Accounting
Is it time to start your own accounting firm?
Now may be the perfect time to start an accounting firm.
With client demand growing and many baby boomer CPAs hitting retirement age, there is certainly no shortage of work, and advances in technology have lowered the cost of launching a new business.
But experts say there is much to consider before accountants jump into the deep end, such as their personal financial bandwidth, whether they want to do the technical work in their firm or just manage it and where to find support. Perhaps the best place to start is figuring out why you want to start your own firm in the first place.
By and large, there are two kinds of firm founders, experts say: Those who are natural-born entrepreneurs, and those who become founders as a result of some professional or personal change that requires them to have greater flexibility.
The first group can look like accountants who have lots of ideas but who may not be able to implement them at their current firm. Or it could be an accountant who sees what their employer is doing but believes they could do it better.
The second group can look like
Kirill Makarov/kirill_makarov – stock.adobe.com
He added that firm founders must be inquisitive—they need to be willing to test things out and experiment where things can be improved.
Miklos Ringbauer, treasurer and secretary for the California Society of CPAs and founder of MiklosCPA, recommends that firm founders work for someone else first, learning the ropes in another firm and determining what they want to do differently.
“You don’t know what you don’t know,” Ringbauer said.
Will I have enough clients?
Before actually starting a business, any savvy founder should consider whether there is a market for their services. For accountants, that translates to whether there are enough clients.
The answer is “not only applicable for accountants, but for all startups – it’s an unknown,” according to Ringbauer.
That’s where professional experience and understanding comes into play, he said. Accountants should consider a couple of factors: their personal financial obligations—whether they have children, student debt or a mortgage—and their personal savings.
If you don’t have enough runway to sustain yourself for a year or two, then you may need to plan longer or save more, Ringbauer said.
One common practice among accountants is buying a book of business to secure an established set of clients. However, Angie Wood, founder of Wood CPA in Edina, Minnesota, advises against it.
“Don’t buy a book of business,” she said. “I learned that the hard way. You don’t need to.”
Many clients will make the switch to the new firm, Wood explained, “but a lot of them choose to leave shortly after because it’s a different process. It’s a different person, it’s a different relationship. Fees change. The relationship is so personal, so it’s just not worth buying a book of business because clients can leave. There’s no guarantee.”
How do I do this legally?
The legal requirements for setting up a CPA firm vary from state to state, and the requirements are different for a CPA firm versus a firm offering bookkeeping services. Ringbauer recommends that accountants do their due diligence and research on their state’s requirements, but he offered a few tips and tricks.
“Some states limit certain things,” he said. “For example, in the State of California a professional limited liability company, PLLC, is not allowed, domestic or foreign, to operate and offer services in the state. Versus in Texas, you can be an LLC. So understanding state rules and regulations is incredibly crucial.”
In addition, many state boards of accountancy have special language requirements that must be included in a firm’s bylaws or incorporation documents. He also reminds accountants that you can always incorporate later.
“Depending on the type of services you offer, you may not necessarily need to incorporate upfront for liability purposes,” Ringbauer explained, using his own experience as an example. “For a very long time, I was doing the self-employed Schedule C. Then when our clientele started to change — when things got more complicated, when I ended up doing offshore voluntary disclosures, very scary IRS compliance stuff with clients having hundreds of thousands of dollars of penalties because they were not right previously, filing their returns with their foreign assets — I decided that this was too much risk for me and incorporated.”
Ringbauer recommends hiring a lawyer, “so you understand what your requirements are and the pitfalls or benefits of the different entities. … A lot of people think that just because you are a CPA, you know the tax laws.”
Do I need to hire?
The next big question for firm founders to consider is if and when to hire.
Buller said it’s important for the firm owner to first decide whether they want to continue as the main service provider in their business. Do they love actually doing the technical work, or is their goal to manage a firm and its employees?
“You should hire your first employees when you have a good process and good systems in place to deliver the service that you can charge for and that will make it easy for you to train an employee to generate revenue for your business,” Buller said.
