How to get double-digit growth

Published July 30, 2026 4:07 PM

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Updated July 30, 2026 4:32 PM

1 Min Read

Members of the 2026 Fastest-Growing Firms at Accounting Today's Firm Growth Forum

Even if it's just to keep up with inflation, every accounting firm wants to grow its revenues from year to year — and most want to do much more than keep up with inflation.

That can be difficult, though, in an era of capacity restraints, strong competition from both inside and outside the profession, pricing pressures from clients, and a number of other headwinds.

While there's a host of tactics for boosting firm growth rates — from adding services and cross-selling to stronger marketing, adding capacity, M&A and more — the firms that have been most successful in growing are more likely to locate their success at a higher level.

We asked a number of leaders from the 2026 Fastest-Growing Firms what they attributed their remarkable expansion to, and while they all employ a number of tactics (particularly M&A), they were far more likely to cite an overarching strategy or principle as the source of their growth — one that informs and delineates the tactics they then choose.

A selection of those strategies and principles from the Fastest-Growing Firms follows below.

PKF O'Connor Davies: Picking a lane

This New York-based Top 100 Firm really exemplifies a common theme among its fast-growing peers: knowing your firm and your plan, and sticking with it.

"No. 1 is really being intentional about what we want to do, where we want to go, whether it was looking into different services, different industries, different geographies — really picking our lane, so to speak, as opposed to just going out and doing everything," explained managing partner Jonathan Moore. "And then once having that growth, then really making a kind of deliberate choice in terms of once you get into those different areas, where do you potentially go deeper or do more?"

Springline: A 'big small firm'

Tim Brackney

One of the leading private equity-backed platform firms in the space, Top 100 Firm Springline, continues to get a major boost from acquisitions — but is very careful about who it combines with.

"I think the biggest factor is that we're really true to our mission, which is to create a big small firm," said CEO Tim Brackney. "And so that means finding like-minded firms who value culture and people as a lever for growth. And we've been successful in finding that. And what you find is as you find like-minded firms, they work together pretty seamlessly."

This can be hard to do, he noted: "The biggest obstacle is really remaining true to your mission. And so sort of not going for shiny objects, not being too thirsty in a competitive deal environment and just making sure that the firms that you're bringing into especially this founding phase really are accretive to what you're building overall from the inside."

Nichols Cauley: Discipline delivers results

For Alan Whitman, CEO of Nichols Cauley, "It comes down to strategy. We have a strategy. We executed the strategy. We're building the building blocks, and we're pulling together the building blocks of strategy and the ability to perform, and it's working."

"Everybody gets lathered up about all these new things that are coming at us," he continued. "But if you just stay disciplined and focused and intentional about what you're doing, you know, results result. It's not any more fancy than that."

(That focus on discipline in executing their strategy doesn't mean the specifics of the strategy don't matter, however, and Whitman outlined them in some detail: "The founders of this platform and this thesis were intent on serving small and medium-sized businesses, owner-operated businesses in the markets that are overlooked in the second- and third- and fourth-tier markets in the country in a growing macro geography, the Southeast," he explained, "and they look to pull in a variety of different solutions — CPA services, insurance services, investment banking services — and we're looking to expand that with wealth management and technology and risk and all these other things that come along with it.")

Prosperity Partners: Being the choice

Jeremy Dubow

Many of this year's Fastest-Growing Firms have a straightforward mantra that drives their decision-making and serves as a yardstick for judging everything they do, and that's certainly true of Chicago-based Prosperity, which boast the third-highest growth rate in the profession and joined the ranks of the Top 100 Firms in the country.

According to CEO Jeremy Dubow, "We have a pretty simple philosophy in our business: We want to be the employer of choice for our people, the provider of choice for our clients, and the partner of choice for our future add-ons. And when we do all those things well, we're generally doing it right and we're going to grow rapidly."

KSM: A multipronged strategy

Tim Cook

Indianapolis-based Top 100 Firm Katz, Sapper & Miller is a perfect example of a strategy many successful firms pursue: combining a wide range of elements to create a coherent growth plan.

"We have had a dedicated strategy that was a combination of organic growth, investing and growing profitable service offerings, combined with a geographic expansion into markets that were good alignments with where we're positioned on the eastern side of the U.S.," explained CEO and president Tim Cook.

TSS Advisors: Right clients, right price, right people

James Godfrey

New Hampshire-based TSS Advisors is also focused on carefully adjusting a range of growth levers, driven by an overarching strategy.

"We focused on the right clients, the right price with the right people, so it's a one-firm approach," said CEO James Godfrey. "We specifically focused on our niches, which are automobile dealerships, independent schools, and we also had an underperforming client, a CAS practice. And so we've ramped that up. And then we did a pricing exercise and really got everyone to embrace value in the firm and value when you price your clients. And so that got us to the right price and then the right people, whatever work comes in, we make sure we get it in the right buckets."

Smith & Howard: Intentionality

Sean Taylor

Atlanta-based Top 100 Firm Smith & Howard exemplifies a mindset shared by many of the Fastest-Growing Firms: pursuing its strategy in everything they do.

"Intentionality," is how CEO Sean Taylor described it: "We prescribed a vision that was basically steeped in exponential growth and so we made it a target to grow in a variety of ways: the number of clients we serve, the number of things we do for clients, the impact we have in communities. It's really all across the board. And since we made that a focus, really all the things we do or all the goals we set, all the steps we take are tied to growth."

Aprio: A one-stop shop

At Atlanta-based Top 100 Firm Aprio, "Our growth comes down to one thing: We build what clients need and want from professionals," explained CEO Richard Kopelman. "Clients want one trusted team that can see the full picture of their business, and we continue to build it. They need a team of advisors who will connect the dots across all business needs and work together on their behalf."

