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Leading with Empathy: Building Accounting Teams That Thrive

Earmark Team · February 2, 2026 ·

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“Star performers aren’t immune from accountability,” says Lisa Gilreath, Managing Partner at Acuity. “Often they perform really high. But you’re going to see the other half of your team suffer in terms of their performance.”

This frank observation cuts to the heart of one of accounting’s toughest leadership challenges—dealing with talented but toxic employees. It’s just one of many practical insights shared during this episode of the Earmark Podcast, recorded live in Atlanta during the Advisory Amplified tour.

Host Blake Oliver sits down with Lisa Gilreath and Valerie Heckman, Accountant Community Manager at OnPay, to explore what empathetic leadership really looks like in accounting firms. Their conversation goes well beyond feel-good management theories to address the real challenges firms face when deadlines hit and pressure mounts.

Why Empathy Makes Business Sense

When Blake asks Lisa why firms shouldn’t burn out their people, her answer is refreshingly honest: “They’re really hard to replace right now.”

This practical reality drives home why empathetic leadership isn’t just nice to have—it’s essential for survival in today’s talent market. Lisa explains that with staffing shortages and people tired of 60-80 hour work weeks, firms have to build healthier workplaces to succeed.

But deadlines don’t disappear. Tax seasons still come. Clients still have needs. The key is finding ways to meet those demands without destroying your team in the process.

Building Breathing Room Into Your Firm

Traditional firms plan for 100% utilization, assuming everyone will be productive every single day. Lisa takes a different approach at Acuity, planning for 75-80% capacity instead.

“You can’t run the people to the absolute end and expect not to be in a crisis situation if somebody has an issue,” she explains. This isn’t about accepting lower productivity. It’s about building resilience into your workflows.

Personal crises illustrate why this matters. “Personal crises, tragedy or challenges never check your calendar to see if you have time to deal with them,” Lisa notes. Over 20 years at Acuity, she’s seen it all—employees who unexpectedly passed away, team members losing spouses, medical emergencies that required immediate attention.

These aren’t rare events. They’re the reality of managing people over time. The question is whether your firm can handle them without falling apart.

Lisa recommends having your “phone a friend on speed dial”—an HR expert or advisor who can provide objective guidance when emotions run high. Small firms especially struggle when close relationships make it hard to separate business needs from personal loyalty.

How Systems Create Space for Humanity

Many firms see standardization as rigid and impersonal. Lisa flips this completely, showing how standard processes actually enable empathy.

“If you do have a standard scope of services for your transactional stuff, you can plug and play people,” she explains. “Paying bills is paying bills. Doing payroll is doing payroll. It’s just a matter of where you get that source data.”

When every client engagement follows similar patterns, any qualified team member can step in during an emergency. This protects both the employee who needs support and the client who needs continuity.

Acuity spreads work throughout the year using recurring CAS engagements rather than accepting the traditional feast-or-famine cycle. “We’re focused on being proactive in those interactions all year long,” Lisa says. This creates predictable workflows that allow for coverage when life happens.

The approach helps team members too. Lisa tells her people: “Build our workflows and build our communication patterns so that if you need to leave unexpectedly, we’ve got your back. Help us help you.”

Reading the Warning Signs

Technology provides new ways to spot problems before they become crises. But Lisa doesn’t just watch productivity metrics. She pays attention to communication patterns.

“I’m noticing when people are no longer engaging in Slack conversations at the same pace that they once were,” she explains. “They’re not showing up in meetings and being as talkative as they once were.”

These changes signal that something’s wrong before performance completely deteriorates. A normally responsive team member whose emails slow down. A strong performer whose deliverables lag. These whispers often matter more than what people explicitly say.

Valerie adds another important metric: PTO usage. “If people aren’t using it, that’s a sign,” she notes. “Are they afraid to use it? Do they feel like if they use it, they’re not contributing enough to the team?”

Her own mother exemplifies this problem, going years without taking vacation because she worried about work piling up. “She would never, ever take a day that payroll needed to be run or the day after in case there were mistakes,” Valerie recalls.

The flip side matters too. Excessive PTO usage might signal disengagement or job hunting. These patterns hide in payroll data most firms already collect but rarely analyze for team health insights.

The Toxic High Performer Problem

Every firm faces this dilemma eventually: what do you do with someone who delivers great results but poisons team culture?

“Toxic workers will take you down,” Lisa states plainly. While star performers deliver individually, the rest of the team suffers. The math is clear—protecting one toxic high performer often means losing multiple good employees.

But Lisa doesn’t jump straight to termination. “I start from a place of curiosity,” she says. “How did we get here? What’s going on with them?”