“If you’re going to hire somebody, it basically means you’re taking a pay cut and a bunch of your time is then going to be spent training this person,” he continued.
For most accountants, the easiest and most logical first hires are usually admin and a bookkeeper.
“Affordability is a factor, and then what are the tasks I wanted to get rid of?” Wood said. “Tax was my strong suit, so I held on to that for the longest and found somebody else to do the other things that I didn’t really enjoy doing as much.”
What if I’m not ready?
Founding a firm isn’t for everyone, of course. And there are those who start their firm but realize that it isn’t the right fit for them. But most people quit because of some personal circumstance, not because they weren’t making enough money, according to Ringbauer. Thankfully, accountants have a safety net in that they can always go back to being an employee.
“The most beautiful thing in accounting is that if you are fit to do the practice, you will always make enough money to put food on the table,” he said. “It’s a secure and very viable business.”
Throwing in the towel on a firm isn’t a mark of failure, either, Buller said.
“I think it’s a good idea to have this attitude of, ‘How could I replace myself in this business in the long run?'” He said. “And then you start thinking about all these systems and processes you need to create to make it so somebody else could do the work, and then immediately you have started to create some value that you could actually sell to somebody. That’s one exit plan.”
Do I have enough support?
There is a litany of resources available to accountants looking to start their own practice, including the American Institute of CPAs and state CPA societies, which host networking events, workshops and post reading materials. Even insurance companies have boilerplate engagement letters and guidance support.
Then there’s an accountants’ personal network, which can include friends, colleagues, partners and sole practitioners.
Wood said she experienced overwhelming support and advice when she told her network she was starting her own firm. “If I would have known how much support I would have gotten from people, I would have done this so much earlier,” she said.
Graf said he received support from other tax experts on Twitter when he was starting out. And in October, he created his own online community of firm founders called
At the end of the day, for most accountants, there will never be a perfect time to start a firm, according to Buller—you need to just do it.
“It’s kind of like having a kid,” Buller said. “People can tell you there’s challenges. People can tell you how hard it’s going to be or various things you’re going to have to do. And you’re going to have to be ignorant about it, no matter what, to some degree, until you do it yourself.”
“That’s one of our biggest hurdles,” Ringbauer said. “We believe that we need to know everything, and we are afraid of reaching out for help. The best thing is, most accountants now are looking at each other as support rather than competition.”
He continued, “Of course there are articles and books, but the most important thing to understand is that books give you the basic idea, but your own unique life experience and circumstances will dictate what may work from it or what doesn’t.”
Over the last few years, AI has gone from being a novelty to a mission-critical business strategy for many accountants. Innovative, forward-thinking firms are using these tools to streamline manual tasks, ensure compliance and provide the best possible service to their clients. According to the 2025 Intuit QuickBooks
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However, AI adoption is at varying levels across the industry. While nearly every firm has begun experimenting with basic AI tools, many remain in a sandbox phase, hesitant to move toward full-scale integration due to perceived complexity or costs.No matter where you may fall on the integration spectrum, the fact remains: AI is rapidly reshaping the accounting industry. If you’ve delayed AI adoption in your business, you’ll want to create a focused plan to catch up.
Time is of the essence, but don’t sacrifice strategy for speed
Firms that are ready to take the leap from casual use to deep integration may find themselves in need of accelerated adoption, but speed should not come at the cost of strategy. Identify tangible, practical ways that easy-to-use tools can impact your business through automation. Having a strong strategic focus allows firms to implement workflow changes to streamline manual tasks, ensure compliance and provide excellent service to your clients.