That has led the firm to build an integrated platform that brings together a very wide range of offerings — including a full-service law firm — but Kopelman also pointed out that all those offerings depend on the firm's staff.

"What sustains all of it is our people," he said. "Take care of your people, give them work that matters, and growth takes care of itself."

Ascend: Powering independence

Nishad Ruparell

A pioneer of the private equity-backed firm platform model, Ascend bases its growth on offering its member firms a great deal of independence, but supporting them with a broad range of resources to help them achieve their individual growth goals.

"We were founded in 2023 with at the time what was a pretty unique value proposition of championing independence in the middle market, but then using the wisdom of integration to create scale economies, resources and community in a way that middle-market firms traditionally don't have access to," explained the firm's president, Nishad Ruparell. "And I think that sincere value proposition of wanting to find the best independent firms and empower them, start with their growth stories, put those at the center and really just build a support company that could be in service of those ambitions has found product market fit."

Stephano Slack: Great people, great clients

Whatever your strategy may be around niches, geographies, technology and so on, in the end all accounting firms are people businesses — and that's what landed Philadelphia-based Stephano Slack among the Fastest-Growing Firms. (It was one of the few firms to make the list without PE backing, in fact — though it recently inked a deal.)

"We have great people — we have really dedicated people in our office. We have a great culture and we have really good clients," said managing partner Michael Stephano. "Those are the three things that have enabled us to continue to grow. Obviously, people first and then you know that delves into a really good culture and then it allows us to service our clients very well, and then not only they do they become clients but they become referral sources inside and outside of the firm. So that is probably the No. 1 reason for our growth."

LMC: Rising above the day-to-day

As an early member firm of PE-backed platform firm Ascend, New York City-based LMC Advisors has benefited from its leadership being freed up to focus on their priorities.

"I attribute the growth to being able to concentrate on the business and get away from a lot of the day-to-day work that I was doing pre-Ascend," explained CEO Lee Cohen. "I have been able to concentrate on business development and acquisitions, and those are the things I love to do, and taking away the administrative function and a lot of the things that Ascend has taken over for us have given me that ability."

Current: 'Partner equity,' not private

Steve Stagner

Like other firms backed by outside capital, Top 100 Firm Current (formerly Crete) attributes its strong growth to M&A that leaves gives member firms a great deal of leeway.

"Our growth is due to the fact that firms are attracted to us because they don't have to trade off autonomy for growth," said CEO Steve Stagner. "I think of us like a hybrid model. I call it 'partner equity,' not private equity. … We have local ownership at scale, so partners retain their brand, their culture and client relationships while gaining access to capital, purpose-built technology and operational infrastructure, but their growth is their growth. They're not pulled inside a major platform. They get to own their own company and they take on us on as a partner."

Moss Krusick: Laser-focused on niches

Florida-based Moss Krusick & Associates, a member of PE-backed Top 100 Firm Richey May, has seen both organic growth and acquisitions, but managing partner Ed Moss highlighted its devotion to specific industries.

"We've been very focused on niches from the time I started the firm — very niche-driven," he said. "That way, we're really experts in those industries; we can demonstrate our business acumen, help the clients with more than just the regular services and KPIs and dashboards, and that has really helped."

Deep expertise isn't the only thing the firm brings to its niches focus, as Moss explained in the context of its significant nonprofit practice. "We had a very targeted marketing approach to that; we would take very specific nonprofits within the industry, such as early learning coalitions …," he said. "So there are 32 early learning coalitions in the state of Florida, and we would identify all of those and we would basically get on their RFP lists, and once we got one of those we would market heavily to the others, and we currently audit 18 of the 32."

Archer Lewis: National resources, local touch

Like the many other members of this year's Fastest-Growing Firms that have partnered with outside capital, Archer Lewis has heavily focused on acquisition — but it also sees lots of upside in organic growth.

"On the organic side, we continue to see a lot of opportunities," said CEO Jake Nice. "Our client base is focused on small and medium-sized business owners and helping meet their personal tax compliance needs as well as client accounting services or business tax needs holistically. We've seen ongoing demand not just for a sort of narrow engagement view with them, but ultimately a much broader engagement view where we ultimately are sitting in a seat where we help advise on a much broader set of matters."

"And so a lot of our organic growth — away from just continuing to be acquisitive — is around how do we bring that trusted advisor local relationship while offering the sort of breadth of national service that we do today," he continued. "Where any given office may have specialization in certain broader matters, having a broader national bench is also super-helpful to bring in tax credit experts, state and local tax M&A, etc., where that can be of benefit to a client and make it in ultimately a very seamless fashion for them."

Platform: Honoring independence

Platform Accounting Group CEO Reyes Florez made the important point that there are multiple ways to boost a firm's bottom line; the trick is doubling down on the specific strategy that you've chosen.

"The market's proven at this point that there's a lot of mechanisms for growth," he said. "It's challenging to do that growth well. And for us, it's really a matter of taking this people-first approach and really leaning into our core identity, which is being a national platform specifically built for boutique firms, which means that we honor that local autonomy, that independent spirit, and that hyper-local way that they show up to their clients and meet them in a bespoke manner."

Alan & James Partners: Improving lives

Dan Applegate

CEO and co-founder Dan Applegate attributes Alan & James Partners' extraordinary growth to acquisitions — and its overarching goal of making things better for everyone it touches, from staff to partners to clients.

"We have an amazing team and the people we work with every day are people who really believe in what they're doing and this business is predicated on that," Applegate said. "That's the main driver. We are acquiring and partnering with great quality accounting firms, so acquisition's part of our strategy. But a big part of it too is just delivering on a purpose of improving the lives of our people, our partners and our clients."

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