Sometimes it’s a personal crisis. Sometimes they don’t understand expectations. Sometimes they genuinely don’t realize they need to collaborate. Starting with curiosity creates space for course correction.

The same principle applies to clients. When Blake asks about unreasonable client demands on her team, Lisa’s response is swift: “They’re probably not going to be a client for much longer.”

Acuity holds both team members and clients to their values. “This is how we intend to operate,” Lisa explains. They regularly review their client base to ensure alignment, not just to cull unprofitable work but to protect team wellbeing.

Navigating Industry Change With Compassion

The pace of change creates another empathy challenge. Many experienced accountants built careers on consistency and process. Now they’re asked to develop entirely new skills.

“We liked that about them for a really long time—that they followed the process and they didn’t question the process,” Lisa observes. “Now we’re asking them to talk to clients, and they’ve never had to talk to clients. They just had to fill out the form.”

With AI transforming the profession, these changes feel overwhelming to some team members. The empathetic response isn’t to abandon these people but to “bring those people along at their pace as well as the pace of the industry.”

This is where hiring for adaptability becomes crucial. Lisa looks to new graduates who see AI as normal, not threatening. “They’re unafraid. They will just try anything,” she says. These digital natives may help bridge the gap for more experienced team members struggling with change.

Taking Action This Week

Valerie offers practical advice for leaders wanting to be more empathetic: pause.

“Taking that time when something happens, when there’s an experience with a worker or team dynamic and saying, okay, we’re going to sleep on it,” she suggests. This fights the instinct to immediately jump in and solve problems.

Pausing allows you to ask better questions rather than make assumptions. It could be personal challenges, professional struggles, or something else entirely. Without that pause, you might treat symptoms instead of root causes.

Lisa adds another suggestion: engage your team in discussing a problem and just listen. “They will often lead with things that are coming from a place of fear or concern,” she notes. Understanding these underlying worries helps you address real issues, not just surface problems.

Your Role as an Advocate

Perhaps the most important mindset shift involves how leaders see their role. “I am their number one advocate,” Lisa says about her team. “My role is not just to drive them to production, it’s really to advocate for their needs.”

This means creating multiple channels for support, recognizing not everyone feels comfortable approaching their direct supervisor. “If I’m not the person that you can reach out to, I promise you, I have paths for you to go raise your concern,” Lisa tells her team.

The business case remains clear throughout the conversation. In today’s environment where good people are “really hard to replace,” protecting team culture isn’t charity—it’s strategy. Firms that recognize their people as “the engine” and act accordingly will outlast those clinging to the burnout model.

Listen to the full episode to hear more practical strategies for implementing these changes in your firm. Lisa and Valerie share specific tips on creating buddy systems for coverage, working with HR consultants, and building workflows that respect both deadlines and humanity. Their insights offer a realistic path forward for firms ready to lead with empathy while maintaining business success.

From Data Entry Nightmare to Automated Workflow in One Demo Session

Earmark Team · February 2, 2026 ·

You’re ten days away from the 1099 and W-2 deadline, and you’re still wrestling with QuickBooks, fielding a flood of W-9 request emails, and dreading the inevitable data entry marathon. Sound familiar?

You’re not the only one. As David Leary admitted during a recent Earmark Expo webinar, “I’ve been procrastinating on issuing 1099s. It’s just not a great experience.” He described the dual frustration that many accountants know all too well. “It’s annoying work on both sides. I need to do my 1099s, but then, as a business that receives them, I get a slew of emails from other companies asking for a W-9.”

In the webinar, David and co-host Blake Oliver took TaxBandits for a test drive with Nikita Sullivent, the company’s Support Specialist, to explore how this IRS-authorized e-file platform handles over 70 tax forms. The live demo included the authentic technical hiccups we all face with real-world software and shared practical solutions for the compliance challenges that hit every January.

Getting your data in: from hours to minutes

Manual data entry for hundreds of 1099s is a bottleneck that keeps you from serving more clients. TaxBandits tackles this with multiple import options that meet you where your data lives.

The platform offers three main paths for getting data in. You can:

Enter forms manually one at a time (perfect for that forgotten contractor),
Use bulk upload templates for larger volumes, or
Connect directly with accounting software (current integrations include QuickBooks Online, Xero, Sage Intacct, and Zoho, with Karbon integration coming soon).

The bulk upload process stands out for its simplicity. As Nikita demonstrated, “You’re reviewing the columns at the top and inputting the data beneath them. Once we have all of that data input, we’ll just download it as a CSV and drag and drop it in.”

David particularly appreciated one detail. “I like how on your templates, in the header of each column, you give the instructions for the values you accept in that field.” No more guessing whether to use “CA” or “California,” or whether TINs need dashes.

