CPAs and financial advisors are moving closer together, but the opportunity extends well beyond referrals. As accounting firms rethink technology, artificial intelligence, capacity and the role of the founder, RIAs have good reason to pay attention.
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Canopy’s forthcoming Ask Me Anything with Jason Staats will explore how accounting firms are using AI, improving workflows, creating capacity and building businesses that do not depend entirely on their founders. Although the live webinar is aimed principally at accounting professionals, these are also pressing issues for RIAs—and they matter even more as CPAs and financial advisors increasingly work together around the same clients.
The webinar takes place on Tuesday, July 14 at 1:00 p.m. ET and will give attendees the opportunity to put their questions directly to Jason Staats, CPA.
There is no formal presentation or fixed sequence of slides. Instead, Staats will answer questions about artificial intelligence, technology, firm growth, workflows and what is actually working inside modern accounting practices.
For RIA leaders, the session offers more than a window into another professional sector.
It provides an opportunity to understand how one of wealth management’s most important potential partners is responding to many of the same commercial and operational pressures facing advisory firms.
Two professions facing many of the same questionsFor RIA leaders looking for stronger organic growth, deeper client relationships and a more complete planning proposition, the relationship with the accounting profession is becoming increasingly important.
The traditional arrangement was straightforward. An accountant referred a client who needed investment advice. A financial advisor referred a client who needed help with tax. The two professionals might communicate around tax season, retirement or the sale of a business, but their work generally remained separate.
That separation is becoming more difficult to sustain.
Affluent clients and business owners do not experience investments, tax, retirement, estate planning, charitable giving and business succession as unrelated issues. They experience one financial life in which a decision made in one area can quickly affect several others.
That is creating greater synergy between CPAs and RIAs.
It is also one reason RIA leaders should understand how the accounting profession itself is changing.
Two professions facing many of the same questions
Accounting firms and RIAs may provide different services, but many of the pressures facing their owners are remarkably similar.
Both are asking how artificial intelligence can be used without compromising professional judgment or client trust.
Both are trying to improve workflows, increase capacity and reduce the amount of time senior professionals spend on routine administration.
Both need to recruit and retain good people while dealing with shortages of experienced talent.
Both are attempting to move from transactional work towards deeper, higher-value advice.
And many founder-led firms in both professions are confronting the same uncomfortable question: has the business genuinely been built to scale, or does too much still depend on the owner?
These are not simply operational concerns.
They affect client experience, profitability, succession value and the ability of a firm to grow without overloading its most valuable people.
For an RIA seeking a serious relationship with a CPA firm, they also affect the quality of the potential partnership.
Why stronger accounting firms can become stronger RIA partners
A CPA firm consumed by deadlines, manual processes and capacity problems may find it difficult to participate proactively in wider client planning.
The accountant may recognize that a client is preparing to sell a business, receive an inheritance, retire or make a substantial charitable contribution. But if the firm lacks the time, systems or processes needed to act on that information, the wider planning opportunity can easily be missed.
A better-operated CPA firm is in a stronger position to identify those moments, communicate with the client’s advisor and contribute to a coordinated strategy.
That matters because the CPA often sees the financial trigger first.
The accountant understands the client’s income, business structure, tax exposure and changes in financial circumstances. The advisor then brings a forward-looking perspective covering investments, liquidity, retirement, risk, estate coordination and the preservation of family wealth.
When those two perspectives connect, the client can receive advice that is more timely, more complete and more useful.
When they remain disconnected, the client is often left to carry information between two professionals who are each seeing an important but incomplete part of the picture.
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From occasional referrals to a growth strategy
Modern American Advisor recently examined this development in The New Power Partnership: Why CPAs and Financial Advisors Are Moving Closer Together.
The article considered how the relationship is moving beyond occasional introductions and towards formal alliances, shared planning processes, coordinated client experiences and, in some cases, the addition of tax capabilities within an RIA.
One example was Integrated Partners and its Integrated CPA Alliance. The firm announced in November 2025 that the alliance had reached its 250th CPA partnership. It also reported that advisors using the model experienced an average 20.3% increase in trailing 12-month revenue, compared with a cited industry benchmark of 17.6%.
The figures illustrate the potential commercial value, but the larger opportunity is the client relationship.