To begin your AI journey, here is a four-step plan that firms can use to transition from experimentation to execution, in a safe, practical manner:
Step 1: Kick off your first AI project
As is the case with many things, getting started is often the most challenging step. While enthusiasm is high, uncertainty with implementation risks can cause hesitation. The key is to lower risk by embracing AI and implementing an intentional, phased approach. Begin by weaving AI tools into high-impact, low-risk tasks, such as summarizing meeting notes, drafting client or firm-wide memos, or translating complex concepts into easy-to-understand ideas. Monitor results carefully and, if these initial attempts need adjustment, be prepared to pivot to the next use case until you can clearly demonstrate that AI systems are delivering a measurable impact on your operations. From there, you can learn from early experiences, adapt strategy, and scale appropriately to complete more complex projects.
Step 2: Dig into your AI toolkit
The marketplace is crowded with AI-powered tools that promise to do everything from enhancing your workflows to improving the customer experience. It can be hard to know which ones are worth investing your time and money. Find a trusted source like a respected peer, or leverage your professional network to help discuss the tools that may be the best fit for achieving your business goals. You can also look within the tools you’re already using to see if they offer AI-powered features, which can help ease into the transition. Additionally, look for free high-quality education to upskill your team. For example, Anthropic offers a Claude AI University that provides excellent foundational resources for moving beyond basic prompts.
Step 3: Review an AI security checklist
An important element in AI implementation is security. With AI tools needing access to firm and client data to function, it leads to questions of how the data will be protected. This makes the right AI and cybersecurity strategy critical. Firms must proactively ensure that client data remains protected from today’s increasingly sophisticated threats by embracing an established cybersecurity framework such as
Step 4: Openly discuss AI usage with your clients
Once you’ve established the best way to use AI tools that meet your firm’s needs, you’ll want to communicate all of the advantages afforded by these tools to your clients. Make sure you highlight the benefits and simultaneously ensure you are addressing any potential concerns. It’s also important to get explicit consent from all clients if you’re sharing their information with the third-party tools you may use. While this might seem like an extra step, it will go a long way toward fostering a greater level of transparency and deepen trust between you and your clients.
Don’t get left behind
Adopting AI does not have to be intimidating, expensive or overly complex. Think of it as a strategic business move that will not only keep you competitive, but will potentially free you up to focus on keeping clients happy and growing your practice. By strategically focusing on these best practices, identifying AI use cases in a phased approach, evaluating the right tools for your business, ensuring client information is secure and clearly communicating your AI strategy, you’ll be AI-ready in no time.
The Financial Accounting Standards Board met this week to discuss its projects on accounting for transfers of cryptocurrency assets and enhancing the disclosures around certain digital assets, such as stablecoins.
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During Wednesday’s meeting, FASB’s board made certain tentative decisions, according to a
At a future meeting, the board plans to consider clarifying the derecognition guidance for crypto transfer arrangements to assess whether the control of a crypto asset has been transferred.
FASB also began deliberations on the
The board decided to provide illustrative examples in Topic 230, Statement of Cash Flows, to clarify whether certain digital assets such as stablecoins can meet the definition of cash equivalents. It also decided to include the following concepts in the illustrative examples:
- Interpretive explanations that link to the current cash equivalents definition;
- The amount and composition of reserve assets; and,
- The nature of qualifying on-demand, contractual cash redemption rights directly with the issuer.
FASB plans to clarify that an entity should consider compliance with relevant laws and regulations when it’s creating a policy concerning which assets that satisfy the Master Glossary definition of the term “cash equivalents“ will be treated as cash equivalents.
“I agree with the staff suggestion to look at examples,” said FASB vice chair Hillary Salo. “From my perspective, I think that is going to help level the playing field. People have been making reasonable judgments. I agree with that. And I think that this is really going to help show those goalposts or guardrails of what types of stablecoins would be in the scope of cash equivalents, and which ones would not be in the scope of cash equivalents. I certainly appreciate that approach, and I think it has the least potential impact of unintended consequences, because I do agree with my fellow board members that we shouldn’t be changing the definition of cash equivalents, and it’s a high bar to get into the cash equivalent definition.”
