Accounting
How accounting firms are working to stay independent
Published
1 month agoon

In an accounting profession swirling with acquisitions and private equity investments, California-based Sensiba has decided to remain independent — a choice the Top 100 Firm makes over and over again.
“Every couple of years, it’s a decision,” explained managing partner John Sensiba. “Multiple offers a day come and partners always consider: Are we doing the right thing by our people and clients? So far the answer is yes.”
A whole cohort of firms would answer the same way, continuing to grow their practices organically and through strategic acquisitions while opting out of the capital offered by private equity or larger firms seeking their own buying opportunities.
Most would also agree that not having access to the capital and resources provided by larger entities requires independent firms to be very strategic — continuously outlining, communicating and executing on plans — to remain competitive.

At Bellevue, Nebraska-based leadership consulting firm ConvergenceCoaching, partner Tamera Loerzel and her team coach many firm leaders on just that.
“What we are learning and seeing from these firms, from managing partners, one of the things they tell us is, ‘Are we the only ones; are we crazy? Are we insane for not looking at other options other firms are looking at?’ [We say,] ‘No, you are not the only one, you are not crazy,'” she shared.
Of course, many firms still do their due diligence on scoping out the current market. What they see is a trend of merger and acquisition activity and private equity investments into accounting firms — including many Top 100 Firms in recent years — that was kicked off by Top 25 Firm EisnerAmper’s deal with TowerBrook Capital Partners in 2021.
Further highlighting the profession’s new direction, research and advocacy group The Accounting MOVE Project released a report late last year on how private equity investment is impacting employees.
(Read more: “
Firms that do accept private equity must set up alternative practice structures, splitting their attest and nonattest sides so the audit and assurance practice complies with state laws regarding CPA ownership.
This PE-dictated restructuring has been happening so often that the American Institute of CPAs’ Professional Ethics Executive Committee set up a group, the Alternative Practice Structures Task Force, earlier this year to revise its independence rules, and recently released revised language for stakeholders to consider.
So while Loerzel validates her clients’ sanity in remaining independent, she does advise that they keep an eye on the profession’s changing dynamics.
“Having a really clear direction, unified approach, and linked arms in where they are headed, doesn’t mean they are not going to have conversations and stay aware of what is happening in the market,” she explained. “Partners wonder, ‘Is this the right financial answer for us; if we get the right offer, do we take it?’ Sometimes it’s a blanket no. But [they should] pay attention to what the market is doing, it helps to focus, and know what their approach is. They need to be educated and have a clear vision and direction.”
Large or in charge?
One potential drawback firms see in merging or receiving outside investment is giving up control.
“For us, we want to remain our own bosses,” explained Sara Dayton, managing partner of Buffalo, New York-based Lumsden McCormick. “To us, that’s our main focus.”
One way the firm, which was founded in 1952 and currently has about $30 million in revenue and 145 employees, accomplishes this is with its mandatory retirement policy, according to Dayton.
“We’ve made it through a few generations, with a lot of young partners and a lot of energy,” she explained. “We have a required 65-and-out on retirement. We don’t have those older partners who are waiting to retire before the next level can move up. We have it in the partnership agreement, so there’s an ability for younger people to become partner. It’s made us stronger and led to a great plan for succession.”
Succession is a top concern for any independent firm relying on an internal transition, including Houston-based Abip CPAs.
“There would be nothing better for me than to transition ownership to our staff, our current senior managers and partners who have helped build the firm,” shared managing partner Scott Irvine. “I have a great leadership team behind me. Internal succession, for us, requires a lot of coaching, a lot of mentoring, a lot of faith in the people that are coming up behind us. It would be easy to talk to private equity and cash out a majority upfront. It’s very safe, I get it — very attractive. There’s an old adage of taking care of the people that helped you get here…. There’s nothing better than having the firm continue to move forward under different leadership, for however long it can continue. That’s the ultimate goal, to see if we build that team, those individuals, and get them ready to take on that challenge and responsibility.”
Since the firm was founded in 2005, it has grown from eight people to over 200, and added four other Texas offices to its Houston headquarters location.