The workflow breaks down like this:

Download the Excel template with clear column headers
Fill in your data following the built-in instructions for each field
Drag and drop the file into TaxBandits
Review the automatic error check that flags issues like missing digits in EINs or duplicate records
Fix any problems by either editing in the app or exporting just the error records for correction

For QuickBooks users wondering about the process, David confirmed you can export your vendor list, filter for 1099 vendors, and use the “upload your own file” feature. The first time requires mapping your fields to TaxBandits’ fields, but that mapping saves for future uploads.

One webinar attendee asked whether they needed to re-enter last year’s payees. “Absolutely not,” Nikita answered. “Everything stays in your account and rolls over year after year.” When you import this year’s data and the system finds a duplicate, you can either delete it or update the existing record with any changes.

The platform also distinguishes between importing only recipient data and importing both payer and recipient data. If you maintain TaxBandits throughout the year, importing just recipients during filing season works best since you’ve already set up your payers. But if you’re adding everything at once, the combined import saves steps.

With data flowing smoothly into the system, the next challenge is ensuring that data won’t bounce back from the IRS.

TIN verification: the new compliance reality

Getting data into the system efficiently matters only if it passes IRS validation. The agency’s transition from the FIRE system to IRIS (Information Returns Intake System) brings stricter requirements that every accountant needs to understand.

“The IRIS system is going to be far stricter on TIN matching than the FIRE system was,” Nikita warns. “Which means if the SSN, the EIN, the TIN, and the recipient name don’t identically match the IRS database, it’s going to kick the form back to you as accepted with errors, and you have to file a correction.”

The keyword is “identically.” A contractor who goes by “Mike” but whose Social Security card reads “Michael” could trigger a rejection. Even punctuation differences in business names can cause problems.

TaxBandits builds TIN verification into multiple touchpoints:

When collecting W-9s throughout the year
When adding recipients to your address book
During the 1099 workflow as a final check

The smart approach starts early. “When you get a W-9, when you get a new employee or contractor, you go ahead and do the TIN matching on that prior to the filing season,” Nikita advised. This prevents last-minute surprises when deadlines loom.

Verification typically returns within two to four hours during normal periods. But during peak season “it can be up to 24 hours,” Nikita warned. If you’re verifying TINs within the 1099 workflow itself, the system waits for results before transmitting, which is potentially problematic if you’re filing on January 31st.

For those worried about the cost of corrections, TaxBandits offers some protection. Their “TaxBandits Commitment” covers correction filings at no additional charge. But even free corrections cost you time and stress.

The platform also streamlines W-9 collection. Instead of chasing paperwork, you can send electronic W-9 requests. Recipients complete them online, and the data flows directly into your TaxBandits account, ready for immediate TIN verification if desired.

Once your forms are prepared and verified, you still need to get them into recipients’ hands compliantly.

Distribution flexibility that actually works

The old choice between hours at the post office or forcing everyone into electronic delivery is over. Modern distribution needs flexibility, and TaxBandits delivers exactly that.

“Everything is very customizable to your needs,” Nikita explained when asked about mixing delivery methods. “You can choose some postal mail, some online access, and some want both.”

The three distribution paths each serve different needs:

USPS postal mailing handled entirely by TaxBandits
Electronic recipient portal requiring just an email address
Both options for recipients who want backup

The electronic portal solves a critical compliance issue. The IRS requires formal consent for electronic delivery, so you can’t just email a PDF. TaxBandits automates this. Recipients receive a secure link, enter a PIN for verification, and provide documented consent.

If someone ignores that email, the system tracks everything. You can see who consented, who declined, and who never responded and then handle postal delivery for the holdouts.

For returning recipients, the portal builds value over time. “If you file for that same recipient next year, they’ll use the same link, and they’ll access all of the documents from the same portal,” Nikita noted. Recipients get their own organized tax document archive without any extra work from you.

State filing adds another compliance layer, but TaxBandits simplifies this, too. The platform tells you exactly what each state requires:

States requiring direct filing (you handle separately)
Combined Federal/State Filing participants (automatic forwarding)
States requiring no 1099 filing

Throughout the process, you get real-time status updates so you can see which forms were transmitted to, received by, and accepted by the agency. For postal mail, statuses are submitted to USPS and en route to the recipient. When a client claims they never received their form, you have documentation. After transmission, watermarks disappear from your copies, and you can reprint professional versions anytime.

For firms with multiple preparers, the platform offers even more control through team management features.

Scaling with teams and support

Larger firms need more than just bulk upload; they need workflow management. TaxBandits’ team management features let you maintain control while delegating the actual work.