A trusted introduction from a CPA can provide an RIA with a much stronger starting point than a conventional marketing lead. At the same time, a good RIA relationship can help the CPA extend the value offered to clients without requiring the accounting firm to build an entire wealth-management operation itself.
The partnership works best when neither profession treats the other merely as a distribution channel.
It should be based on a shared belief that coordinated advice will produce a better client outcome.
Build, acquire or partner?
The convergence between tax and wealth management is also creating an important strategic choice for RIA executives.
Should the firm build tax-planning or tax-preparation capabilities internally?
Should it acquire or invest in an accounting business?
Or should it develop a structured partnership with an independent CPA firm?
There is no single answer.
Bringing tax expertise in-house can create closer coordination, improve access to client information and allow the RIA to offer a more integrated proposition. It can also introduce significant staffing, systems, compliance, workflow and cultural challenges.
For many firms, the better answer may be to create a stronger external alliance.
That can provide access to specialist expertise and established client trust without requiring the RIA to operate a complete accounting practice.
Whichever model an RIA chooses, its leadership team needs to understand what makes a modern CPA firm effective.
Technology, capacity, pricing, workflow and founder dependence all have a direct bearing on whether an accounting firm can become a proactive strategic partner.
Learning from the firms on the other side of the relationship
That is what makes Canopy’s forthcoming Ask Me Anything with Jason Staats relevant beyond the accounting profession. Register free and submit your question
The live webinar is aimed principally at accounting firm owners and professionals, but its central subjects will be familiar to almost any founder or executive running a growing RIA.
There is no formal presentation and no predetermined sequence of slides. Instead, Jason Staats will answer attendees’ questions about artificial intelligence, technology, growth, workflows and what is currently working inside real accounting firms.
The discussion will also consider how owners can build firms that do not depend entirely on them—an issue with obvious relevance to RIA founders thinking about scale, succession and enterprise value.
Jason Staats previously ran a $5 million accounting firm, launched and sold a software-as-a-service business and contributed to the development of the AICPA’s AI toolkit. He now works with and speaks to accounting firms about the practical application of technology and emerging operating models.
The webinar will be moderated by Luke Frye, CPA, Canopy’s Accountant in Residence. It takes place on Tuesday, July 14 at 1:00 p.m. ET, lasts 60 minutes and offers one CPE credit to qualifying accounting professionals.
The questions RIA leaders should be considering
An RIA attending the conversation may hear useful answers to questions that extend well beyond accounting:
- Where is AI genuinely improving professional workflows rather than simply adding another system?
- How can a founder-led professional firm grow without every important decision returning to the owner?
- What separates firms that successfully automate routine work from those that merely purchase more technology?
- How can better systems create greater capacity for proactive client advice?
- What operational characteristics should an RIA look for in a potential CPA partner?
- How are accounting firms moving from compliance-led work towards broader advisory relationships?
- What can RIAs learn from the technology and capacity challenges already being addressed within accounting?
The webinar is not specifically a session about RIA partnerships, and it should not be presented as one.
Its relevance lies in giving advisors a clearer view of the profession with which they are increasingly likely to collaborate.
Better understanding on both sides
In Why a Former CPA Is Helping Shape the Voice of Modern American Advisor, MAA contributor Ken Boyd explained the complementary perspectives brought by CPAs and financial advisors.
The accountant looks closely at the facts: the tax return, balance sheet, business structure, exposure and opportunities the client may not yet recognize.
The advisor takes those facts and helps the client decide what should happen next.
Neither professional needs to replicate the other. But both professions benefit from understanding how the other works, the pressures it faces and the direction in which it is moving.
For RIAs, that understanding can lead to better professional partnerships, stronger client outcomes and new opportunities for sustainable organic growth.
For CPA firms, closer collaboration with the right advisor can expand the value delivered to clients without abandoning the firm’s specialist expertise or independence.
For clients, it can replace a fragmented collection of professional relationships with advice that feels properly connected.
The future of advice will not be built by accountants or financial advisors operating alone.
It will be built by trusted professionals who understand how to combine their expertise—and by firms with the technology, capacity and leadership required to make that collaboration work.
Webinar details
Ask Me Anything with Jason Staats
Date: Tuesday, July 14, 2026
Time: 1:00 p.m. ET
Duration: 60 minutes
CPE: One credit
Host: Canopy
Moderator: Luke Frye, CPA
Register free and submit your question
