While CPA firms far and wide have made major technology investments over the years, the vast majority of accountants say they’re not being used to their full potential. 

This finding comes from a recent survey undertaken by CPA.com and payment solutions provider Bill. The 400-person poll found that nearly all respondents, 97%, say they use technology inefficiently and that additional training is needed to maximize return on investment. Further illustrating the point, 43% of respondents said that technology is making them do more manual work, not less, something. Becky Munson, an Eisner Amper partner specializing in outsourced accounting services, believes this reflects a failure of training and change management, as she has seen many who disliked a technology change develop manual workarounds specifically to avoid using the new solutions. 

“We see employees make workarounds with tech stacks, which makes headaches that I think align with this 43%. We train people on new things, we ask them to use them, and they keep doing what they were doing before and only use the technology as much as they have to [in order to] move things along while you have people well trained on the software keeping up,” she said in a webcast on Thursday about the survey. 

Ariege Misherghi—senior vice president and general manager of accounts payable, accounts receivable and the accountant channel—said the issue isn’t just because of firms but also vendors that don’t provide enough support, and may not necessarily understand the profession in the first place. 

“Too often I think tools aren’t fully aligned with the workflows they’re meant to support. In SaaS they talk about product-market fit, but in this profession it’s not just that but also product-firm fit, and maybe product-profession fit. Not every tool marketed to accountants was built by people who truly understand how this profession works: the rhythms, the regulations, the stakes, the relationships, all of that. And even the greatest tools can fall short if they’re not implemented with a deep understanding of how firms really operate,” she said. 

And sometimes the inefficiencies come from both sides at once: the survey found that only 37% of firms require clients to use their tech stack, something that Munson said “breaks my heart” as “it is so low.” A streamlined, established tech stack is needed to achieve true economies of scale, but to get there firms need to standardize their data, and to do that firms need to make sure their clients’ data is also standardized, which usually means integrated tech stacks. 

“If you have all these different clients with all these different technologies, even if your own tech stack is standardized the systems they use is different, so the kind of data you will get will be different, and the work you need to do to make it work with your data is different, and your team spends a lot of time spinning their wheels,” she said. “Once you get standardized, where everything back and forth from clients is the same, you get to see how well the teams can do their work.” 

One source of inefficiencies is a rushed implementation. Munson said that, too many times, firms are so eager to get a solution working that they don’t pay attention to all its capacities, just the ones they need right now, but once the basics are down firms still don’t circle back on the rest of the features and how they can be used to drive efficiency. 

“Most of us have been through an implementation, either in the practice or with a client, where you’re just like ‘anything to get it working. Forget about all the fancy things it does. We just needed to do the basics right,’ and then we never circle back on those better, more efficient processes. We get to sort of minimal viable, and then we forget to come back and give it an extra polish. And so what we see there is the processes get written for that basic piece, and we never update,” she said. 

But this is part of what both speakers believed was the larger problem of firms getting lost in the details of their tech stacks and not taking a broader, more holistic approach, which would enable more efficiencies. The key component to managing technology effectively, Munson said, is looking not at individual solutions here and there but thinking of the system as a whole. 

“Often, what happens is something’s wrong or something is troublesome in some way. And so [we say] what can we do to fix that one thing? And we don’t think about it holistically and get all the right folks in there so that we’re solving for the right pain points,” she said. 

Misherghi agreed, and added that this holistic extends not only to the technology a firm already has but the solutions they plan to purchase in the future. When evaluating what technology they need, she said leaders need to think not in terms of specific point solutions to particular problems but things that can support the entire workflow—plus, the onboarding, training and ongoing support from the vendor. 

“Don’t just look for features, right? Look for solutions that support your workflows from providers that understand you. For firms, onboarding and training and optimization can’t be an afterthought. They’re essential to realizing value. I think this is where vendor partnerships matter. Firms seeking the strongest results aren’t just using software, they’re collaborating with their providers, they’re staying educated, they’re making sure their tools evolve alongside their needs. The best outcomes happen when your technology partner acts like part of your team, not just part of your toolkit,” she said. 

Misherghi said that the more successful firms she’s seen think less in terms of performing particular tasks but designing an entire system that, through automation, can do those tasks for them. It is less about plugging holes and more about developing a full infrastructure. The survey found that 74% of participants have a detailed plan to add new services in the next 12 month; Misherghi noted that, among these firms, 86% have a detailed technology roadmap, which is “a wonderful mark on the evolution of the profession we’re seeing.” 

She said a good tech roadmap is more like a service design blueprint versus a shopping list. Successful firms, she said, are not just chasing features but designing intentional workflows and systems capable of scalable service delivery. Similarly, she stressed that the provider should be more than just a vendor but a strategic co-architect that can help with growing pains. 