The system offers three permission levels:

No roles: Any team member can prepare, approve, and transmit
Two roles: Preparers create forms, approvers review and transmit
Three roles: Preparers create, approvers review, transmitters handle payment and filing

You can also create location-based groups. Nikita shared an example. “Say you have a group in Indiana and a group in Tennessee. Anytime you add a new payer and assign them to the Tennessee group, then all of the team members included in the Tennessee group have access to that payer.”

Support is critical when things get complex. During busy season, TaxBandits extends hours to 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Eastern. They offer phone, email, and chat support, plus an AI assistant that pulls from both their knowledge base and IRS guidelines.

The platform’s YouTube channel provides step-by-step videos for specific workflows. For Sage Intacct users who asked about integration, Nikita recommended checking their channel for detailed walkthroughs showing the complete process from Sage to TaxBandits.

Pricing works on a credits system with bulk discounts. Buy more credits upfront, pay less per form—and credits never expire. As Nikita confirmed when asked about rollover, “Your credits will never expire. So if you want to purchase for the next five years now and get the best price we can give you, go for it.”

Making next year easier starts now

The strategies demonstrated in this webinar show a fundamentally different approach to information returns. TaxBandits treats compliance as a year-round process rather than a January panic.

The IRS’s push toward e-filing mandates and stricter validation isn’t slowing down. The IRIS system is just the beginning of modernization efforts that will continue tightening requirements. But the webinar demonstrated real workflows you can adopt immediately, from template imports to electronic W-9 collection to role-based team permissions.

Ready to transform your 1099 and W-2 workflow? Watch the full Earmark Expo webinar to see TaxBandits in action, including the complete demo of bulk uploads, error checking, and team management features. The platform offers over 70 tax forms beyond just 1099s and W-2s, making it a comprehensive solution for year-round compliance needs.

5 KPIs That Separate Million-Dollar Firms From Expensive Jobs

Earmark Team · February 2, 2026 ·

What if the difference between building a million-dollar asset and simply having a job came down to tracking just five numbers?

In this episode of Who’s Really the Boss?, Marcus and Rachel Dillon share the exact metrics that helped them grow DBA from $400,000 to nearly $6 million in revenue. These are the same KPIs they presented to over 200 accounting professionals at Intuit Connect and their Gather conference, backed by real benchmark data from firms ranging from $500,000 to well over $5 million in revenue.

Most accounting firm owners can rattle off their revenue figure without hesitation. It’s the go-to metric when someone asks about the size of your practice. But as the Dillons explain, revenue alone won’t tell you whether you’re building something valuable or just running faster on a hamster wheel.

While you could track dozens of KPIs (Dillon Business Advisors tracks over 20), five metrics form the essential dashboard for any accounting firm owner serious about building value. These numbers measure your business and determine whether you’ll have options when it’s time to step away.

The Five Essential KPIs That Form Your Firm’s Dashboard

Think about the dashboard in your car. As Marcus explains, you could scroll through dozens of gauges showing everything imaginable, but the instruments front and center are the ones critical to getting where you’re going safely. The same principle applies to running an accounting firm.

These five metrics create what Marcus calls a “level playing field” for understanding firm health and value. Let’s break down each one and see how firms in Collective by DBA benchmark data perform.

Gross Revenue (Trailing 12 Months)

This is your speedometer. It’s big, central, and impossible to ignore. The collective average sits at just under $2 million, representing a 10% increase from Spring of 2024.

But Marcus recommends tracking the trailing 12 months, not calendar year. Why? Because that trailing 12 months removes seasonality and shows what investors actually evaluate. “Think about how much has happened at DBA in the last 11 months,” he notes. “We’ve done two acquisitions. We’ve continued to grow Collective. We’ve added different people. It would be very deceiving to only focus on that last calendar year.”

That 10% growth could come from price increases, culling the client list, or organic growth. Revenue alone doesn’t tell you which, but it confirms movement.

Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) as a Percentage of Gross

The Collective average now sits at 47% MRR, up 2% from Spring. DBA operates at 70% MRR.

“It’s very unlikely that 70% of our business or revenue is not going to show back up next month,” Marcus explains. “That just helps us run a more stable business. It helps cover payroll, rent, technology subscriptions, and all those other expenses.”

A panel at Intuit Connect featuring firm owners who had completed acquisitions delivered a sobering insight. Matthew May from Sorren; Chris Williams, founder of System Six; and Becky Munson, Partner at EisnerAmper confirmed acquirers will buy firms without MRR, but they won’t pay as much for them.

“Would you rather get a better valuation? Would you rather run a better business by moving them over to monthly recurring? Or would you rather somebody else do that after you sell the firm?” Marcus asks.

