CPA Firms Face Considerable Succession Challenges

Earlier this year, the CPA Consultants’ Alliance (CPACA) conducted a survey on public accounting succession trends. As an alliance of consultants committed to exploring leadership issues facing the profession and developing and sharing solutions that benefit practitioners, we see succession as a high-impact issue in the profession and our survey findings reflect a continued procrastination in addressing this firm-altering phenomenon.

With input from 337 mostly owner and non-equity partner respondents across a cross-section of small, medium and large firms, the survey indicates that firms:

• Are procrastinating or are in denial about succession.
• Lack significant “bench strength” to plan transition around, particularly at smaller firms.
• Do not have a systematic way to identify and develop talented staff into future partners.
• Lack plans for client transition.
• Are uncertain about their buy/sell arrangements.
• See a sale or merger as their most likely succession plan, particularly in the small firm respondents.

Our article suggests a number of solutions to these issues and we encourage you to download our findings and ideas for change.