determining the tax deductibility of a company’s debt payments. The maximum amount any company can get in such tax write-offs is calculated as a percentage of earnings. That’s why using EBITDA – which is typically bigger than EBIT — in this process would generate heftier tax deductions.

University endowment tax

Some private universities would face a dramatic tax increase on investment income generated by their endowments, posing a serious penalty to some of the nation’s wealthiest schools.

The provision would create a tiered system of taxation so that colleges and universities that meet a threshold based on the number of students would pay more. Under Trump’s 2017 tax law, some colleges with the most well-funded endowments currently pay a 1.4% tax on their net investment income. The levy would rise to as high as 21% on institutions with the largest endowments based on their student population.

The provision is a major escalation in Trump’s fight with Harvard and other elite colleges and universities, which he has sought to strong-arm into making curriculum and cultural changes that he favors. Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Princeton and MIT would face the maximum 21% tax rate based on the size of their endowments in 2024, according to data from the NACUBO-Commonfund Study of Endowments.

Private foundation tax

Private foundations also would face an escalating tax based on their size: 2.78% for private foundations with assets between $50 million and $250 million, 5% for entities with assets between $250 million and $5 billion; and 10% for foundations with assets of at least $5 billion, such as the Gates Foundation, a longtime target for Republicans.

Sports teams

The bill would limit write-offs for professional football, basketball, baseball, hockey and soccer franchises that claim deductions connected to the team’s intangible assets, including copyright, patents or designs.

Electric vehicles

A popular consumer tax credit of up to $7,500 for the purchase of an electric vehicle would be fully eliminated by the end of 2026, and only manufacturers that have sold fewer than 200,000 electric vehicles by the end of this year would be eligible to receive it in 2026. Tax incentives for the purchase of commercial electric vehicles and used electric vehicles would also be repealed.

Renewable tax credits

The legislation would cut hundreds of billions of dollars in spending by gutting a slew of clean energy tax incentives for clean electricity production. The bill would end technology-neutral clean electricity tax credits for sources including wind and solar starting in 2029.

It would also hasten more stringent restrictions that would disqualify any project deemed to benefit China from receiving credits. Those limits, which some analysts have said could render the credits useless for many projects, would kick in next year.

The legislation would also extend through 2031 tax credits for the production of biofuels.

Bonus for elderly

Americans 65 and older who don’t itemize their taxes would get a $4,000 bonus added to their standard deduction through 2028. That benefit would phase out for individuals making more than $75,000 and couples making more than $150,000. It would be retroactive to the beginning of this year.

Trump had campaigned on ending taxes on Social Security benefits, but that proposal would have run afoul of a special procedure Republicans are using to push through the tax-law changes without any Democratic votes. The higher standard deduction is an alternative way of targeting a benefit to the elderly but doesn’t fully offset Social Security taxes paid by many seniors.

Targeting immigrants

Immigrants would face a new 3.5% tax on remittances sent to foreign nations. Many immigrants send a portion of their earnings abroad to support family members in their home countries. Tax credits would be available to reimburse U.S. citizens who send payments abroad.

Factory incentives

The bill does not include Trump’s call for a lower corporate tax rate for domestic producers. Instead, it allows 100% depreciation for any new “qualified production property,” like a factory, if construction begins during Trump’s term — beginning on Jan. 20 and before Jan. 1, 2029, and becomes operational before 2033. That would be a major incentive for new facilities as Trump wields tariffs to drive production to the US.

Child tax credit

The maximum child tax credit would rise to $2,500 from $2,000 through 2028 and then drop to $2,000 in subsequent years. 

Trump Accounts

The bill would create new tax-exempt investment accounts to benefit children, dubbed Trump Accounts. An earlier version of the bill called them MAGA Accounts, referring to the president’s Make America Great Again campaign slogan. The accounts would allow $5,000 in contributions per year and adult children would be able to use the funds for purchasing homes or starting small businesses, in addition to educational expenses. The bill would authorize one-time $1,000 government payments into accounts for children born from 2025 through 2028.

Pass-through deduction

Owners of pass-through businesses would be allowed to exclude 23% of their business income when calculating their taxes, a 3-percentage-point increase from the current rate. The increase is a win for pass-through firms — partnerships, sole proprietorships and S corporations — which make up the vast majority of businesses in the US.  

Research and development

The bill would temporarily reinstate a tax deduction for research and development, a top priority for manufacturers and the tech industry. The deduction will last through the end of 2029. 

Oil, gas and coal

The bill would raise billions by mandating the Interior Department hold at least 30 oil and gas lease sales over 15 years in the Gulf of Mexico, which Trump ordered to be renamed to the Gulf of America. It would withdraw Biden-era restrictions on development in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The measure would also mandate at least six offshore lease sales in Alaska’s Cook Inlet region over six years. The legislation would also require Interior to offer at least four million acres of coal resources for lease in the West within 90 days of enactment.

Radio spectrum

The legislation would restore the Federal Communications Commission’s ability for the next decade to auction radio spectrum to telecommunications companies such as Verizon Communications Inc. and Elon Musk’s Starlink.

New spending

The bill would allocate $150 billion for the military and $175 billion for immigration and border security.

Due to high interest, Accounting Today will be extending the deadline for its annual VAR 100 survey by one week. OUR NEW AND FINAL DEADLINE IS END-OF-DAY FRIDAY, MAY 30. That’s seven days.

The VAR 100 is where we rank the top value-added resellers of accounting and accounting-related software by revenue. There is no cost whatsoever to take part. If your accounting firm also has a technology practice that sells software solutions, please only include your tech practice for the purposes of this survey. 

Those interested in taking part should fill out this form by our deadline of the end of the day on May 30, 2025. Any questions should be sent to me, [email protected], before the end of the day on May 30. 

For examples of what this will look like in the end, please see the 2024 VAR 100, the 2023 VAR 100 and the 2022 VAR 100.