Revenue Per FTE

This efficiency metric shows how much revenue each full-time equivalent team member generates. The Collective average is $194,000 per FTE, up 1% from Spring. That means your typical $2 million firm operates with about ten people.

“It’s not so much about finding ways to cut people out of your business,” Rachel says, emphasizing an important point. “It’s more about not having to find that next person when you bring on two more clients or three more clients.”

The goal is moving toward $200,000, then $250,000, and eventually $300,000 as technology enables greater efficiency. But context matters. A firm heavy on bookkeeping won’t look the same as one staffed with tax attorneys billing $500 per hour.

Earnings Before Owner Compensation (EBOC)

This is where profitability gets real. EBOC equals your net profit plus owner salaries and benefits. It creates a true comparison between firms regardless of how owners structure their compensation.

The Collective average sits at 40%, down 1% from spring. For potential buyers, Marcus notes the attractive range is between 35% and 50%.

Why not use EBITDA?

“EBITDA typically has a value in there for the owner’s role,” Marcus explains. “And if you have a succession event, they will look at EBITDA and beat you up based on the amount you pay yourself.” With a $2 million firm at 40% EBOC generating $800,000, an acquirer might value the owner’s role at $250,000 and calculate EBITDA at $550,000 for valuation purposes.

Even if you plan to give your firm away, “you want to give something other people want. You don’t want the receiver to say thanks, but no thanks,” Rachel points out.

Owner Production Hours

The final metric addresses what many firm owners care about most: their time. The Collective average is 1,152 production hours annually out of a standard 2,080, and that number dropped 12% from Spring.

“That’s not skewed by tax season,” Marcus clarifies. “This is all being pulled trailing 12 months.”

Owners successfully delegated over 10% of their production work while other metrics improved. As Marcus notes, “I know most owners would welcome that decrease in EBOC to work 10% to 12% less year over year.”

How KPIs Influence Each Other

Understanding these metrics is just the beginning. The real insight comes from recognizing how they push and pull against one another.

The Collective data reveals healthy, balanced growth: Revenue up 10%. MRR up 2%. Revenue per FTE up 1%. Owner hours down 12%. EBOC down just 1%.

But Marcus warns about the dangers of optimizing one metric at the expense of others. “What does revenue growth at all costs look like? It’s accepting anything that comes in the door. Probably your owner hours go up, or your costs go up because you have to employ people to do this work that may not be the best work.”

Similarly, you could improve revenue per FTE through mass layoffs. “My revenue per FTE would shoot up because I just have less FTEs,” Marcus explains. “Sure, my EBOC will increase, but my quality of life will probably go down.”

The key is finding balance. Revenue growth while owner hours decrease or hold steady, maintaining EBOC without burning out the team, and MRR creeping upward for predictable cash flow.

A Real-World Example of Pulling the Levers

The Dillons advocate for backward mapping. Start with where you want to go, identify the lever most likely to get you there, estimate costs and risks, then pressure-test results.

DBA tested several levers over the years: price increases, automation, hiring an operations manager, evaluating their client list, monthly recurring packages, and specialized hiring at the director level.

The Price Increase Lever at DBA

In 2024, DBA tackled pricing that had slipped on legacy clients. With an average monthly client at $2,100, they still had several below $1,000, which was unprofitable given their team structure.

They targeted a 14% increase, higher than typical because they’d delayed too long.

“We knew some people were on the bubble, “Marcus says, sharing his thought process. “We knew this would either move them to churn or invest and go deeper with our team.”

The messaging was crucial. “Don’t make the price increase about yourself,” Marcus advises. “No client wants to hear that. You have to have a better value perspective than your costs are increasing.”

Rachel adds that peer networks prove invaluable here. “You can talk yourself out of doing price increases. But in a peer group, you see what other people charge and what other people plan to do for their price increases. You think, ‘Well, I’m doing the same work as they are. Why am I still charging so little?’”

At the Gather event, when asked about planned increases for 2026, most firms indicated 10%, with some going up to 20-25%.

The Results

DBA lost $12,000 in monthly recurring revenue from churned clients but gained a net 4% in total billings while serving fewer clients. Revenue went up. EBOC went up. MRR percentage went up. Revenue per FTE improved. Owner hours decreased.

“You could improve all five of those metrics more than likely by price increases alone,” Marcus concludes.

Rachel emphasizes this wasn’t about pricing out clients. “The goal was to continue to serve them at a price that made sense for the business.” For truly problematic clients, she recommends direct action. “Just have the conversation and help them find a new provider. Don’t keep serving them because they’re paying you.”

Your Next Steps

The Dillons follow an Improvement Season framework:

April 16 – August 15: Assess progress and implement changes
September – October: Pressure test during higher volume
November – December: Reevaluate and adjust
January: Launch with refined plan

Some changes show results quickly. For example, price increases make a mark within a quarter. Others, like absorbing a director-level hire, might take a full year.

