Building a firm where CPAs want to work

Editor’s note: This is the sixth and final article in a series. For the full series schedule, including links to previous articles, see the sidebar, “Building a Better Firm.”

CPA firms that distinguish themselves as employers of choice offer a healthy workplace culture in which employees can successfully implement strategic business changes, manage pressures, and create strong client and colleague connections.

And employers of choice reap other benefits. Research by the National Pipeline Advisory Group (NPAG) found that the first five years of employment are critical in engaging and retaining new professionals. With that in mind, addressing a few key areas at the beginning of the employment life cycle can lead to improvements in staff recruitment and retention, according to Lisa Simpson, CPA, CGMA, AICPA vice president—Firm Services. Offering competitive compensation and benefits, trustworthy leadership, flexible career paths, and meaningful work — all hallmarks of an employer of choice — are just some of those areas.

Based on NPAG research, areas of early-career experience that employers can improve include shifting to more competitive starting salaries and providing more manageable workloads, clearer career paths, and more interesting work. The group also recommends that firms look at the values, attitudes, and behaviors that define their work atmosphere or culture.

Two firms with very different histories are examples of how to become an employer of choice.

Gardiner + Company is a firm with about 40 employees and offices in Iowa, Nebraska, and South Dakota. Founded in 1964, the firm specializes in agricultural clients. Dennis Gardiner, CPA, the founder’s son, is managing partner, and his son, Matt, is a partner. “We view this firm as a family farm,” said Matt Gardiner, CPA.

Wilson Ivanova CPAs employs 27 and specializes in manufacturing, construction, logistics, and distribution clients. Based in San Bernardino, Calif., the firm was founded in 2014 by firm partners Matthew Wilson, CPA, CGMA, and Maya Ivanova, CPA, CGMA. The firm takes pride in the fact that two former staffers — a senior director and a manager — recently returned from jobs in industry. “They left on good terms, and we always appreciated what they did for us, so we are excited to have them returning,” Matt Wilson said.

RAISING INITIAL COMPENSATION

Firms must recognize the need to provide entry-level pay that is competitive with alternative career opportunities, Simpson said. Typical firm salaries are lower than those for other career options open to students with business degrees, such as technology and finance. Many firms have relied on a system with lower starting salaries that are offset by the chance to earn much more as staff move up the career ladder and into equity positions. That approach has led to a common negative perception of low pay for accounting positions, according to NPAG research.

Recent college graduates watched their parents weather the 2008 financial crisis, the subsequent Great Recession, and the COVID-19 pandemic; they know nothing is guaranteed, Simpson said. “They’re not as willing to wait for the financial payoff decades from now,” she said. Emerging professionals also have access to compensation data that allows them to evaluate career opportunities, and according to NPAG research and the 2025 National Management of an Accounting Practice (MAP) Survey, accounting starting salaries continue to lag despite increases in the past several years.

Nationwide, average starting salaries for graduates with bachelor’s degrees ranged from $58,243 in the South to $65,000 in the West, according to the 2025 MAP survey. Starting salaries for financial analysts, in contrast, ranged from $70,000 to $110,000 in 2025, according to ZipRecruiter.

Younger professionals also want transparency, which can include a clear sense of the firm’s vision and strategy and more focused conversations on how team members can see themselves in the firm’s future. Emerging professionals also want to understand where their accounting careers can take them, Simpson added, including compensation. It’s not necessary to reveal confidential information on firm leader salaries, but firms can provide compensation ranges at different levels to highlight the benefits of a longer-term career in public accounting, she advised.

At Wilson Ivanova, firm leaders believe transparency provides reassurance about job security and drives engagement. “We discuss our overall realization, utilization, and completed work at our monthly staff meetings,” Matt Wilson said. “It is very important to us to share with the staff, and they in turn take ownership to bring in their projects on time and on budget.”

INVESTING IN PEOPLE

Employees want to know that they are valued and that firms emphasize career and skill development. They favor employers with a coaching or mentoring process and a clear commitment to staff learning and development in power or success skills as well as technical abilities, Simpson said.

Smaller firms don’t have to address all these issues at once or spend a lot on programs. Simpson advises them to rank where they stand on factors such as compensation, work/life balance, and investment in employees, then determine which to address and how. When it comes to career development, for example, the firm might pay for a staff member’s quarterly meeting with an external coach or schedule meetings with the managing partner a few times a year for employees at manager level and below. (See PCPS mentoring resources for more information.)

CONCENTRATING ON CULTURE

When firms are facing employee turnover or disengagement, the problem may lie in a lack of attention to culture. In some cases, firms may mistakenly regard culture as something that happens to them rather than something that is developed and maintained intentionally, according to Jennifer Wilson, partner and co-founder of ConvergenceCoaching LLC in Bellevue, Neb.

To address that problem, firms should begin by defining their guiding principles or values and expected or encouraged behaviors, Jennifer Wilson said. Examples include integrity, teamwork, communication, employee development, innovation, accountability, and having fun. To ensure that these cultural attributes remain meaningful, she advised that firm leaders take opportunities to discuss how a cultural attribute affected a decision — such as providing further flexibility or dropping a client whose values didn’t match the firm’s. She also recommended using the attributes as part of performance appraisals and hiring interviews.

Making employees feel part of the team is an important aspect of culture. Firms can encourage workers to share their opinions in forums and to join innovation committees or groups that make recommendations on important issues, such as significant changes the firm should undertake in the coming year.

Gardiner + Company, for example, canvassed employees on what work should look like once the firm returned to the office after the pandemic. “We let our staff write the policy rather than having management do it,” Matt Gardiner said, noting that the new professionals value this type of engagement.

