I’ve been a ChatGPT user since 2023. I’m not an AI junkie. And I don’t think AI is going to cripple the accounting industry. But I do think as AI rapidly evolves, we’ll see it affect the industry’s competition, pricing, and available efficiency - all of which will affect all of us.

Last week, I enjoyed a week away from work / home / the US with our family for Spring Break > cute family photo on LinkedIn here. This LinkedIn post spawned a comment-conversation about how I don’t feel bogged down by email when I get back from a no-email-checking vacation.

Once in a while, I’ll get a DM conversation like this:

Accountant: I want to go to an accounting conference this year! Which one is the best?

Me: Depends. What do you want to get out of it?

Accountant: Um…accounting conference…stuff?

I’m launching a brand new podcast. It's called the Life First Accounting Firm podcast, and it's for solo firm owners (and accountants thinking about starting their own firm) who want success without giving up their life outside of work.

With absolutely nothing to do with accounting, here’s what’s going on with…

Your accounting firm can stay ultra-small…and you can hire. Both can be true. You don’t have to do it all yourself. And you don’t have to feel like you’ve lost a battle if bringing someone into your work would help you.

A few weeks back, I shared my firm’s 2025 P&L details. You can catch up here, if you missed it. I also asked for you to hit reply for any and all questions you had.

At a high level, I think there are 2 ways to grow an accounting firm…Option 1: Fast & Furious or Option 2: Slow & Methodical

Last week, I talked through my 2025 Financials and historical trends at a high level (you can catch up here, if you missed it). This week, I’m diving into the details.

My books (and my clients’ books) are officially closed for 2025.1099s are filed and accepted. Now I just need to field or dodge all the “quick” tax questions from friends, neighbors, and extended family during the next few months.

I started my firm’s newsletter in 2021. It was the year our youngest went to full day 1st grade and I finally had newfound capacity to take on more clients. It was also the year I started posting on social (mainly IG at the time). I was marketing for the first time.

About a month ago, deep inside one single line of The 15 Hour Accountant Newsletter, I casually mentioned that I’m pulling back on my newsletter (my firm newsletter called “Money Stuff”, not this one!) and my podcast. You can read the original mention here.

If taking the first step to starting your own accounting / tax / CAS / fractional CFO firm is on your 2026 resolution list, and you don’t know where to start, here are the 5 simple foundational steps to building the foundation of your firm:

Oh, 2025…what will I say about you? You were a doozy. It’s probably not an exaggeration to say that after 8 years of firm ownership, 2025 was my most emotionally taxing (no pun intended) to date.

I’ll officially declare my 2026 planning session last week (that happened at my kitchen table, overlooking the valley and mountains) a booming success. Not because I plan to grow X% next year, quite the opposite actually, but because I felt like I walked away with clarity and peace.

It’s Wednesday, so I would normally be off from accounting firm work today, but I shifted my week a little due to the holiday. My parents were in town until yesterday, so I took most of Monday off to hang with them.

With absolutely nothing to do with running an accounting firm (because it’s nice to remind ourselves that we’re more than our work), here’s what I’m…

Last week I talked about my Monday Scorecard and I mentioned that I can complete my weekly scorecard in 15 minutes (usually in 10, if I don’t see a shiny object - Squirrel!) The reason I can knock this out in 10 minutes is because of this simple Google Chrome hack.

A few years back, I onboarded a new client that was big on running his company on EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System). At a similar time, some bigger accounting firm owners were talking about EOS for their internal firm operations as well.

A couple weeks ago, my car started making a funny noise (it’s 11 years old, so it’s allowed). I wanted to take it to my favorite mechanic in town, Mike, but he’s hard to get ahold of.