“I’m definitely supportive of not changing the definition of cash equivalents,” said FASB chair Richard Jones. “I believe that’s settled GAAP in a way, and we’re not really seeing a call to change it for broader issues. I am supportive of the example-based approach. The challenge with examples, though, is everybody’s going to want their exact pattern, but that’s not what we’re doing.”
The examples will explain the rationale for how digital assets such as stablecoins do or do not qualify as cash equivalents and give a roadmap for other types of digital assets with varying fact patterns to be able to apply.
“We really don’t want to be as a board facing a situation where something was a cash equivalent and then no longer is at a later date,” said Jones. “That’s not good for anyone, so keeping it as a high bar with certain rigid criteria, I think, is fine.”
Stablecoins are supposed to be pegged to fiat currencies such as U.S. dollars and thus provide more stability to investors. “In my view, while a stablecoin may meet the accounting definition established for cash equivalents, not every one of those stablecoins in the cash equivalent classification represents the same level of risk,” said FASB member Joyce Joseph.
She noted that the capital markets recognize the distinctions and have established a Stablecoin Stability Assessment Framework to evaluate a stablecoin’s ability to maintain its peg to a fiat currency. Such assessments look at the legal and regulatory framework associated with the stablecoin, and provide investors with information that could enable them to do forward-looking assessments about the stability of the stablecoin.
“However, for an investor to consider and utilize such information for a company analysis the financial statement disclosures would need to include information about the stablecoin itself,” Joseph added. “In outreach, the staff learned that investors supported classifying certain stablecoins as cash equivalents when transparent information is available about the entities at which the reserve assets are held. Therefore, in my view, taking all of this into consideration a relevant and informative company disclosure would include providing investors with the name of the stablecoin and the amount of the stablecoin that is classified as a cash equivalent, so investors can independently assess the liquidity risks more meaningfully and more comprehensively by utilizing broader information that is available in the capital markets and its emerging information.”
Such information could include the issuer, reserves, governance and management, she noted, so investors would get a more holistic look at the risks that holding the stablecoin would entail for a given company.
The board decided to require all entities to disclose the significant classes and related amounts of cash equivalents on an annual basis for each period that a statement of financial position is presented.
Entities should apply the amendments related to the classification of certain digital assets as cash equivalents on a modified prospective basis as of the beginning of the annual reporting period in the year of adoption.
FASB decided that entities should apply the amendments related to the disclosure of the significant classes and amounts of cash equivalents on a prospective basis as of the date of the most recent statement of financial position presented in the period of adoption.
The board will allow early adoption in both interim and annual reporting periods in which financial statements have not been issued or made available for issuance.
FASB also decided to permit entities to adopt the amendments to be illustrated in the examples related to the classification of certain digital assets as cash equivalents without the need to perform a preferability assessment as described in Topic 250, Accounting Changes and Error Corrections.
The board directed the staff to draft a proposed accounting standards update to be voted on by written ballot. The proposed update will have a 90-day comment period.
Senators introduced several pieces of tax-related legislation this week, including measures aimed at improving customer service at the Internal Revenue Service, cracking down on tax evasion and curbing the carried interest tax break, in addition to efforts in the House to repeal the Corporate Transparency Act.
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Senators Bill Cassidy, R-Louisiana, and Mark Warner, D-Virginia, teamed up on introducing a bipartisan bill, the
The bill would establish a dashboard to inform taxpayers of backlogs and wait times; expand electronic access to information and refunds; expand callback technology and online accounts; and inform individuals facing economic hardship about collection alternatives.
“Taxpayers deserve a simple, stress-free experience when dealing with the IRS,” Cassidy said in a statement Wednesday. “This bill makes the process quicker and easier for taxpayers to get the information they need.”
He also mentioned the bill during a
“I’m happy to meet with the team … and do all I can to make it as good as you want it to be,” said Bisignano.
