The 2026 Best Firms for Technology

Published May 1, 2026 9:30 AM

Updated May 1, 2026 10:02 AM

1 Min Read

With technology becoming more and more central to how accountants accomplish their work, Accounting Today every year selects a group of accounting firms that are leveraging the ever-increasing flood of tools and solutions to the greatest effect.

This year’s cohort of Best Firms for Technology are not manic early adopters buying into tech for tech’s sake but, rather, they take holistic approaches that ask seriously how an investment will improve internal processes and client engagements. They stand as examples of not just creating a tech-forward firm, but doing so in a measured way with an eye towards what new technologies mean on a pragmatic level.

They're also open to building their own tools — one has created its own tech stack from scratch, while another built an industry-leading solution based on its own internal expertise — while also taking a strong approach to governance and data protection, particularly when it comes to artificial intelligence.

See our profiles of this year's Best Firms for Technology below, and read more about what sets them apart from their peers here.

Aprio

HQ: Atlanta
Employees: 2,892
Offices: 42
Annual hours of tech training per employee: 20

One hallmark of many of this year's Best Firms for Tech is an ability to mitigate the astonishing complexity of technology with simple, practical approaches.

At Top 100 Firm Aprio, that means clarity. "Our vision is clear: Eliminate manual work where possible, remove barriers between the business and the insights they need, and create a seamless, intelligent experience for everyone we serve and employ," explained chief digital officer Brent McDaniel.

That simple vision, of course, involves multiple elements, from building a central data platform to create a single source of truth, unlock advisory insights and help maintain data integrity and privacy, to using AI and automation to free up staff for higher-value work, to streamlining client interactions with smart platforms and redesigned processes.

The firm supports its vision with tools and platforms that enable productive collaboration no matter where a client or staffer may be located, and a learning strategy that includes ongoing training and digital learning tools to give staff the skills they need in the fast-changing landscape of technology. It also puts a strong focus on guardrails, particularly when it comes to AI. "Our firm's approach to AI governance focuses on security, ethical use, and accountability," said McDaniel. "We thoroughly review all AI tools to ensure they protect client data, and we do not use any AI that compromises data security. We ensure our internal data does not train larger AI models, keeping client information safe."

Any technology strategy will, inevitably, contain many elements of complexity, which makes it all the more important for firms to view technology through the right lens. "Our biggest technology challenge is prioritization — striking the right balance between innovation, integration and operational excellence in a dynamic environment," said McDaniel, and that requires an approach that rises above the specifics of any particular software solution or tech stack. "It's not just about adopting new tools — it's about ensuring they are aligned with firmwide goals and deliver consistent value across all service lines."

In the end, McDaniel's description of Aprio's tech journey could be applied to all of this year's Best Firms: "By taking a thoughtful, business-aligned approach to technology, we are turning complexity into opportunity."

CLA

HQ: NA (no single HQ)
Employees: 8,000
Offices: 120
No. of software applications used: 750

Firms as big as CliftonLarsonAllen are rarely slouches when it comes to technology. And so, for such firms, the bar tends to be a little higher since expectations are already so great. And yet this year, the Top 25 Firm — even considering its context as a massive firm — still managed to exceed them.

There were many small details that stood out for us, from the fact that their technology lead has a seat on the executive committee, to the extremely wide range of technology services they offer, plus the sheer number of software applications they use in day-to-day practice.

But more than any of that, what stood out for us is their citizen developer program, a bottom-up approach to software development that contrasts greatly with the top-down approach of many peer firms. The program empowers professionals across the firm to design and build AI-enabled tools and process improvements, reflecting the firm's belief that the people closest to the work and the client are best positioned to identify opportunities for innovation.

"Through this program, CLA professionals use governed, secure platforms to create AI-driven assistants and workflow enhancements that reduce manual effort, surface insights, and improve client service. These internally built tools are not experimental side projects; they are actively used at scale and embedded into daily work," said chief solutions officer James Watson, adding that, "In 2024 alone, CLA-built AI tools developed by citizen developers were used tens of thousands of times across the firm, demonstrating both adoption and real-world impact."

This is not some concession that the frontline staff may occasionally have good ideas; it is a foundational part of the firm's technology strategy, and it demonstrates that even a large firm can still act with agility when it trusts its people.

