Episode Details

In this episode, listen to a conversation with Jody Padar, the Radical CPA, about the evolving role of CPAs in the face of technological advancements. Jody emphasizes the need for proactive communication, year-round tax planning, and restructuring business models to prioritize client needs so that CPAs can maintain their relevance in the accounting industry.

To learn more about Jody and her new book coming out soon, please visit her website.

AICPA resources

Reimagining your tax practice — Tackle today's top practice management issues with insights and tips from pioneers in the tax community.

Transforming Your Business Model — "Transform" indicates a dynamic but collaborative change that our business models will support. This concept invites firms to join the discussion and explore their businesses through the lens of the five focus areas.

Transcript

April Walker: Hello everyone and welcome to the AICPA's Tax Section Odyssey podcasts, where we offer thought leadership on all things tax facing the profession. I'm April Walker, a lead manager from the tax section and I'm here today with Jody Padar. She is the Radical CPA. I can't wait to hear more about that.

I think we've both heard of each other, but we've never officially met. I'm excited to chat with you today.

I saw a LinkedIn post that you did sometime during last week about communication gaps between clients and tax advisers. It really just resonated with me and so I reached out and I'm super appreciative that you sat down with me, we're actually chatting on April 15th.

I'm happy to not be scrambling around doing tax extensions today, but I think we will have a great conversation today. Let's start off with a quick summary about your observations that led you to that post and just where you're coming to this conversation from.

Jody Padar: Sure, I'm Jody Padar, the Radical CPA, and probably one of a handful of branded CPAs. I've been creating disruption in the industry for years now and really it began as a small innovative firm owner almost 15 plus years ago. I was at early cloud adopter, disrupted the space around cloud and technology. Fast-forward, I owned my own firm for 14 years. I sold it in 2020 right before the pandemic.

I joined Botkeeper for a couple of years, so I went to the tech side and then I was recruited away from Botkeeper to April [which] is the name of the software company. I started to build tax software from scratch.

Now I currently work as a senior adviser to April and then I'm all-in on being the Radical CPA and helping firms evolve to the next level of, I'll say, disruption — it's not really just disruption. The next level of relevance, really, as AI and all the new technologies come into firms to evolve them to stay relevant in the future.

How I got to that post was, I sold my firm in 2020. A couple of clients last week reached out to me because they were actually resold. When I sold, they didn't join Botkeeper. They actually went to another practitioner and then that new practitioner was sold again.

Fast-forward, they're in a new firm and they reach back out to me because where they landed in the new firm, they are not feeling heard. Ultimately, they do not feel that this new firm is listening to them and I don't think that they're unusual on that.

When you see the post, and it got over 150 responses, a lot of tax practitioners feel that not all firms treat clients the same way from a