The firm’s two decades in the burgeoning Houston market has given it a unique vantage point to PE’s ballooning influence, where, according to Irvine, “The majority of our competitors that used to fight over the midmarket space have been gobbled up by national, regional firms or private equity.”
“There are a lot of national firms and private equity wanting to get into Texas,” he observed. “We have some of the fastest-growing cities — Austin, San Antonio, Houston, Dallas — we’re looking to get into Dallas … Because of the consolidation of national firms and private equity coming in, it has widened the result to our benefit. There’s a large gap in the area, the middle-market area we service. I see it more as an opportunity for firms like us. Our clients don’t want to use a national firm, with national firm rates; they’re not big enough, and they feel they don’t get the service they get with a local firm.”
In fact, a Top 25 Firm’s acquisition of a Houston-based Top 100 Firm in 2021 directly benefited Abip.
“When [the Top 25 Firm] came into Houston and bought … a very good local, regional firm, within one to two years, we had a lot of the legacy clients now onboarding in earnest,” Irvine recalled. “With the [Top 25 Firm’s] rates and model, they were jumping ship because they didn’t feel they were getting the service they were used to; they didn’t want to pay the national rates, and they were looking for options.”
The wider market movement has also boosted the firm, Irvine reports. “We see that a lot with these acquisitions and mergers,” he continued. “It really created a situation for us, both in Houston and San Antonio — we look back at accounting, the top 25 firms from 15 to 20 years ago, the majority of those outside the Big Four nationals here were large local firms. Now we look at it, and its predominantly national firms, and only a handful of large local firms like we are. It gives us, in my opinion, a competitive advantage in our local markets.”
The pluses of private equity
The competitive bar has been raised in general for firms now contending with the influx of capital in the profession.
“No doubt, private equity coming into our space has accelerated the pace of change because of the environment,” said Stacie Kwaiser, CEO of Top 50 Firm Rehmann, which has remained independent. “It’s not a bad thing. We have to change faster to meet the needs of our workforce and clients. It’s allowing us to stay focused on our culture and our values … It’s a great thing for the profession; it’s allowed us to believe we have the opportunity to change faster, and to change as a profession. To me, that’s what they are promoting. I believe we have a strategy to move forward with change at a faster pace. I don’t think private equity is a bad thing for us and the profession.”
Allan Koltin, CEO of Koltin Consulting Group,
“PE firms raised the bar on our profession,” Koltin said. “They’re making it more competitive. They’re making tougher decisions faster. They’re taking the partnership model and making it work better.”
Sensiba also refers to private equity as a motivating factor. “We’re disrupting ourselves before disruption hits our profession in a more meaningful way,” he explained, in outlining his firm’s strategic priority, which was echoed by other independent firms: operational excellence. “We talk to friends who have taken investments and that’s exactly what private equity does, they come in and try to make operations excellent, bring in the rigor and discipline to maximize profitability. We do that without outside investment.”
Talent and tech
Talent and technology are foundational elements to these improvements, and for the first, independent firms can have the edge over higher-funded firms in attracting like-minded individuals.
“Partners are very strong in wanting to stay independent — it’s a message we send to employees and future partners,” explained Tom Johnson, partner at Minnesota-based Regional Leader Boulay. “It really has an impact on their decision; they want to be with Boulay. There’s a certain person who wants to be closer to ownership and decision-making, a little more control over their careers. Why we are staying independent is the people factor, having the control over their ability to practice in the profession, and not having some foreign entity deciding what we are going to do.”
While Boulay is a 90-year-old firm, its success over that near-century is due to embracing change, explained Johnson, though that’s sometimes easier said than done.
He identified “willingness of people to change,” as a top challenge to the firm’s long independence. “The No. 1 challenge is partners being willing to dive into the change — changing their behaviors while changing firm behaviors.”
For Boulay and its 315 employees across three offices, this is driven by its “process of moving from a compliance environment to a relationship environment,” Johnson explained. “The technology is going to do more of the work, and we have a differentiation of the relationship: consulting, advice giving. Those are the main transformational things.”
The wider availability of cutting-edge technology can also serve to level the playing field between independent firms and other firms’ deeper pockets.