Crete Professionals Alliance

HQ: Tampa, Florida
Employees: 2,000
Offices: 67
Avg. time to patch vulnerabilities: 48 hours

Imagine the difficulties of creating and implementing a top-notch tech stack and technology strategy for a single firm — then imagine trying to do it for more than 40 firms all at once. That's the challenge facing Crete, a private-equity-backed platform that acquires accounting firms but then gives them a fair amount of leeway in how they operate.

"Our strategy is consultative, not prescriptive," said chief technology officer Tucker Haas. Crete does set some baseline requirements around security, compliance and core platforms, and it maintains a regularly updated preferred tech stack, but mostly it leads its member firms by example: "We sell in, rather than mandate. We show firms the ROI we are seeing from other implementations and let the results speak."

Part of all this is a recognition that adopting new technology is not everyone's favorite thing to do. "We do not roll out new systems to 20 firms at once," Haas explained. "We pick one or two firms to pilot, build a strong case study with real ROI data, and then use that to sell into the next wave. This is by design. Accounting firms can be resistant to change, and resistance rarely shows up as outright refusal. It shows up as constant deferral: 'Let's wait until after tax season,' then 'Staff is on holiday,' then 'We're in the middle of busy season again.' The only way to break through that cycle is with proof."

This holds true for the tools that Crete builds for itself — like its TaxAI, a proprietary platform that reimagines tax preparation to leverage the unique capabilities of AI to categorize documents, extract data, build workpapers, and, ultimately, generate a draft return. It has reduced time spent on tax prep by 70% and review time by 30% to 40% across roughly 10% of Crete's portfolio of member firms.

With ROI like that, it's hard to imagine the other member firms not snapping up TaxAI — but Crete is more interested in making sure that they have the tools and training and guidance to use it successfully than in just getting them on board fast.

"The key principle is that we optimize for sustained adoption, not speed of deployment," said Haas. "A system that gets implemented but not used is worse than no system at all."

JMT Consulting

HQ: Mount Juliet, Tennessee
Employees: 64
Offices: 1
% of revenue from tech-based services: 43%

Technology is never the point; the point is what the technology can do for you — or, in the case of JMT Consulting, the point is what it can do for its clients in the not-for-profit world, to whom it provides software implementation and technology services, as well as a range of outsourced accounting and financial services.

"We approach technology with a focus on helping nonprofit organizations build strong, sustainable financial systems that support their mission," said the Tennessee-based firm's director of finance, Samantha Tiso. "That starts with aligning technology to how an organization actually operates, including its structure, reporting needs, and long-term goals, rather than applying one-size-fits-all solutions."

In the end, "The goal isn't just to implement new tools, but to ensure they are used in a way that supports stronger decision-making and long-term stability."

Specifically, that means making sure systems work well together to provide consistent, accurate data and meaningful reporting, with a strong focus on security and reliability, and on moving their clients to the cloud.

It also means taking a rigorous approach to vetting and using tech tools internally, starting with careful evaluation of potential solutions followed by carefully controlled pilots, and then broader rollouts supported by best practice guidance, clear documentation, and defined support channels.

More broadly, Tiso said, "We maintain internal policies that guide the responsible use of technology, with a focus on oversight, accountability and alignment with established workflows. We also work with an external IT partner to regularly review our technology environment and ensure it remains secure and aligned with best practices."

The Millennial CPA

HQ: Richmond, Virginia
Employees: 0
Offices: 1
% of budget for tech: 70%

Artificial intelligence allows firms to do more with less, but the Millennial CPA takes it to a whole new level. It is a sole proprietorship: One man, Sam Leon, runs it all, and AI has been key. The Millennial CPA is a tax firm first and foremost, and AI does most of the work while he, the human, does the review to make sure the model got it right. While this is a relatively new kind of tax workflow, he believes it will become more common as time goes on.

"I see AI as coming together to be a total tax preparer and whoever signs returns is the reviewer," he said, adding that it can even create its own workpapers once the human feeds it structured inputs.

