Local CPA firms boost staff amid heightened demand

It’s been a sustained period of growth for revenue and employee count at Abacus CPAs LLC, which marked 25 years in business last year. Hitting a record-high revenue of $17.8 million in 2023, the Springfield-based company was announced last month by Accounting Today as the No. 16 fastest-growing firm in the U.S. It was the first national ranking for Abacus CPAs on the list, which is published annually. The only Missouri certified public accounting firm recognized on the list, the company also was named a top regional leader in the Midwest, as it achieved the highest growth percentage among regional firms at roughly 30% last year.

Bill Dunton, Abacus CPAs’ managing partner, said the company has been steadily adding staff to the growing firm, which has five offices in Missouri and Arkansas. The firm has 166 employees with 18 CPAs and two partners. Of that staff total, 144 are local employees, a nearly 40% jump from 2023, according to Springfield Business Journal list research.

For Dunton, the firm’s growth has been well planned, and hiring takes place frequently as the business seeks to build its clientele for accounting, tax preparation, wealth management and consulting services. Abacus CPAs has continued to grow at a rate of 20% for the past five years, according to officials.

“We’ve got a recruitment strategy that we’re following, and we’ve got a marketing strategy that we’re following,” Dunton said, noting the firm currently has enough work with accounting and auditing to resist expanding its service menu. “It doesn’t happen by accident. We plan it out. We plan for 20% new business growth every year. Now you’re going to lose some clients, people are going to die, businesses will merge, people will move out of the area. So, we’ll lose 5%, but we’ll have a net 15% growth.”

In demand
Increasing its staff size also is a priority at Springfield-based FORVIS LLP, which officials say has 575 local employees among over 6,000 companywide. Revenue at FORVIS, which spans over 70 markets in 28 states, as well as the United Kingdom, Canada and the Cayman Islands, was $1.7 billion for fiscal 2023. The local employee count is up about 10% from last year, according to past SBJ reporting.

FORVIS ranked No. 1 on SBJ’s list of the area’s largest CPA firms, followed by KPM CPAs & Advisors and Elliott, Robinson & Co. LLP. Abacus CPAs finished fourth on the list.

Gary Schafer, managing partner at the Springfield office of FORVIS, said it is looking this summer to add several hundred new hires companywide through college campus recruiting.

“We tend to start people twice a year, once in the summer and then once in the spring,” Schafer said, noting the firmwide headcount was up about 9% in its prior fiscal year. “We’ve got a big summer class, starting about 500 across the firm. It’s going to be probably a record for us at one time.”

Additionally, the firm’s partnership with Paris-based international audit, tax and advisory firm Mazars Group will begin on June 1. The new global accounting network will be called Forvis Mazars with officials noting a combined revenue of $4.7 billion. FORVIS will acquire Mazars USA LLP, an independent accounting, tax and advisory firm of Mazars Group, as part of the deal, which will add roughly 1,000 employees to the company.

The additions that firms such as FORVIS and Abacus CPAs are making come at a period when a shortage of talent exists, industry officials say. More than 300,000 U.S. accountants and auditors left their jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic, a 17% decline in overall industry employment, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“There are more CPAs that are retiring and leaving the profession than are coming in as new accounting graduates that want to work in public accounting,” Schafer said. “Because of that, firms are really focused on finding the right talent, and the firms that do that successfully are going to be the ones that are successful over the long term.

“That’s one thing that’s made us successful for 100 years because we are focused on two things, which is one, providing great service to our clients, but then two, building remarkable careers. It’s a big part of our business model.”

Dunton said Abacus CPAs is constantly looking for new employees and keeping its talent pipeline flowing.

“We look mainly through the college recruitment. We’re at all the college recruiting fairs, and then also we hire several interns – 20-plus interns per busy season,” he said, estimating the firm currently has 26 interns. “From that, we’ll pick and choose the ones that we want to come on full-time staff.”

The firm has continuing professional education with an on-staff coordinator to help staff development, Dunton said.

“Our goal is to accelerate their career because with our growth, we need as many people to have as much experience as we can,” he said.

The median annual wage for accountants and auditors was $78,000 in May 2022, the most recent BLS data available.

Employment of accountants and auditors is projected to grow 4% from 2022 to 2032, with an average of about 126,500 openings for accountants and auditors projected each year over the decade.

Safe path
Kim Church, director of Missouri State University’s School of Accountancy, said its current enrollment of 415 students is up 11% from 2021. That was when the university, like all schools, was emerging from the aftereffects of the pandemic, Church said, adding she was hired at MSU in 2020. The school offers bachelor’s and master’s degrees in accounting, as well as graduate certificates. The certificates in accounting analytics, forensic accounting, management accounting and tax accounting allow students to specialize within the master’s degree.

She said the demand for accounting students is “huge.”

“We have 98% placement rates, and the 2% are people who are choosing not to enter the profession, not because there weren’t jobs,” she said, noting that small percentage may be entrepreneurs looking to open their own business. “I’ve been in education for 25 years now; I’ve never seen a hiring model like we’ve seen the last five years. Internships used to be highly coveted. There would only be a couple for each university. They are now giving job offers to freshmen and sophomores before they’ve even had an accounting class.”

Church knows this from personal experience. Her son, Tanner, is a sophomore at MSU and working at FORVIS.

“He feels like he’s learned a lot on the job, and it’s going to make him better in the classroom,” she said.

Some of the growth in MSU’s accounting school enrollment is attributable to what Church refers to as “second career people.”

“We’ve seen a lot of teachers and health care professionals returning to school because COVID radically changed their jobs, and they don’t recognize their professions anymore. They know accounting is safe, and they all want to come back to school and be a CPA,” she said, adding the career path is generally considered recession proof.

Schafer said FORVIS is actively involved with all accounting programs in Springfield, which includes MSU, Drury University, Evangel University, as well as Missouri Southern State University in Joplin and College of the Ozarks in Point Lookout.

“We do that by just being present and being available,” he said. “We speak in classes and things like that, and we’re not just saying, ‘Hey, come work at FORVIS.’ We’re really helping people understand this is what types of things you can do in accounting. Because of that, we don’t really have to hold a job fair per se, because we are trying to get in front of students early in their career as they’re learning about accounting.”

Abacus CPAs typically provides students job offers while they are still in college, Dunton said, adding it’s not unusual to have sophomores and juniors in its intern program. The addition of new staff is almost certain to extend into 2025, and likely beyond, he said.

“We’ll probably hire 25 people over the course of the next year,” he said, adding the firm also has several employees in the pipeline to become future partners. “We are always looking for great people because with the growth, we’ve got plenty of work to fill the spots.”