Accounting firms are increasingly looking beyond bookkeeping, tax preparation, and compliance work for their next source of growth. The numbers suggest many are finding it in Client Advisory Services (CAS).
According to the 2024 CPA.com and AICPA PCPS Client Advisory Services Benchmark Survey, participating CAS practices reported a 17% median growth rate, continuing a pattern of double-digit growth seen in previous surveys.
But the firms surveyed don’t expect that momentum to stop.
Respondents projected 15% median growth for the following year and 99% median growth in CAS revenue over the next three years.
In other words, the typical participating firm expected its advisory business to nearly double.
Why are accounting firms investing so heavily in advisory?
Part of the answer may be found in another major trend transforming accounting: artificial intelligence and automation.
The Foundation of Accounting Is Becoming More Automated
Bookkeeping and tax preparation aren’t going away.
Small businesses will continue to need accurate financial records, reconciliations, tax returns, payroll, financial statements, and other essential services.
But technology is changing how much human labor is required to produce them.
AI and automation can already assist with tasks including transaction categorization, data extraction, account reconciliations, invoice processing, financial reporting, and tax-form preparation.
According to Intuit’s 2025 QuickBooks Accountant Technology Survey, 95% of surveyed accountants said their firms had adopted automation technologies during the previous year. Payroll, accounts payable and receivable, and data entry and transaction processing were among the leading applications.
That creates tremendous opportunities for efficiency.
It can also contribute to the commoditization of foundational accounting tasks.
When software makes a service faster and easier to provide, clients may have more providers and technology solutions to choose from. Competing solely on completing the task can become increasingly difficult.
The value of the accounting professional therefore has an opportunity to move somewhere else.
AI Can Produce Information. Clients Still Need Help Using It.
Imagine a small business owner receiving an automatically generated financial report.
They can see revenue increased 12%.
They can see labor expenses increased 18%.
They can see that cash decreased from the previous quarter.
They have the information.
Now come the harder questions:
Why did it happen?
Should I be concerned?
What should I change?
Can I still afford to hire another employee?
Do I need to raise my prices?
Which part of my business is actually making money?
Those aren’t simply bookkeeping questions.
They’re advisory questions.
Client Advisory Services move accounting professionals beyond producing financial information and toward helping business owners interpret that information, understand their options, and make better decisions.
That can include services such as cash flow management, forecasting, profitability analysis, KPI monitoring, pricing strategy, budgeting, strategic planning, and recurring advisory meetings.
Technology can help produce the numbers.
The advisor helps determine what to do about them.
Accounting Firms Are Already Making the Transition
The growth in CAS isn’t occurring in isolation from the rise of AI.
Intuit’s 2025 research found that 79% of surveyed accountants expected strategic advisory work to increase over the following year, with those respondents anticipating an average increase of 38%.
Meanwhile, 95% said technology had significantly reduced time spent on compliance tasks and increased their focus on strategic advice and client relationships.
The two trends can reinforce each other.
Automation reduces the time required for certain traditional tasks.
That creates capacity.
Accounting professionals can use that capacity to provide higher-value services.
Instead of spending hours assembling financial information, they can spend more time interpreting it and talking with the client about the business.
That’s an important distinction.
AI doesn’t necessarily eliminate the accountant’s value. It can change where that value is created.
CAS Can Change the Client Relationship
Traditional accounting engagements can sometimes be transactional.
A client needs a tax return.
You prepare it.
The engagement ends.
Or a client needs bookkeeping.
You reconcile the accounts and produce the reports.
Advisory creates an opportunity for a different relationship.
A business owner may meet with their advisor every month to discuss cash flow, profitability, KPIs, goals, and upcoming decisions.
The advisor begins to understand not only the client’s financial statements but also the business itself.
What is the owner trying to accomplish?
What’s preventing growth?
Where is the company losing money?
What opportunities should it pursue?
Over time, the accountant can become someone the business owner consults before making important decisions instead of after making them.
That’s the trusted-advisor relationship at the heart of CAS.
The Revenue Opportunity Is Growing Too
The 17% CAS growth figure isn’t the only noteworthy finding from the CPA.com/AICPA benchmark.
Median reported annual CAS revenue among respondents increased 61% from the previous 2022 survey to approximately $1.6 million.
Median net client fees per professional reached $156,250, a 29% increase from the 2022 survey.
And firms providing more sophisticated services appear to be seeing additional benefits.
Practices generating significant revenue from CFO-level or higher-level business-insight advisory services reported more than 30% higher monthly recurring revenue.
That reinforces an important point:
The opportunity isn’t simply to add another accounting task to your service menu.
It’s to move further into the business owner’s decision-making process.
Bookkeeping and Tax Become the Foundation for Advisory
For bookkeepers and tax professionals, CAS doesn’t require abandoning the work you already do.
In many cases, that work gives you an advantage.
A bookkeeper already understands the client’s revenue, expenses, cash position, receivables, financial statements, and historical performance.
A tax professional develops another valuable perspective on the client’s financial activity and business decisions.
You already have access to the numbers.
Advisory asks you to take the next step.
Bookkeeping tells you what happened.
Tax preparation helps address the tax consequences of what happened.
Advisory helps the client decide what should happen next.
That makes advisory a natural extension of the accounting relationship rather than an entirely separate profession.
Develop Advisory Skills With Profit & Growth Expert Training
Knowing accounting, however, doesn’t automatically mean knowing how to advise a business owner.
Advisory requires another collection of skills.
You need to know how to analyze financial performance, manage cash flow, identify profitability opportunities, ask productive questions, lead client conversations, establish goals, and turn financial insights into practical recommendations.
That’s the purpose behind Universal Accounting Center’s Profit & Growth Expert (PGE) training.
PGE provides a pathway for bookkeepers, tax professionals, accountants, and aspiring firm owners who want to expand into business advisory services.
The program helps professionals learn how to use financial information to work with small business owners on cash flow, profitability, goals, and growth. It complements the technical foundation available through Universal Accounting Center’s Professional Bookkeeper (PB) and Professional Tax Preparer (PTP) programs.
Rather than viewing these skills as competing services, they can become layers of a more complete accounting practice.
PB provides the bookkeeping foundation.
PTP develops tax preparation expertise.
PGE helps professionals turn financial knowledge into advisory services.
That combination can allow an accounting professional to become a much more comprehensive resource for a small business owner.
The Opportunity Is Moving Up the Value Chain
AI is going to continue changing accounting.
Trying to compete with technology at the tasks technology performs most efficiently may become increasingly difficult.
But accountants have another option.
Use the technology.
Let automation handle more of the repetitive work. Use the time it saves to understand clients more deeply, ask better questions, interpret their financial information, and help them make better decisions.
The growth of Client Advisory Services suggests accounting firms are already moving in that direction.
CAS practices in the CPA.com/AICPA benchmark reported 17% median growth.
They projected nearly double their CAS revenue over three years.
And broader industry research shows accountants expect strategic advisory work to continue expanding.
The opportunity for accounting professionals isn’t simply to produce the numbers faster.
It’s to become more valuable once those numbers are produced.
For professionals who want to make that transition, Universal Accounting Center’s Profit & Growth Expert training offers a pathway from accounting professional to trusted business advisor.
Call 435-344-2060 if you’d like to talk with our team to pursue advisory work further with the Profit & Growth Expert certification.