“The resources they have, what they can spend on technology, what they spend on personnel, their own R&D, looking at software specific to them — we can’t do that,” acknowledged Abip’s Irvine. “We have to maximize every dollar and be very calculated. It hasn’t made us worse than our competitors by leveraging common brands out there — CCH, Thomson Reuters. They do a good job of continuing to advance technology, as AI becomes bigger and bigger.”
Independent firms must also invest in their people, which many are doing through dedicated professional development initiatives.
“In terms of associate experience, we continue to build strong development programs for associates at all levels in all divisions of the firm, to continue to offer firmwide mobility,” shared Rehmann’s Kwaiser. “Just overall, we are continuing to invest in a culture focused on the values of putting people first.”
Loerzel also stressed the importance of a people-first approach.
“Firms being successful are really clear in moving forward with programs and investing in a flexible culture, an open culture, mentorship,” she said, sharing an adage she believes holds true to thriving independent firms: “Culture is how employees feel on a Sunday night.”
Lumsden McCormick follows that logic with its workplace flexibility. “In trying to keep people, one of the main things is to remain hybrid,” Dayton shared. “There are no requirements for employees to return to the office if they want to work remotely. It has helped us bring in and retain people.”
Growing forward
In a profession action-packed with M&A, independent firms are making their own acquisitions to keep pace.
“We want to grow,” shared Dayton. “As part of that strategy, we are always looking if there are other firms to acquire.”
Rehmann has also made a series of acquisitions over the last few years.
“The M&A market shut down for us for three to five years” due to private equity competition, said Sensiba, but, “It’s really opened up in the last year or so for those that want the stability of an independent firm. No judgment one way or another, it’s just a choice. We’ve had mostly organic growth over the last few years, and then were priced out of the [M&A] market because of private equity. But over the last year or so we are having meaningful conversations for significant additions to the firm.”
(Read more: “
Abip has conducted about 15 acquisitions over its 20-year existence, and Irvine identified some advantages that an independent firm has in that arena over larger would-be buyers.
“If they get with us, it’s not the same as with private equity or national firms,” he explained. “You are joining with a firm very similar to you, so the integration process, the transition for clients, is much easier. You can say, when joining another local firm, you have similar rates and values as we have, similar customer service, offer the same service lines. What regional and national firms are offering, it resonates with a lot of firms like us, they’re worried about: ‘Are clients going to go from A to C clients? Are they just buying us to get some clients and [get] the other ones out? What’s going to happen to employees, are they going to be able to adapt to a national firm?’ There are a lot of unknowns in going with a national firm, or with private equity that is still in its infancy stage and unfolding. We can give the answers of how those unknowns can be resolved. I don’t think national firms and private equity firms can.”
One understood component of private equity ownership is financial accountability. “From a private equity standpoint, there is a lot of pressure to meet performance metrics, to invest in certain things,” said Dayton. “We don’t have those kinds of required goals in the same way that cause stress to our people.”
Independent firms should broadcast these advantages, advised Loerzel. “There’s lots of noise in the market, for talent and clients,” she said. “If you don’t have a real clear position and messaging, and are not communicating that in conversations, in writing, in recruiting documents, client communications, it can leave people wondering. Hire smart staff, smart team members who know what’s going on and where to plant roots to build their careers. You have to be really clear about your position and where you’re headed — it’s a competitive differentiator. If you’re not doing that, it leads to uncertainty.”
Abip has successfully alerted clients and staff to its continued mission. “It is very possible to grow a firm independently without including a national firm or private equity, depending on the city,” Irvine said. “What we’ve found is it’s refreshing for clients, to stay independent … . We are giving the feel and touch that’s more personal, in my opinion, than what a national firm can give. There’s just no replacement for being local.”
Loerzel also identified a common trait she’s witnessed in independent firms.
“One of the big ones is being committed to leave a legacy,” she shared. “They are about leaving something for the next generation, building something and really enjoying building something to leave something for the next generation of leaders. One characteristic attribute is generosity. It takes time and effort, blood, sweat and tears, and investment to build a firm like that and not take the dollar signs everyone is talking about with private equity and M&A. Generosity as a leadership team, often led by the managing partner, is something we see top down in firms committed to remain independent. They have a vision for their future and really know where they want to head.”
Keeping options open
While committed to a vision, many independent firms advocate being open to possibilities and weighing the pros and cons of any option to merge or sell.