“My bill would equip the IRS with the legislative mandate to create an online dashboard so that taxpayers can monitor average call wait time and budget time accordingly,” said Cassidy. He noted that the bill would allow a callback for taxpayers that might need to wait longer than five minutes to speak to a representative, and establish a program to identify and support taxpayers struggling to make ends meet by providing information about alternative payment methods, such as installments, partial payments and offers in compromise.
“I know people are kind of desperate and don’t know where to turn for cash, so I think this could really ease anxiety,” he added. “This legislation is bipartisan and is likely to pass this Congress.”
Cassidy and Warner
“Taxpayers shouldn’t have to jump through hoops to get basic answers from the IRS — and in the last year, those challenges have only gotten worse,” Warner said in a statement. “I am glad to reintroduce this bipartisan legislation on Tax Day to ease some of this frustration by increasing clear communication and making IRS resources more readily available.”
Stop CHEATERS Act
Also on Tax Day, a group of Senate Democrats and an independent who usually caucuses with Democrats teamed up to introduce the Stop Corporations and High Earners from Avoiding Taxes and Enforce the Rules Strictly (Stop CHEATERS) Act.
Senate Finance Committee ranking member Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, joined with Senators Angus King, I-Maine, Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-Rhode Island. The bill would provide additional funding for the IRS to strengthen and expand tax collection services and systems and crack down on tax cheating by the wealthy.
“Wealthy tax cheats and scofflaw corporations are stealing billions and billions from the American people by refusing to pay what they legally owe, and far too many of them are getting a free pass because Republicans gutted the enforcement capacity of the IRS,” Wyden said in a statement. “A rich tax cheat who shelters mountains of cash among a web of shell companies and passthroughs is likelier to be struck by lightning than face an IRS audit, and Republicans want to keep it that way. This bill is about making sure the IRS has the resources it needs to go after wealthy tax cheats while improving customer service for the vast majority of American taxpayers who follow the law every year.”
Earlier this week. Wyden also
The Stop CHEATERS Act would provide the IRS with additional funding for tax enforcement focused upon high-income tax evasion, technology operations support, systems modernization, and taxpayer services like free tax-payer assistance.
“As Congress seeks ways to fund much-needed policy priorities and address our growing national debt, there is one common sense solution that should have unanimous bipartisan support: let’s enforce the tax laws already on the books,” said King in a statement. “Our legislation will make sure the IRS has the resources it needs to confront the gap between taxes owed and taxes paid – while ensuring that our tax enforcement professionals are focused on the high-income earners who account for the most tax evasion. This is a serious problem with an easy solution; let’s pass this legislation and make sure every American pays what they owe in taxes.”
Carried interest
Wyden, King and Whitehouse also teamed up on another bill Thursday to close the carried interest tax break for hedge fund managers that
Carried interest is a form of compensation received by a fund manager in exchange for investment management services, according to a
Under the bill, the
“Our tax code is rigged to favor ultra-wealthy investors who know how to game the system to dodge paying a fair share, and there is no better example of how it works in practice than the carried interest loophole,” Wyden said in a statement. “For several decades now we’ve had a tax system that rewards the accumulation of wealth by the rich while punishing middle-class wage earners, and the effect of that system has been the strangulation of prosperity and opportunity for everybody but the ultra-wealthy. There are a lot of problems to fix to restore fairness and common sense to our tax code, and closing the carried interest loophole is a great place to start.”
Repealing Corporate Transparency Act
The House Financial Services Committee is also planning to markup a bill next Tuesday that would fully repeal the Corporate Transparency Act, which has already been significantly
If enacted, the repeal would eliminate beneficial ownership reporting requirements, removing a transparency measure designed to help law enforcement and national security officials identify who is behind U.S. companies.
“This repeal would turn the United States back into one of the easiest places in the world to set up anonymous shell companies, something Congress worked for years to fix,” said Erica Hanichak, deputy director of the FACT Coalition, in a statement. “These entities are routinely used to facilitate corruption, financial crime, and abuse. Rolling back the CTA doesn’t just weaken transparency, it signals to bad actors around the world that the U.S. is once again open for illicit business.”
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