Misherghi said this approach will become especially relevant as AI becomes more common, as integrations will be key to their effective use, which means thinking in terms of the whole system to understand where those integrations should take place. Right now, she said, people think of AI in terms of analyzing data or extracting fields, but with the rise of AI agents will require firms to focus more on coordinating between them. 

“I think the next big leap is when those systems don’t just talk to each other, they act on each other’s behalf. I think the next big inflection point will be moving from automated steps to autonomous workflows, where AI agents aren’t just analyzing data or extracting fields but actually orchestrating tasks across tools based on firm policies and context and that will change the role of the accounting profession: its less time doing the work and more time designing the system for how everything works together. So the firms that will be thriving are those who are building strong infrastructure now because that is what AI needs to deliver on its core value,” she said.

A key House committee on Friday failed to advance House Republicans’ massive tax-and-spending bill after hard-line conservatives bucked President Donald Trump and blocked the bill over cost concerns.

The House Budget Committee rejected the bill 21-16, with Republican Reps. Chip Roy, Ralph Norman, Josh Brecheen, and Andrew Clyde joining Democrats to vote against it. The four hardliners demanded deeper cuts to Medicaid and other government programs.

It’s incredibly rare for bills to fail at this step in the process, with the committee vote typically serving as a rubber-stamp to the bill before it moves to the House floor. 

Stefani Reynolds/Photographer: Stefani Reynolds/B

The setback could be temporary and the panel can still approve the bill once the GOP differences are resolved. 

Republican Lloyd Smucker, who switched his vote to “no” to allow the committee to bring it up again, told reporters the committee will hold another vote on Monday. 

Trump, whose social media muscle and calls to lawmakers have previously been crucial to advancing his priorities, inserted himself in the debate less than two hours before the vote, berating dissidents and urging them to fall into line. 

“We don’t need ‘GRANDSTANDERS’ in the Republican Party,” Trump said in a social media post on Friday. “STOP TALKING, AND GET IT DONE! It is time to fix the MESS that Biden and the Democrats gave us. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

The bill’s failure exposes the power a small group of lawmakers can wield as Republicans seek to push Trump’s “one big, beautiful bill” through the House with very narrow margins. GOP infighting threatens to kill the bill, or at least significantly delay Republicans’ plans to pass the bill next week.

(Read more: “‘One big beautiful bill’ full of tax surprises.”)

Republican holdouts spelled out their demands during Friday’s committee meeting, including accelerating new work requirements for able-bodied adults on Medicaid to take effect immediately rather the 2029 deadline set in the legislation. The ultraconservatives also want a faster phase-out of clean energy tax credits.

It wasn’t immediately clear how House Republicans will re-group to address the divisions and advance the bill.

“I’ll let you know this weekend if we’re going to return first thing Monday. That’s the goal at this point,” Budget Chairman Jodey Arrington said after the vote. 

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, who is helping to broker a deal among Republicans, said party leaders are in touch with the Trump administration to address some of the changes demanded by hardliners.

“We are all in agreement on the reforms we want to make,” Scalise said. “We want to have work requirements. We want to phase out a lot of these green subsidies. How quickly can you get it done?”

House Speaker Mike Johnson on Thursday pledged he would work through the weekend to broker a compromise between moderates, who are seeking an increase in state and local tax deductions, and ultra-conservatives, who say they won’t support it without more spending cuts.

(Read more: “Here are the winners and losers in the Republican tax bill.“)

Members from both factions — the SALT Republicans representing high-tax districts and the fiscal hawks who want steeper budget reductions — have threatened to block the bill if House leaders don’t acquiesce to their demands. 

“No one group gets to decide all this stuff in either direction,” Roy, an ultraconservative Texas Republican advocating for bigger spending cuts, said in a brief interview on Friday. “There are key issues that we think have this budget falling short.”

Both Roy and Norman urged continued negotiations and significant changes to the bill that could in turn jeopardize support among moderates.

“I’m a hard no until we get this ironed out,” Norman said. “I think we can. We’ve made progress but it just takes time.”

If the legislation passes the House, it would then head to the Senate where it would likely undergo significant changes. Several members, including Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, have stated opposition to the Medicaid cuts in the House bill.

Relationships fuel so many businesses — including accounting — but for the clients of San Jose, California-based PP&Co.’s fastest growing industry specialization, they are the “lifeblood,” according to assurance partner Richard O’Leary.

More specifically, for the Regional Leader’s burgeoning private and public club industry clients, members are their foundation.