“You figure out, with all the benefits of private equity, there’s a rigor to managing it,” Sensiba said. “To treat the business like a business and less like a traditional services firm, where you are waiting for the phone to ring or growing because you exist.”
While Sensiba continues to make the choice of independence, the decision is based on continual evaluation — which in itself can be a stressor.
“There’s a psychological challenge: Why is everyone else doing it and not me?” shared Sensiba. “What am I missing? But beyond that, we’ve been so fortunate. It’s been so good for all of us. As the market cools, it will really determine whether we have the steam to continue to grow as an independent firm. It’s a good test for all of us.”
And while the market looms large in any decisions, Sensiba reiterated the importance of staying true to the independent mindset guiding so many firms that have chosen that path.
“Everybody has different needs and desires — there is no right or wrong answer, but determine the right answer for yourself,” Sensiba advised. “If you’re the only one not doing the selling, you question: Is it the right thing? Don’t let your values be determined by others’ decisions.”

Ross Lindhout
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Accounting
Essential Strategies for Maintaining Data Security in Modern Bookkeeping
Published
2 hours agoon
May 10, 2025
In the modern world of digital finance, securing bookkeeping data is not just a good business habit—it’s absolutely essential. Bookkeepers work with confidential financial records, including income reports, payroll details, tax filings, and banking information. As cyber threats continue to evolve, protecting this data is a critical step in maintaining trust, ensuring compliance, and supporting business continuity. Let’s explore effective, easy-to-understand strategies that bookkeepers and businesses can use to strengthen their data security and avoid unnecessary financial risks.
Control Who Has Access to Financial Data
One of the first steps in keeping bookkeeping data secure is managing access control. Not every employee in a company needs access to financial information. Set permissions so that only those who absolutely need access—like bookkeepers, accountants, or certain managers—can see or edit sensitive records. This limits the chances of internal data leaks or accidental changes.
Use multi-factor authentication (MFA) for all financial software platforms. This adds an extra layer of protection beyond just a password. Even if a hacker steals someone’s login details, they can’t access the system without the second form of verification. Regularly conduct access reviews and audits to make sure permissions are current and appropriate.
Encrypt Data at All Times
Think of data encryption as the protective armor surrounding your financial files. Encryption converts information into unreadable code that can only be unlocked with a special key. Whether you’re storing records in the cloud, on a local device, or sending financial statements to clients, encryption ensures your data stays protected from cybercriminals.
For cloud-based accounting systems, make sure the provider offers end-to-end encryption and follows industry security standards. Also, be sure any email or messaging platform used to transmit bookkeeping data uses secure, encrypted connections.
Create a Reliable Backup Plan
Backing up bookkeeping data is a huge part of data security. A good rule to follow is the 3-2-1 backup strategy:
- Keep 3 copies of your data.
- Store them on 2 different media types (like a computer and an external hard drive).
- Keep 1 copy off-site, either physically or in the cloud.
This ensures that if your local systems are ever hacked, damaged, or lost due to hardware failure, your financial data is still safe and recoverable. Set up automated backup schedules to keep your backups current, and test the restoration process regularly to ensure you can access the data when needed.
Keep Accounting Software Up to Date
Outdated accounting software can become an open door for cybercriminals. Software providers release security updates and patches to fix bugs and defend against new threats. If you’re using software like QuickBooks, Xero, or Wave, enable automatic updates whenever possible. Check for updates weekly if you’re managing the process manually.
Always keep any antivirus and firewall systems active and updated. These tools act as your first line of defense against malware, ransomware, and other digital threats that could compromise your financial data.
Train Your Team on Data Security Best Practices
Technology alone can’t prevent security breaches. Human error is still the leading cause of many data security incidents. That’s why it’s important to train everyone involved in bookkeeping—even if it’s just a few team members—on cybersecurity basics.
Training should cover how to spot phishing emails, create strong and unique passwords, handle data responsibly, and respond to suspicious activity. Even quick, regular refresher sessions can greatly reduce your risk.
Keep a Clear Audit Trail
Document everything related to financial activity and data access. This includes who logs into your accounting systems, what changes they make, and when. Keeping an accurate audit trail helps you identify the source of any errors or breaches quickly. It’s also vital for regulatory compliance, especially if you undergo an audit by the IRS or other financial authority.
