Publisher, The Firm
24+ articles on The Firm, 4 summit sessions
AI can take on most of the paperwork in onboarding a new client: the scope note, the document request, the completeness check and the welcome sequence. Identity checks, risk decisions and client acceptance stay with a person, and client permission comes before any of it.
Trent McLaren · 27 Sept 2026 · 8 min read
Bank feeds and ledger rules already do the matching. These 15 prompts cover the work around the ledger that still eats a bookkeeper’s week, with the data rules that apply before anything gets pasted in.
Trent McLaren · 27 Sept 2026 · 9 min read
This is not a job board: it is the context a listing leaves out, from the official statisticians in the US, UK and Australia. Bookkeeping is a large occupation with flat or falling headcount where most openings come from replacement, and this sets out who employs bookkeepers, what they are paid and what the next decade looks like, as at September 2026.
Trent McLaren · 27 Sept 2026 · 8 min read
Enrolment and a program on paper were the first milestones. This is the operating guide for what comes next: running customer due diligence inside onboarding, handling existing clients, reporting without tipping off, training, records and the annual cycle, plus how to build it into engagement letters and recover the cost.
Trent McLaren · 27 Sept 2026 · 11 min read
Every regulatory date between September 2026 and December 2027 that lands on an accounting or bookkeeping firm in Australia, the UK or the US, checked against the regulator’s own pages. Each country gets a timeline and a short note on what to do first.
Trent McLaren · 27 Sept 2026 · 10 min read
Ten MCP servers an accounting firm can connect to Claude, ChatGPT or another AI assistant as at September 2026, grouped by the job they do: ledger, practice data, proposals and billing, payments, CRM and the inbox. Each entry says what the AI can read and change, how hard it is to set up, and the permission to check before you switch it on.
Trent McLaren · 27 Sept 2026 · 9 min read
A copyable website brief template for owners of accounting and bookkeeping firms, whoever builds the site: yourself, a freelancer, an agency or a template. It covers the decisions only the firm can make, from ideal client and proof to redirects, integrations, compliance lines and account access, plus how to judge what comes back.
Trent McLaren · 27 Sept 2026 · 9 min read
Whether to publish prices is a decision about which enquiries you want and which conversations you are willing to have before the first meeting. This guide lays out the trade-offs, the four positions a pricing page can take, which suits which kind of firm, and what the professional bodies and consumer law expect of anything you do publish.
Trent McLaren · 27 Sept 2026 · 10 min read
Most firms that know they are underpriced delay the increase because they fear the conversation, not the number. This guide covers how to decide who moves and by how much, the notice timeline, a fee increase letter template, scripts for the objections, and what to do when a client leaves.
Trent McLaren · 27 Sept 2026 · 10 min read
Buying an accounting firm is mostly a bet on whether its clients will stay, so every stage from search to integration should be built around retention. This guide covers where practices for sale are found, the due diligence checklist, how price is structured and financed, and what the first year should look like, for buyers in Australia, the US and the UK.
Trent McLaren · 27 Sept 2026 · 10 min read
Most accounting firm websites fail the same way: they say what the firm is, not who it helps or what happens next. This guide goes page by page through what each one must do for a prospect, for Google and for AI answer engines, and ends with a checklist you can run against your own site in an hour.
Trent McLaren · 27 Sept 2026 · 9 min read
A partner buy-in at an accounting firm buys a capital account, a share of goodwill and a slice of future profit, and how each is valued and paid for decides whether the deal works. This guide walks the incoming partner and the owner designing the offer through the methods, the agreement terms that matter, the ownership and tax rules in Australia, the US and the UK, and the alternatives when nobody wants to buy in.
Trent McLaren · 27 Sept 2026 · 10 min read
Revenue and the bank balance tell you what already happened. These nine numbers, calculated from the practice-management and ledger data you already have, tell you why, and what to change next month.
Trent McLaren · 27 Sept 2026 · 9 min read
A data-led look at the future of accounting in 2027, built from surveys, regulators and The Firm’s own reporting rather than prediction. AI use is near universal but planning is not, the talent pipeline is thin and ageing, growth is moving to the mid-tier and acquirers, compliance is getting more frequent, and the work is heading for a repricing.