It has been especially helpful with tax return review. By including redacted tax information and asking for year-over-year comparisons, Leon said, work that takes a human hours can be completed in a few minutes. Additionally, creating detailed tax workpapers from Quickbooks-exported financial statements in a highly interactive Excel export, which would have taken a human three to five hours, takes AI five minutes. Of course, Leon always has the final say, and everything the AI produces is reviewed by him. The bot is better thought of as a junior preparer, he suggested, while he would be more like the senior team member.

And for now, this is how he expects things to remain.

"Essentially, the strategy is I won't hire until I hit a wall with my AI preparers and AI workflow managers and what they do for me," he said.

MJD Advisors

HQ: Urbandale, Iowa
Employees: 7
Offices: 0 (fully remote)
% of revenues from tech-based services: 100%

Most firms spend thousands upon thousands of dollars on software, whether it's buying new solutions or maintaining existing ones. And then there's Illinois-based MJD Advisors, which manages to spend very little — compared to other firms on this list, its technology budget is actually quite small.

But this is not due to lack of commitment or interest in technology. Far from it, in fact. The reason MJD is able to save so much on software is that their CEO, Mike DeKock, has personally designed and developed the firm's entire internal tech stack, a portfolio that includes two desktop applications, as well as a suite developed in Retool, an AI coding platform. Right now the solutions are only used by staff, but they have active plans to make certain features available to clients in the future to support their engagements.

The fact that their entire internal tech stack is home grown also means that they can take a more deliberate approach to change management, as rather than waiting for major updates from third-party developers, they can make small, incremental improvements continuously, which is far less disruptive. It also allows them to build their own custom integrations with third-party applications, which in turn has allowed them to boast a 100% fully integrated tech stack where no part of the system is siloed away. Such integration has enabled the firm to automate the vast majority of their workflows.

All of this is the product of a deliberate strategy that centered the entire firm around technology from the very beginning. "We don't think about technology as something we've added to the firm," said DeKock. "We built the firm around it from day one. We're digitally founded."

Sensiba

HQ: San Ramon, California
Employees: 430
Offices: 7
% of budget for tech: 29.2%

One common characteristic of the Best Firms for Tech is that they don't get carried away about technology; they approach it practically, systematically, and with a keen eye to return on investment.

California-based Top 100 Firm Sensiba is a perfect example: "Our technology strategy is intentionally pragmatic and human‑centered," explained chief growth officer Nick Lew Ton. "We focus on steady, compounding improvements rather than disruptive change for its own sake, ensuring technology investments deliver real value to both clients and professionals."

The firm starts by unifying the tools, data and platforms its staff already use to create a cohesive, seamless environment, then AI and automation to improve speed, consistency and insight — all without major disruptions to how its people work.

It measures the success of its technology at a granular level, looking at key performance indicators like the percent reduction in time spent on manual tasks (as tracked by time studies and workflow logs), percent increase in projects completed on time and under budget, and reduction in average delivery time per engagement, as well as percent uptake of key tools across teams and roles, reduction in client revisions, delays and complaints, and revenue per FTE uplift, and a number of others. What's more, Sensiba revisits its technology strategy every six weeks to make sure it's still on track.

But while the firm is practical in its approach to technology, it is not blind to its potential. "New, technology‑enabled ways of working are changing client expectations, compressing traditional workflows, and putting pressure on time‑based service models," said Lew Ton. "While this disruption introduces risk, it also creates opportunity. Advances in AI and automation have lowered the barriers to building tailored, high‑impact solutions. Capabilities that once required large teams and long development cycles can now be developed by smaller, focused groups with deep domain expertise."

Sikich

HQ: Chicago
Employees: 1,846
Offices: 18
% of workflows automated: More than 75%

If you're looking for a firm continually on the bleeding edge, always using untested new technologies and throwing all caution to the wind as they move fast and break things, then Top 50 Firm Sikich probably is not for you. The firm makes it a point to reject spectacle and focus on practicalities as part of a structured, deliberate approach to technology.

"At Sikich, our technology strategy is built on a simple principle: Stay at the cutting edge, not the bleeding edge. We embrace innovation deliberately, adopting proven technologies that deliver real value without the instability that comes from chasing the newest trend for its own sake," said chief information officer Scott Sanders.

But note the edge: not bleeding, but cutting. They're still a Best Firm for Technology, after all. They were selected because they demonstrate that choosing the pragmatic, measured approach can pay off in ways that a faster, more heedless approach could never do.