“Membership is the lifeblood and lifeline of the industry — keeping members, and especially always getting new members, is paramount to the industry,” explained O’Leary of the firm’s club clients, part of its wider hospitality group that includes private clubs as well as public golf clubs, city clubs, yacht clubs, equestrian/athletic clubs, hotels, amusement parks and conference centers.

O’Leary has worked with this type of client since the mid-1980s — first as part of a New York firm that specialized in hospitality and transferred him to the Bay Area, and later at their largest competitor in that niche in 2018, as PP&Co. was, according to him, “dominating the Bay Area in this particular industry.”

And PP&Co.’s success has only grown in recent years, he reports. “We did have a very good 2024 in terms of new client opportunities,” O’Leary said. “That comes from brand recognition, name recognition, all of these clubs and hospitality clients all talk amongst one another — ‘Who are your auditors, your tax providers? Do you work well with them? Do you get along with them?’ Opportunities come by word of mouth and reputation. And other firms — there isn’t another firm in the state of California that does as many clubs as we do. We are dedicated to the industry. There are other firms that just dabble in the industry and don’t provide [full] service and the clients can tell. It’s only a matter of time before they want to change service providers.”

Long before his decades serving these clients, he had an understanding of their business as a “country club kid” growing up in New York. It even led to his first accounting firm job.

“My parents belonged to a local club and I was kind of raised in the country club environment,” he shared. “My pop referred me to the partner that did that particular country club’s audits — my pop was treasurer at the time. I connected with the partner at the firm, and that’s how I got the interview.”

As a direct beneficiary of the powerful connections that can be formed at clubs, O’Leary can personally relate to the needs of his clients — the overriding one, again, being to maintain and grow membership. This has led to changing priorities as these organizations aim to bring in younger members.

“New members, the younger generation of their parents, belong to these clubs,” O’Leary said. “Keeping membership strong is one of the challenges the industry faces. In order to attract younger members, the industry has to react to the changing trends of younger generations. We are seeing that happen within clubs providing things like casual dining versus formal dining, fitness facilities — things the younger generation is more interested in versus the older generations. There are a lot of changes in the industry.”

Keeping pace with a changing industry

Recent changes to regulations, especially in the wake of COVID, mean O’Leary and his practice are kept busy as they keep clients up to date and informed. The firm provides traditional assurance and tax services to these clients, though that work has expanded to include more consulting work.

“There’s always opportunity in the industry to educate your client base,” he explained of his club clients, which he estimates to currently include about 45 organizations in the Bay Area. “Because a lot of clubs are tax-exempt, the industry comes with lots of rules and regulations that need to be understood to preserve tax exemption and to understand what aspects of the business are taxable, where to pay tax. With that, there is a world of opportunity to consistently and constantly advise clients on these rules and regulations.”

While this year-round advisory work, including recently updated Internal Revenue Service regulations, keeps PP&Co. in ongoing conversations with clients, O’Leary aims to also strike up new ones with his involvement and board memberships in several local industry and networking groups.

In addition, he shared, “There are a myriad of opportunities for the firm and for myself to provide articles, webinars, to stay face-front to our clients and the industry itself.”

Fluctuating regulations and membership numbers are not the only things keeping these clients up at night. “On a ratio basis, it is one of the most capital-intensive industries that exists,” O’Leary shared. “[Clients] need to have a clubhouse where members can come and use the facilities, mingle with fellow members. They need to have a golf course, tennis facilities, swimming facilities … it’s very capital-intensive.”

Nationwide, the industry encompasses 5,000 to 6,000 clubs, O’Leary cited from a recent study, generating $32 billion of direct revenue to the economy.

“It’s a very labor-intensive industry,” he explained. “To where payroll expenses have been tabulated to be $17 to $18 billion, with the number of employees at almost 600,000.”

With this kind of reach, certain misconceptions about the niche abound, according to O’Leary.

“It’s a very large industry,” he explained. “The industry sometimes gets a little of a bad rap, from the public, from the media, because members are in the top 1% of the country and get an unfair advantage, or tax breaks. That’s not really true. The industry is an incredibly large employer to the economy in the U.S. It often gets misunderstood. The needs of these organizations are solely that they get together and provide social and recreational activities to their membership group. It’s why the organizations exist. Some are formed as tax-exempt organizations, some are taxable organizations. It’s just specific to the voice of each individual club, and the path they want to go when the club is formed.”

As for O’Leary’s personal career path, his success can be attributed to “basic familiarity with the industry, being connected at a young age,” he said.

“It’s just kind of cool, as a young kid, a junior playing golf and using the club my parents belong to, it’s just kind of cool to have turned that into your career,” he shared. “There’s just a lot of passion associated with working within the industry you grew up in. From the kid-of-a-member perspective, now providing those services and expertise, it’s kind of cool.”