Trent McLaren · 27 Sept 2026 · 9 min read
A bookkeeper’s post about accounting software vendors that stopped listening, and about years of unpaid beta testing, community support and partner-tier downgrades, drew near-total agreement in a practitioner group. What the unwritten partner deal was, why it has been repriced from one side, and five moves that turn a subsidy into a service: beta work on paper, community effort you own, clients who hold their own subscriptions, a priced rework engagement for the AI clean-up, and a feedback log you take to renewal.
Trent McLaren · 23 Sept 2026 · 9 min read
More clients are connecting their Xero files to Claude, ChatGPT and home-built AI tools, and practitioners are split between “their data, their risk” and cleaning up the journals. The three kinds of connection and where the risk sits, what to check in week one, what to say to the client, the house rules and engagement letter wording worth agreeing, and how to turn it into a reason to talk more.
Trent McLaren · 23 Sept 2026 · 9 min read
A client took the figures off a draft return, lodged it themselves and skipped the bill. The four rungs of collection, and what to change in the engagement letter and onboarding.
Trent McLaren · 17 Sept 2026 · 9 min read
A running calendar of the accounting and bookkeeping conferences worth knowing about for 2027 in Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom, plus what is left of 2026. Every date, venue and ticket figure was checked against the organiser’s own site on 27 September 2026, and anything unannounced says so. Each entry carries a verdict on who the room is actually for.
Trent McLaren · 15 Sept 2026 · 11 min read
A major model now ships every few weeks and assessing each one properly is not sustainable without a fixed process. Six checks, run in about two hours, produce a decision rather than an opinion, and GPT-6 Astra is the worked example.
Trent McLaren · 4 Sept 2026 · 9 min read
GPT-6 Astra, released on 3 September 2026, operates software through the interface instead of through an API, which puts every system in your firm in reach whether or not it has an integration. The capability is real, it fails more than a quarter of the time on the standard benchmark, and the questions it raises about logins, audit trails and supervision matter more right now than the accuracy figure.
Trent McLaren · 4 Sept 2026 · 9 min read
Accrual announced on 2 September 2026 that it is acquiring Puzzle’s accounting-firm technology and business, splitting the company along a customer boundary and leaving firms on the firm-facing product with a migration. The deal is a clean worked example of an event most firms will face, and the five questions that decide how it goes have to be answered before the announcement.
Trent McLaren · 4 Sept 2026 · 8 min read
Most buyers pour their effort into diligence and treat integration as something that begins on closing day, which is where acquisitions of accounting firms quietly lose the revenue they just paid for. This is a working plan for the other side of the deal: screening for fit before the letter of intent, sequencing communication with staff, and running a 100 day checklist that protects payroll and client relationships first.
Trent McLaren · 3 Sept 2026 · 9 min read
The Firm’s AI in Practice Summit is back on 11 and 12 November 2026: two days, twelve sessions, one track, free and online. Day one is what firms actually built with AI in 2026 and what it returned. Day two is what to plan for in 2027. Here is the format, who it suits, how to register, and how to pitch a session or sponsor.
Trent McLaren · 3 Sept 2026 · 6 min read
Advisory Amplified runs a six-city US tour of one-day events from 22 September to 9 October 2026, at roughly US$149 to US$199 a ticket with 6 CPE credits per stop. Here are the confirmed dates and venues, what happens on the day, and an honest read on who it suits and who is better off at a flagship conference.
Trent McLaren · 22 Aug 2026 · 10 min read
November 2026 · Day 2 · 9:00am AEDT
The Intelligent Firm: Strategies to set your AI Strategy for 2027
June 2026 · Replay · 37 min
Stop Missing Advisory Opportunities — How AI Turns Your Meeting Transcripts Into a Growth Engine
June 2026 · Replay · 45 min
Generating AML Risk Assessments Using AI in Minutes
June 2026 · Replay · 49 min
Real Firms, Real Builds — What Accountants Are Creating With AI Vibe Coding Right Now
Nick Ferguson Head of Professional Services & AI Solutions, Strategic Group 
Andrew Noble Founder, LodgeiT Labs 
Beau Gaudron Tech Ninja, Growthwise 
Brian Clare Founder, Blueprint Accounting 
Chad Davis Co-founder, LiveCA LLP 
Corey Cacic Founder & Lead Developer, Annature 
Corinne Smith CEO and Founder, Abby 
Darren Hosiosky Co-founder and CEO, Admiin How we report, source and correct our work: editorial standards.