Choose bookkeeping software that includes activity logs and make sure they’re enabled. These logs can help you track down security problems before they get worse and provide evidence if something ever goes wrong.
Make Security an Ongoing Priority
Cybersecurity is not a one-time project. It’s a regular part of doing business in the digital age. As your business grows and technology changes, your approach to bookkeeping data security must evolve too. Review your data protection strategies quarterly, and update them to keep up with new threats and industry trends.
It’s also wise to stay informed about bookkeeping regulations, data privacy laws like GDPR or CCPA, and compliance requirements that apply to your business. The more proactive you are, the safer your financial records will be.
Data Security is the Foundation of Trust
Maintaining data security in bookkeeping is about more than just protecting your business—it’s about preserving your clients’ trust and your company’s reputation. From managing access controls and using encryption to updating software and training staff, each small step adds up to a stronger defense against potential threats.
When you make data protection a core part of your bookkeeping process, you reduce risks, improve accuracy, and ensure your business is always ready to face challenges. Remember, a secure bookkeeping system is the foundation of a successful, trustworthy, and future-ready business.
Accounting
AI great at simple tasks but struggles with complexity
Published
20 hours agoon
May 9, 2025
Artificial intelligence has indeed led tech-forward firms (including those in this year’s
On the positive end, firms such as the Texas-based Franklin Alliance reported that adopting AI technology has dramatically increased their capacities as bots take on repetitive manual tasks with an ease and a speed far past more conventional automation setups, allowing accountants to focus more on higher value tasks.
“What’s been most impressive about the AI tools we’ve explored is their ability to dramatically reduce the time spent on repetitive, manual tasks—things like document summarization, data extraction, and even early-stage tax prep. In the right context, these tools create real efficiency gains and allow our team to shift focus to higher-value advisory work,” said Benjamin Holloway, co-founder of Texas-based Franklin Alliance.

madedee – stock.adobe.com
For some, like Illinois-based Mowery & Schoenfeld, these efficiencies have been most impressive on the internal administration side, with AI effectively taking care of the non-accounting work that nonetheless keeps many firms afloat, especially where it concerns meetings.
“Truly most impressive and a huge time savings for us has been AI’s ability to record and summarize Team meetings. Circulating notes and reducing administrative burden on such activities has freed up much capacity, both for our admin side and for partners or management who are not able to be at every meeting,” said Chris Madden, director of information technology.
Others, like top 10 firm Grant Thornton, emphasized AI’s benefits in client-facing activities and noted that it has been especially meaningful in its risk advisory services at least partially due to the firm’s recently-launched CompliAI tool, designed specifically for this area.
“The tool uses generative artificial intelligence and was developed using Microsoft technology, including Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service. CompliAI’s ability to quickly analyze vast datasets and identify potential risks has proven invaluable in combining Grant Thornton’s extensive global controls library with generative AI models and features, including AI analysis, ranking and natural language processing capabilities. As a result, our employees can run control design and assessment tasks in minutes, versus days or weeks. This means clients enjoy faster operational insights, which could amount to a new level of efficiency and a path toward transformative growth,” said Mike Kempke, GT’s chief information officer.
Another positive frequently mentioned, such as by top 25 firm Cherry Bekaert, has been the accessibility and ease of use for many AI solutions even for those without strong technical capacities. Assurance partner Jonathan Kraftchick said this means they did not need to wait long before they began seeing results.
“The most impressive aspect of AI has been its ability to add value with minimal ramp-up time. Many of the tools we’ve implemented have a low barrier to entry, allowing users to start experimenting and seeing results almost immediately. Whether it’s drafting content, conducting accounting research, summarizing meetings, normalizing data, or detecting anomalies, AI has consistently helped accelerate tasks and enable our teams to focus on higher-risk or higher-value areas,” he said.
Several firms, such as California-based Navolio & Tallman, also mentioned improvements to broad strategy and ideation, saying it’s been good for enhancing creativity and accelerating the early stages of their work.
“We’ve still seen value in AI as a jumping off point for ideas and strategy. It’s been helpful for brainstorming, drafting early versions of client communications, and supporting high-level planning conversations,” said IT partner Stephanie Ringrose.