Marcus emphasizes involving your team. “Do it with your leadership team. Do it with somebody beyond yourself. And then invite others to improve that KPI and celebrate it with others. The cool thing about having a team is to be on a mission together.”

Rachel adds two key questions for listeners:

Which KPI do you need to move to increase your firm value?
What KPI are you not tracking yet, but you should be?

Whether you plan to sell, pass on, or simply run a better business, these five metrics determine your options. “You will have a succession event in your lifetime because you’re just not going to live forever,” Marcus says. “You’re either going to sell, give it away, or shut it down.”

The choice is yours. But it starts with measuring what matters.

Listen to the full episode for the complete conversation, including more details on implementing these strategies in your firm.

Rachel and Marcus Dillon, CPA, own a Texas-based, remote client accounting and advisory services firm, Dillon Business Advisors, with a team of 15 professionals. Their latest organization, Collective by DBA, supports and guides accounting firm owners and leaders with firm resources, education, and operational strategy through community, groups, and one-on-one advisory.

The Auditors Got Red Flags About $95 Million in Missing Funds and Signed Off Anyway

Earmark Team · February 2, 2026 ·

In the last episode of 2025 of The Accounting Podcast, hosts Blake Oliver and David Leary kicked off the conversation with an unexpected problem: America is running out of pennies. David’s friend owns sandwich shops in Tucson and literally can’t get pennies from the bank anymore. Businesses are being forced to round to the nearest nickel, and point-of-sale systems are scrambling to adapt.

“Square admits one fifth of all the transactions on Square are still paid in cash,” David noted, highlighting how this seemingly small issue affects millions of daily transactions. The government claims there are 300 billion pennies in circulation, but as David pointed out, “Obviously this isn’t true because businesses all over America do not have pennies to use in transactions.”

But the penny shortage was just the warm-up. The hosts quickly moved to a much bigger story about missing money: $95 million vanished at Evolve Bank, yet the auditors still signed off on clean financial statements.

$95 Million Went Missing While Auditors Said Everything Was Fine

Blake followed the Evolve Bank story for years, and recent Freedom of Information Act requests uncovered stunning details about what the auditors knew and ignored.

Evolve Bank is a chartered bank that worked with Synapse, a “banking as a service” company that wasn’t a bank itself but managed the technology connecting consumer apps like Yotta and Juno to actual banks. When you used these apps, you’d see your balance, but you had no idea which bank actually held your money. Synapse managed all those details.

“Everything worked great until April 2024, when Synapse filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy and shut down operations,” Blake explained. Suddenly, the banks and the apps couldn’t figure out where customer money actually was. Evolve froze withdrawals from thousands of accounts, leaving people unable to access their own money for months.

When banks examined Synapse’s records, they found massive problems. Between $65 and $95 million in customer funds couldn’t be traced to any bank. “Your Juno account might say $10,000, and the bank that’s supposed to have the $10,000 says, ‘We don’t have it,’” Blake explained.

The most damaging revelation came from the 2023 audit. When Crowe, Evolve’s auditor at the time, asked Synapse to confirm cash balances, the response should have triggered immediate action. Evolve listed 113 accounts, but Synapse was missing 29 accounts from daily data feeds. Synapse’s general counsel asked to discuss the discrepancies with Evolve’s leadership.

Evolve never responded to that request, yet Crowe still issued a clean audit opinion.

“Ninety five million is a lot of money,” Blake observed. “It would be 6% to 7% of Evolve’s total assets, likely over 100% of their annual net income, a double digit percentage of equity capital in some years. And typically, materiality would be 1 or 2% of assets.”

Are SOC 2 Reports Worthless?

The Evolve disaster led the hosts to question other compliance frameworks, particularly SOC certifications that companies display as badges of trustworthiness.

“My guess is Synapse had their SOC 2, because it’s not that hard to get a SOC 2,” Blake said. “According to my understanding, it’s really just a lot of documentation of the controls. But there’s not necessarily any confirmation that those controls are being followed.”

“They paid the money and got the badge for their website,” David observed.

The hosts also discussed how a New Jersey accounting firm, Sax, took 18 months to inform nearly 250,000 people about a data breach. The firm claimed it followed standard procedures and saw no evidence the stolen data was misused, but for 18 months, affected individuals had no idea their personal information might be compromised.

“People could be using your stolen identity fraudulently 18 months before the accounting firm lets you know,” David said.

The problem is that while firms must have Written Information Security Plans (WISPs), they’re not necessarily legally required to execute them properly. “We focus on the wrong thing,” David argued. “We focus on having a WISP, not actually executing the WISP.”