It has allowed them to automate the vast majority of their workflows. It has let them develop their own custom software, offer it to clients, and sell it on the open market. It enables an extremely wide range of technology-based services, which account for over a third of their entire annual revenue. And it has led to them making significant investments in their cybersecurity to the point where it has become a competitive differentiator for clients.

They innovate, certainly. A firm that offers the solutions and services it does has to if it wants to stay in business. But they always do so in a structured and deliberate way. We see this in their approach to AI, which emphasizes strong governance and oversight. Control is built directly into workflows and inculcated in the mandatory, and ongoing, AI training. At the core of their oversight philosophy is that, firmwide, AI output is always a starting point, never an end point. Human review is always required.

"No AI-generated content, analysis or recommendation is acted upon without a qualified person verifying its accuracy, relevance and appropriateness. This applies universally — there are no exceptions based on task type or perceived risk level," said Sanders.

Synexus Tax Solutions

HQ: Atlanta
Employees: 67
Offices: 4
% of budget for tech: 45%

You don't have to build your own software to be a Best Firm for Technology, but sometimes you have to build it just to be able to serve your clients properly — and that was the case with Georgia-based Synexus Tax Solutions.

"Early in our growth, we recognized that many commercially available tax engines and compliance tools were not designed to address the nuanced requirements of certain state and local tax types," said chief marketing officer Brielle Ferrante. "Rather than compromise, we made a deliberate decision to build our own proprietary compliance and calculation platform — SynTax.

With the deep knowledge of their team of tax professionals to draw on, the firm engineered a tax compliance and filing tech stack entirely in house within 30 months. The result gives clients real-time visibility into their tax spend, auditable data flows, configurable workflows, and secure, scalable financial processing. It also lets them make inquiries, request changes, and adapt configurations directly within the application.

All of that might seem like a lot for a tax firm to take on in less than three years, but Synexus has been tech-focused from the very start.

"Technology has been a core pillar of our practice since inception, shaping both how we operate and how we deliver value to clients," Ferrante said. "As a state and local tax consulting and compliance firm, we view technology not as a support function but as a strategic driver of accuracy, efficiency and innovation."

Going forward, Synexus plans to expand SynTax into a marketplace-ready solution to support businesses with compliance with U.S. sales and use tax rules, Canadian indirect tax requirements, and ultimately global VAT compliance.

"This evolution reflects our broader philosophy: Technology should not only support compliance, but elevate it — empowering businesses with greater transparency, control and scalability," Ferrante explained.

YHB

HQ: Winchester, Virginia
Employees: 300
Offices: 9
Avg. time to patch vulnerabilities: 1-3 days

While many organizations are using AI to make their processes faster and more efficient, experience has found that this isn't the way to get the most out of the technology. The ones that really get return on their AI investments are those that use it not to improve their processes but to transform them and, through that, the business itself. Virginia-based YHB is one such example.

The Top 100 Firm has applied the technology throughout its structure: in practice management and administrative support, in communications and writing tasks, in insights and advisory and, of course, in technical workflows like tax prep or audit testing. And in all of these areas, AI has served to remodel their entire workflow.

Chief strategy officer Jeremy Shen noted that, in the past, there was always a lot of prep work with knowledge-based tasks before any actual work could even begin. Today, AI has collapsed that front-end effort and turned what used to be fragmented, manual processes into more structured workflows guided by AI. By taking care of things like generating first drafts, summarizing discussions, surfacing action items, and organizing information, staff workflows are now centered more around refining, deciding and advising.

"That distinction matters," said Shen. "We are not simply layering AI on top of the old way of working. In several cases, AI has changed the sequence of work itself. Instead of professionals starting with collection and assembly, they now start with review, judgment and improvement. That is a meaningful shift in how work gets done."

With these new workflows have also come new questions about the soundness of old billing models. As automation and AI reduce the amount of time needed for a task, the billable hour makes less and less sense. Consequently, the firm has been expanding its use of fixed-fee and value-based pricing, especially in areas where outcomes can be clearly defined. They've also started incorporating technology more explicitly into their pricing in recognition of the fact that the platforms, automation and tools they provide are part of the value their clients receive.

While a lot of firms talk about AI transforming their organization, at YHB it is already happening.

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