Inconsistencies, inaccuracies, insufficiency, and insecurity
At the same time, firms over and over again said that while the strength of AI comes in handling simple jobs, it often lacks the precision and consistent accuracy needed for higher value accounting work. While it can certainly generate outputs at an industrial scale, trusting that those outputs are correct is another story for firms like Community CPA and Associates.
“AI is incredibly useful for certain types of tasks, such as summarization, data extraction, answering simple questions, drafting communications or documentation, brainstorming ideas, or serving as a sounding board. However, we have observed that most AI tools we’ve tried have difficulty with complex tasks that require lots of context, precision, or domain-specific knowledge. Oftentimes in these cases, AI tools will generate responses that are overly confident or wrong and are missing key information due to not being integrated with other systems or software we have,” said CEO Ying Sa.
Some, like top 25 firm Armanino, noted that these challenges mean that humans need to devote considerable time to ensuring the quality of AI outputs and intervening when the programs go off track.
“The primary disappointment stems from the occasional inaccuracies or biases inherent in AI-generated outputs, commonly referred to as ‘hallucinations,’ necessitating continuous human oversight to ensure reliability. Addressing these inconsistencies remains an ongoing challenge,” said Jim Nagata, senior director of cybersecurity and IT operations.
Top 25 firm Eisner Amper’s chief technology officer Sanjay Desai noted that these issues with accuracy and consistency can be found across AI solutions, though noted that the technology is still quite new and so many things are still in the process of being refined.
“The lows come from the gap between what’s possible and what works reliably in practice. We still need strong guardrails to define valid inputs and outputs, especially in sensitive use cases. Technologies like retrieval augmented generation (RAG) haven’t yet delivered the accuracy or consistency we need when working with proprietary or domain-specific data. Even in mature areas like audio-to-text transcription, we see issues—particularly with accurately identifying speakers in multi-person meetings, which affects the quality of recaps and follow-up actions. In short, while LLMs have come a long way, making them enterprise-ready still requires ongoing human oversight, thoughtful implementation, and continuous refinement,” said Desai.
Another issue reported by several firms was what firms like Navolio & Tallman saw as ongoing security risks from AI solutions that limits their ability to apply the technology to more sensitive use cases.
“The overall attention to security and privacy is still more limited than our industry requires, vendors have not yet aligned their pricing models with the impact their tools make to the business, and vendors still oversell their AI capabilities,” she said.
Top 25 firm Citrin Cooperman also noted–among other things–that the security of these solutions could stand to improve.
“The overall attention to security and privacy is still more limited than our industry requires, vendors have not yet aligned their pricing models with the impact their tools make to the business, and vendors still oversell their AI capabilities,” said chief information officer Kimberly Paul.
Another issue with AI that firms have reported is that solutions today don’t seem to integrate especially well with other programs, which limits the ability of these solutions to work across multiple systems in a single coherent workflow–under such conditions, AI solutions can wind up being siloed from the very areas it is needed the most.
“We believe one of the biggest gaps in current AI solutions is the inability to integrate into other AI solutions to work collectively across one process or workflow. There are many cases where one AI solution is very good at a specific task, while another is very good at another process or task, but the gap is the ability to integrate those solutions together to solve for an entirety of a process or a workflow,” said Brent McDaniel, chief digital officer for top 25 firm Aprio.
There is also the matter of data integration, which is needed for AI systems to gain a more holistic understanding of a firm’s needs. Without such integrations, AI becomes more limited in its ability to develop insights and provide actionable guidance, according to Tom Hasard, IT shareholder for New Jersey-based Wilken Gutenplan.
“We wish AI tools could fully synthesize all of our internal data and unique expertise—beyond the scope of general internet search—and provide detailed, context-specific answers for our team. In the near term, we envision an internal system that taps into our accumulated knowledge to assist staff in resolving complex client problems more quickly. Over time, this capability could be extended to give clients direct, on-demand access to our specialized insights, effectively scaling our expertise and delivering value in a more immediate and personalized way,” he said.
Beyond just data, lack of integration also limits the ability for AI to address complex problems due to lack of cross-disciplinary expertise, according to Kempke from Grant Thornton.