Partners Don’t Know What Partners Make

In a lighter but equally revealing segment, Blake shared his favorite LinkedIn post of the year from Chase Birky, CEO and Co-founder of Dark Horse CPAs. Chase shared that almost a third of partners don’t know how much partners make at their own firms.

“How do CPAs not know how much they make? Isn’t that sort of what we do?” Chase wrote. The problem stems from a lack of transparency at many firms where partner compensation is calculated in a “black box” and communicated well after the fact. This secrecy is at least part of the reason talent leaves public accounting.

“I left because I got offered a job in tech that paid a lot more,” Blake said, sharing his own experience. “I didn’t know how much a partner made, and nobody could tell me what the path looked like.”

Should Companies Report Twice a Year Instead of Four Times?

The hosts also debated President Trump’s suggestion that U.S. companies should move from quarterly to semi-annual reporting, like much of the rest of the world.

Research from the UK showed that changing reporting frequency had “virtually no impact on companies’ internal investment decisions.” Studies also found that quarterly reporting creates “noisier data” that benefits sophisticated investors while hurting everyday investors.

“We’re always talking about how we have too much work to do in accounting and we’re pressed for time,” Blake said. “What better way to give ourselves more time than to make it two times a year instead of four?”

David wondered if less frequent reporting might reduce the pressure to play accounting games. “Monthly reporting probably puts pressure on people to sidestep the rules because it’s so fast and you have to perform.”

Looking Ahead to 2026

The hosts wrapped up with predictions for the coming year. David was skeptical about AI transforming bookkeeping. “I don’t see me doing bookkeeping at the end of 2026 any differently than I did in 2025, 2024, 2023, or 2022.”

Blake disagreed, pointing to new AI browsers that can actually navigate accounting software and complete tasks. “The time is doubling every seven months,” he explained. “Within the next year, we’re going to see AI able to complete tasks that take 15 to 20 minutes with 100% accuracy.”

David also predicted that OpenAI would strike a multi-million dollar deal with the AICPA, that at least two AI companies would fail, and, in his easiest prediction, “Intuit will tick off accountants in 2026.”

The episode covered far more ground than can be captured here, from the technical details of audit failures to the future of AI in accounting. For the complete discussion and all the insights Blake and David shared in their final episode of 2025, listen to the full episode of The Accounting Podcast.

Knowing Every Harassment Policy Won’t Save You When It Actually Happens

Earmark Team · February 2, 2026 ·

An HR expert with decades of experience found herself doing something she never expected: hiding from a retiree who kept asking for hugs. Despite her master’s degree in human resources and years of training others on harassment prevention, she went along with the unwanted contact until she caught herself actively avoiding him in the building.

“What is going on here?” Julie Thiel finally asked herself.

Julie shared this moment of clarity during a live recording of the She Counts podcast at the AFWA Women Who Count conference in Mesa, Arizona. Over 100 women in accounting filled the main stage room to tackle one of the profession’s most uncomfortable topics with Julie, hosts Questian Telka and Nancy McClelland, and employment attorney Kami Hoskins.

As the first of a two-part podcast series recorded live at the session shows, knowing every policy and law doesn’t protect you from freezing when harassment actually happens.

The Gap Between Knowledge and Action

Julie’s credentials should have been enough. She has a psychology degree, a Master’s in HR and years of experience conducting investigations and leading training sessions. She knew all the best practices.

None of it helped when the retiree walked past her office.

“Julie, can I get a hug?” seemed harmless at first so she said yes. He visited periodically, always stopping by with the same request. She kept agreeing.

Then she noticed her own troubling behavior.

“Anytime I saw him coming into the building, I would start going the other way,” Julie told the audience. “I found myself in a position where I felt uncomfortable hugging him. I didn’t want to hug him anymore.”

The woman who’d trained countless others was doing exactly what she’d tell them not to do: complying with unwanted contact, then avoiding the person instead of addressing it.

“I want you to know that we’re all in the same boat when it comes to this topic,” she said.

The session proved her point in real time. While Julie shared her story, Nancy had a sudden realization.

“It happened to me earlier today,” Nancy admitted. “Somebody said something really inappropriate related to the fact that we were going to be talking about this topic on the stage, and I laughed.”

She paused, processing the irony of laughing off harassment while preparing to discuss harassment prevention.

“I’m going to go back to that person and say, ‘hey, you know what? I shouldn’t have laughed there because that was a really good opportunity for me to teach you that it’s not okay to say things like that.’”

If experts freeze and laugh off inappropriate comments, what’s really happening? It stems from how deeply women are conditioned to keep everyone comfortable—often at their own expense.