Jennifer Wilson also noted that talent within a firm often report to different people for different assignments. She advised that all people in the firm be assigned a “shepherd” who checks in regularly on how they’re doing, helps identify career-building opportunities for them, solves problems, and strengthens their sense of connection with the firm.

RETIRING THE ROAD WARRIOR

Beyond the fundamentals, each firm puts its own spin on being an employer of choice, based on their own values and needs. For Gardiner + Company, one goal was to escape the road warrior mentality and minimize the amount of time that firm members spend away from home. The firm specializes in audits of agricultural co-ops, whose year ends are typically at harvest time.

Before the pandemic, Matt Gardiner estimated that firm members spent an average of 40 to 45 nights at client locations during the late summer and early fall audit season. Since then, the firm has become fully remote (as long as clients allow it), and it has pared nights on the road down to around 20. Firm members do work on-site for some or all the audit if clients prefer.

“We recognize that not all our clients have digital storage of their documents, and we don’t expect them to stand at a scanner to send us requested documents,” Gardiner said. Firm members try to do as much remotely as possible before going on-site. “That said,” he added, “we thoroughly enjoy our client relationships and often go on-site just to interact with client staff, even if the bulk of the work is done remotely.”

The main reasons for going fully remote include:

• Auditors can perform many audit processes remotely since the firm moved to a cloud-based work environment that provides anywhere, anytime access to necessary information.
• In its employee benefit practice, the firm uses a third-party vendor to upload data from clients’ 401(k) plans and create workpapers. Software takes reports the firm generates and creates audit-ready workpapers for review, thereby limiting manual data entry for these engagements. “The workpapers support the testing required in a defined contribution plan audit completely,” Gardiner said. Firm members perform the testing, but the workpapers make it possible for them to move easily into meaningful audit work. This has saved 15 to 20 hours per engagement, he said.
• The firm began using an artificial intelligence data mining tool for risk analysis. The firm can upload years of client data, and the software then identifies high-risk transactions and performs risk-based scoring by audit assertion.

In addition, to get the right fit, the firm seeks new hires who are familiar with its niche. “They’re going to be measuring grain bins,” Matt Gardiner said of early audit assignments, and he wants to avoid surprises about the work. “We’re hoping they’ll stay with us for a long time.”

PROMOTING YOUR VALUES

Wilson Ivanova, which has offices in California and Texas, stands out in a crowded staffing market by communicating about the ways that the firm allows them to follow their passions. The firm is active in local charities, the state CPA society, trade groups, and colleges. This intentional culture of commitment and communication helps promote the Wilson Ivanova name and its values, ultimately bringing new graduates and experienced professionals to the firm, according to Matt Wilson.

Internally, firm leaders discuss their values and how they work in practice. Outside the firm, they share the mission and core values with clients and at college events. “Everything we do, from recruiting to client proposals, revolves around who we are,” he said. “If potential employees know who we are and what we represent before applying, then we’ve done our job.”

The firm also emphasizes giving back, an important trait that new professionals value. In annual hourly goals for each employee, the firm sets aside time for the community service of the employee’s choice. Annual goals also include time for mentoring and training, speaking to students about the profession, or joining a charity’s board of directors. The message to potential employees is that the firm wants to develop them in their careers and to help them get involved in things they care about. “Our goal is to really make these people fantastic accountants,” Matt Wilson said. “If the only thing we care about is billable hours, then we’ll never have a stable work environment.”

SHARING YOUR STORY

Telling a more compelling story about accounting careers was another key recommendation of the NPAG report. Firms that seek to be known as employers of choice should use social media to publicize the attributes that set them apart, Jennifer Wilson said. For example, they can balance any negative impressions of the profession with day-in-the-life posts that demonstrate what their people love about the firm and the work. Firms can encourage staff to join in the effort, posting what they like about client interaction, interesting travel, generous time off, or other appealing attributes. “Let them know you’re trying to draw in great people for them to work with,” she said.

In promoting themselves, small firms can point to the chance to work closely with firm leaders and clients and to learn by doing, Simpson said. Highlighting how small firms can advise local business and nonprofit clients and make an impact in the community can resonate with professionals who are looking to make a difference. “You have so much opportunity to tie their work to the goal of protecting the public trust and supporting entrepreneurs or nonprofits,” she said. “You can really show the meaning of what firms do.” 

Building a better firm

During the past decade, CPA firms have been caught up in changes and challenges from within and outside the profession, including the disruptions during the COVID-19 pandemic, evolving client and staff expectations, and rapid advancements in technology.

The “Building a Better Firm” series is based on the Transforming Your Business Model resource initiative that the AICPA and its Private Companies Practice Section launched to offer firms insights and to address the difficulties and opportunities that these changes and challenges present.

The six articles in the series provide an overview of the initiative and lay out the five key areas in business model transformation:

• Overview: “Building a Better CPA Firm: Transform Your Business Model.”
• Strategy: “How to Develop Your Firm’s Transformation Strategy.”
• Governance: “Building a Better CPA Firm: Getting Governance Right.”
• Service offerings: “Building a Better CPA Firm: Stepping Up Service Offerings.”
• Technology: “Building a Better Firm: How to Pick the Proper Technology.”
• Culture and talent: “Building a Firm Where CPAs Want to Work.”

About the author

Anita Dennis is a New Jersey-based freelance writer. To comment on this article or to suggest an idea for another article, contact Jeff Drew at Jeff.Drew@aicpa-cima.com.

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