“Current AI solutions lack the deep cross-disciplinary expertise to be able to solve complex issues. AI today is optimized for specific fields and tasks but when it comes to solving problems that span multiple disciplines such as Tax, Legal and Finance, the current solutions are not yet capable of providing meaningful advice and guidance. Grant Thornton is already working with various AI partners on this issue and targets to be a very early adopter of the next iteration of AI that addresses this,” he said.
The AI wishlist
Many firms hoped that the next generation of AI solutions would address these sorts of problems in a way that will allow them to become true assistants capable of taking on complex tasks that require extensive judgment.
“We have found that AI currently lacks in the ability to replicate human creativity and complex decision-making. While AI excels at data analysis and task automation, it struggles with tasks requiring creativity and nuanced judgment. If AI could offer more sophisticated support in areas such as accounting and audit services, its value and impact in our daily lives would be significantly enhanced,” said Jim Meade, CEO of top 50 firm LBMC.
Desai, from Eisner Amper, also pointed out that AI isn’t very good at handling bad data, which is a problem considering that AIs run on data. This means that using AI effectively today still requires a great deal of data processing and sanitation to make information useful. If humans did not need to do so much manual cleanup to get data AI-ready, it would help make the technology even more efficient.
“One of the biggest gaps in AI today is its limited ability to handle bad data. Since data is the foundation of any AI strategy, it’s a challenge that most organizations still face— dealing with messy, inconsistent, or unstructured data. We wish AI could do more to identify, fix, and improve data quality automatically, instead of relying so much on manual cleanup,” said Desai.
Finally, Avani Desai, CEO of top 50 firm Schellman, said that AI needs to not only be safer, it needs to be visibly so, as trust and confidence in the technology is often key to adoption.
“I wish that AI could de-risk itself so that clients would be more open to using it and build client trust. If AI could more clearly demonstrate safety and responsible use, adoption would be much easier. Once people understand it’s here to help—and learn to use it responsibly—the fear will fade,” she said.

Representative Nicole Malliotakis said increasing the state and local tax deduction cap to $30,000 from $10,000 would reduce the tax burden of the vast majority of people in her district, indicating support for a proposal that is dividing Republicans.
“Every member needs to advocate for the particular needs of their district. Tripling the deduction to $30,000 will provide much-needed relief for the middle-class and cover 98% of the families in my district,” Malliotakis, a Republican representing Staten Island, New York and a member of the House tax committee, said in a statement to Bloomberg News on Friday.
Malliotakis’ nod of approval for a $30,000 SALT deduction cap comes as Republicans are fighting among themselves about how high to increase a tax break that has the potential to scuttle President Donald Trump’s entire tax package.
House Speaker Mike Johnson on Thursday said the $30,000 write-off limit is one of several options being discussed. That figure was rejected by several other New York Republicans, including Elise Stefanik, Nick LaLota, Mike Lawler and Andrew Garbarino. California’s Young Kim also rebuffed the idea.
Malliotakis’ district has less expensive property values and lower incomes than some of the other lawmakers pushing for a SALT expansion, making it politically viable for her to accept a lower cap than some of her colleagues.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt suggested on Friday that Trump would not weigh in on an appropriate level for a SALT cap, leaving it to lawmakers to resolve.
“There’s a lot of disagreement on Capitol Hill right now about the SALT tax proposal, and we will let them work it out,” she told reporters.
House Republicans’ narrow majority means that Johnson needs to win the support of nearly all his members to pass Trump’s tax-and-spending package.
Several of the SALT advocates have said that they are willing to block the bill unless there is a sufficient increase to the deduction. However, most members have not publicly stated how high the deduction must be to win their support.
The debate over SALT has proved to be a particularly thorny fight because it is a political priority for a small but vocal group of Republicans representing swing districts critical to the party maintaining a majority in the 2026 midterm elections.
Expanding the write-off is an expensive proposition, and Republicans have little fiscal wiggle room as they are sparring over ways — including cuts to Medicaid and levy hikes on millionaires — to offset the cost of the tax-cut package.
The House Ways and Means Committee is slated to consider the tax portion of the bill on Tuesday, including SALT changes.

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