A career in accounting may begin with balancing books and ensuring compliance, but as the business landscape continues to evolve, accountants are becoming top-level advisors and filling roles that have not traditionally existed. While many find fulfilling career paths within accounting firms, others may explore roles in various sectors. The skills honed in accounting — from analytical thinking, to financial acumen, to meticulous attention to detail — serve as a robust foundation for accountants to take leadership roles across the business and help drive strategy at companies in various sectors.

Throughout my career, I’ve realized time and time again how the accounting roles early in my professional experience have set me up for success across many aspects of business and finance. Our skill sets as accountants are incredibly valuable, whether in accounting firms or other business settings, especially for professionals looking to navigate leadership, foster innovation, and drive successful financial operations in any organization.

Establishing foundational leadership skills

The accounting profession is well-known for its rigorous expectations and demanding workloads at all job levels. Just say the phrase “busy season” and even a seasoned professional will have a slight feeling of dread. The skills that we take from these experiences, however, are invaluable.

Companies are constantly facing internal and external evolution, and my accounting background set me up to help my organization navigate these changes and take advantage of complex opportunities. As business leaders, we must adapt to meet these changes while maintaining continuity and progress. 

In my role, this means maintaining an unwavering focus on how to transform financial processes to help businesses optimize for efficiency. Doing this successfully requires:

• Analytical skills to make sense of data that is necessary for strategy, decision-making and rationalizing return on investment.
• Strategic and critical thinking skills to anticipate future challenges and opportunities for innovation — and develop the foresight to have the right tools to meet the needs that come next.
• Attention to detail to ask the right questions to identify the problem statement and decide where changes are needed.
• Adaptability to chaos to develop a comprehensive plan (and contingency plan) to deliver on objectives.
• Relationship-building to develop strong partnerships with both internal and external stakeholders and ensure effective change management.

These are skills that accountants develop and hone throughout their professional careers.

The journey from accountant to business leader

Accountants are able to make significant strides in their work by nurturing a drive to continually learn and ask questions. In the words of Ted Lasso, “Be curious, not judgmental.” 

With my teams, I often talk about the need for continuous professional curiosity. This comes from my experience in accounting, where we performed ongoing analysis and had to constantly evolve the questions we were asking our clients. 

For professionals making the shift from a finance role to a more operational role or advancing within their organizations, marrying traditional audit professional skepticism with intellectual curiosity (combined with strong cross-functional partnerships) can lead to enhanced innovation and improved processes. 

Strengthening the profession from within and outside

It’s a great time to be in the accounting profession. As the industry evolves, it is exciting to be contributing to and helping define this new era of accounting.

One important contribution is making time to mentor younger professionals and aid in their development. Mentorship provides an opportunity for seasoned professionals to share the lessons we’ve learned from our own diverse career paths. Few things bring me more professional joy than witnessing someone motivated by their own curiosity create something truly transformative.

For accounting professionals who have transitioned into adjacent business roles, there are a multitude of ways to make an impact on the profession. For example, having an accounting background in the fintech sector can be greatly beneficial to companies developing products and solutions to support financial operations. Applying accounting insights to product development can help bridge the gaps between finance, technology and other business functions.

In addition to helping overcome knowledge gaps between accounting and technology, accountants can serve as key advocates for their profession, helping to ensure technology augments the role of accountants instead of replacing it, and advising on ways for firms to overcome resistance to tech adoption to improve efficiency and earn greater profit.

Carrying accounting skills forward

My experience in the accounting profession was essential for navigating my career path to where I am today: supporting other accounting professionals and an entire business to help deliver successful outcomes. 

By embracing the skills and experiences gained as accountants, professionals can find meaningful ways to continue contributing to the growth and scale of their companies — even in roles that extend beyond traditional accounting. 

Whether you choose to build your career within accounting firms or explore opportunities in other sectors, the foundational skills and experiences gained in accounting will serve you well in any leadership role you pursue.

Working in tax requires nuance. Week in and week out, professionals are asked to deliver reliable and timely interpretations of laws, regulations, and guidance. And, of course, details and accuracy are paramount. 

So, I think it’s fair for tax pros to wonder: Can I trust AI to support my work? 

We recently streamed a Bloomberg Tax panel discussion that focuses on this question. To address it, I sat down with Sharad Jha, managing director at Deloitte with more than 20 years of experience advising tax departments on technology and process transformation, and Chris Little, a lead product manager at Bloomberg Tax. 

It makes sense that some tax professionals have concerns about the risks of hallucinations and inaccuracies associated with this rapidly growing technology, while others worry they’ll be viewed as expendable if AI becomes widely adopted in the workplace. 

On the flipside, I’m hearing many more people engage in conversations about how they can use AI practically at work – and not in a passing sense. During our panel conversion, I shared that some of our clients are beginning to dip their toes in, while others are going as far as developing their own in-house AI solutions. 

A global trend toward AI use

As Sharad told us, large companies are “definitely” doing experimentation – and the industry at large is “being more deliberate” in figuring out how they can best leverage this groundbreaking technology.