Why We’re Conditioned to Comply

The disconnect between knowledge and action isn’t personal failure. It’s social programming that starts before anyone enters the workforce.

“We’re so conditioned to smile and laugh it off,” Questian observed. “To overlook things that bother us in order to de-escalate.”

Women learn early to smooth things over and prioritize others’ comfort. By the time we enter professional environments, these responses are automatic. They kick in before we register something is wrong.

Julie acknowledged that comfort levels vary. “I’m sure some people would think, ‘No big deal. I’m happy to hug him.’ But for me, I had to pay attention to that inner pause.”

That “inner pause” is the moment something feels off before our conditioning overrides it. Learning to recognize and trust that pause is where real work begins.

Kami reframed the challenge. “This stuff takes practice. It’s not a muscle we’re going to have overnight. The more you do it, the stronger your muscle gets and the easier it gets.”

She emphasized self-compassion. “We need to have a little grace and forgiveness for ourselves. If we sometimes laugh because we felt unsafe or needed to de-escalate a situation, that’s okay. Just keep practicing.”

The audience’s responses confirmed how much work remains. When asked how they’d feel about speaking up if they experienced or witnessed harassment, their word cloud was revealing. “Uncomfortable” dominated the screen, followed by scared, hesitant, and nervous.

But some responded with “confident” and “empowered,” proof that building this muscle is possible. Unexpectedly, “empathy” and “responsibility” also appeared, suggesting women felt duty to speak up for others even when speaking for themselves felt impossible.

Understanding the Spectrum of Harassment

Sexual harassment ranges from uncomfortable requests to explicit threats. Understanding this spectrum helps us recognize harassment even when it doesn’t match our mental image.

Kami emphasized the word “unwelcome.”

“Is the behavior unwelcome? If it’s unwelcome, it’s probably a problem,” she explained. “It doesn’t matter whether someone intended harm or whether others would be bothered. What matters is whether the behavior is unwelcome to you.”

The session’s two stories illustrated this spectrum perfectly.

Julie’s experience involved a retiree with no power over her employment. His hug requests started casually without explicit threats. No quid pro quo existed, yet the unwelcome behavior affected her enough that she avoided parts of her workplace.

A listener’s submitted story painted a darker picture. Her supervisor at a large accounting firm repeatedly asked her to lunch, then dinner, then begged her to spend time outside work. During layoff discussions, he made it explicit: “I have feelings for you. I want you to go out with me. I can help make sure you don’t get laid off.”

“That is a very different kind of sexual harassment than what Julie shared with us,” Nancy said, noting the contrast. I don’t know that I would have heard Julie’s story and thought, that’s sexual harassment.”

Both involved unwelcome behavior. Both deserved addressing. But they fall into different legal categories.

“The story you shared is an example of quid pro quo harassment, Latin meaning ‘something for something,’” Kami explained. “That’s when a person in a supervisory capacity conditions employment on being subjected to sexual harassment.”

This legal distinction matters for understanding options, but shouldn’t determine whether you speak up. Behavior can violate company policy without necessarily creating a legal claim.

“It doesn’t mean we should keep it to ourselves,” Kami emphasized. “We should still share that information and give our employer the opportunity to correct the behavior.”

What the Numbers Tell Us

The session’s polling data was sobering. While 37% of women nationally report experiencing sexual harassment according to McKinsey’s Women in the Workplace 2024, the accounting professionals in the room showed higher rates.

About 44% had personally experienced sexual harassment. Another 31% knew someone who had. Only about 20% had neither experienced it nor knew anyone who had.

“Ours was closer to 50%,” Nancy observed, noting the accounting profession appeared to exceed national averages.

Whether from self-selection or something specific about accounting, these numbers demand attention. They represent colleagues, partners, and sometimes ourselves.

Building Strength for Next Time

Traditional training rarely acknowledges that knowing the right answer and doing it in real time are different skills. Knowledge doesn’t equal action, our conditioning runs deep, and harassment exists on a spectrum where “unwelcome” is the standard that matters. Most importantly, boundary-setting is a muscle requiring practice, not perfection.

For women in accounting, these insights matter. We’re not failing because we don’t know policies. We’re struggling because we haven’t practiced the skills in real situations.

The goal isn’t perfection; it’s shrinking the gap between what we know and what we do. It’s making “uncomfortable” smaller on that word cloud while “confident” and “empowered” grow.

This conversation continues in part two, with practical reporting strategies, what actually happens when you go to HR, and navigating harassment as employees, employers, and business owners.

Listen to the full episode and return for part two. These women are building the roadmap we all need.

Resources for those experiencing harassment:

National Sexual Assault Hotline: 1-800-656-4673
National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-7233
National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline: 988