If you’re still skeptical about AI, I’ve also got to tell you this: It isn’t a job killer in the sense that the technology will replace all human insights and expertise. But soon professionals will need to leverage AI in their day-to-day work to stay ahead of, or at least on par with, their peers. To this point, according to a report from the International Monetary Fund, nearly 40% of global teams are already exposed to AI, a number that jumps to about 60% in advanced economies.

The IRS and other tax authorities also are increasingly using artificial intelligence to capture tax revenue. Plus – and this is the kicker for tax professionals – nearly one-third (29%) of tax functions already are deploying generative AI, with another 26% of tax functions currently exploring its uses, according to the 2024 KPMG Chief Tax Officer outlook survey.

Tax professionals are harnessing AI in the workplace to simplify daily tasks, avoid manual errors, skip those long-standing but tedious Excel sheets, and get lightning-fast answers to industry questions instead of poring through volumes of text. So, while concerns are fair, I do think it’s also important to grasp the incredible benefits of AI, and to understand that you can use a vetted AI program to help you simplify and elevate your work as a tax professional – as long as the right processes and guardrails are in place. 

Using this technology safely and responsibly starts with choosing the right tool and learning how to use it. My advice is to select a trustworthy and quality product that’s grounded in your professional domain and supported by expert human oversight as well as the appropriate industry guardrails. 

My team has been developing AI-powered tools for over a decade, and we know that the “who” behind the tech really matters. Our engineers and data scientists work closely with subject matter experts to allow them to develop deep domain expertise. We also continually seek feedback from users through our Innovation Studio and other avenues. This ensures we build solutions that actually solve the challenges of tax professionals and easily integrate into their workflows. 

The writing is on the wall, and the potential benefits of AI are astounding. So, it’s important for tax professionals to talk about generative AI – and to use it at work. 

AI for tax department growth

There are 340,000 fewer certified public accountants working today versus five years ago, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. So, many tax professionals are facing staffing shortages while managing mounting workloads in an already challenging industry. For today and tomorrow, AI can be a difference maker – a win-win for individuals and a stressed industry. 

Businesses that adopt trustworthy AI can lift the burden on overworked teams, providing efficiency-boosting support while potentially freeing up more time for strategic, high-value or growth-focused activities. And as new generations enter the workplace, a business’s embrace of new technology could help attract talent to fill vacancies. 

I encourage tax professionals to be open to learning about how trusted and quality AI products can save time, save money, and give you a competitive advantage.

When it comes to CPA firm M&A, two things remain constant. No matter what changes may come with the players, financial terms, valuation and structure, M&A is always about money and advantage.

The parties to a transaction have always and will always look for money and advantage. The good news is that, so long as money and advantage are the motivators, smart transactions will be made, and better businesses will emerge. Yet it is imperative to know what satisfies the need for money and advantage.

Acquirers and successors, especially private equity-infused ones, are going to place an emphasis out of the box on high-performing firms, that is, firms with high profitability and technologically progressive platforms. They will view high performers as a more assured way to make money, along with a quicker way to get there.  

The valuation for high performers will always be highest — and the competition to acquire that firm will be high as well. 

High performers offer several advantages, including an accelerated path to revenue growth, an inclination for innovation, a cross-selling culture, excellent clients, a history of offshoring and outsourcing, creative services, and talent with high upside potential.

High-performing firms that are selling or otherwise aligning will also look for lucrative financial outcomes but may need to be prepared for a higher pressure to perform. 

Advantages that the high performers seek include deeper service offerings, accelerated financial upside for up-and-coming potential partners, advanced technology, different types of talent, and more motivation and stimulation. 

High performers are accustomed to working differently and taking risks. 

When looking for a successor or acquirer, a common mission and culture will be essential to give any owners looking for an exit strong confidence. It will offer others optimism about the prospects for a better and more sustainable business model.

However, the M&A market is not just about the high performers. It is about the average firm and specialty firms. 

Average firms would be wise to address three critical ways to competitive and present the potential for money and advantage to all sides: 

1. Study your practice metrics and implement a two-year improvement and upgrade program. Successors will make money when the clients of a target firm are comfortable with market-based fees and market-savvy services. 
2. Create a roster of expanded services that will resonate with your clients.
3. Cull out the low-end clients and fees.

Specialty firms may fall in the high-performing profile depending on their achievements, but they also may not have focused sufficiently on their KPIs and client selectivity. Depending on the specialty, metric benchmarks will differ and the criteria for accepting the right fit for a client will vary, as well. Specialty firms need to be sure they have a solid understanding of their competitive positioning as an expert relative to other similar firms to create a more compelling option for acquirers.

There is a big difference between fixer-upper firms and those on the cusp of excitement. 

Acquirers are not inclined to bid low and take on a fixer-upper. They are prone to negotiate for firms that have upside — especially upside they feel they can nurture quickly, along with potential they feel others are unable to appreciate.

There are no perfect businesses, but there are excellent businesses. 

Smart acquirers perpetuate excellence by pursuing money and advantage. Smart sellers need to make their case easy to see that money and advantage are at hand — and show they are willing to make partnership a reality. 

Average firm owners need to be ready to accept incentive components rather than fully secured terms. The average firms are looking for enhanced financial security (money) and enhanced business viability (advantage).

So long as CPA firms focus on being businesses first and foremost, M&A will continue, and all kinds of players will be in the game. Make money and advantage your mission and it will pay off.