By Vincent Howard, CPA | Managing Partner, Howard, Howard and Hodges | Skillability for Accounting Firms Last updated: 2026 | 11-minute read TL;DR — The Short Answer The best onboarding practices for accounting firms are: (1) start before day one with pre-boarding and pre-employment skills testing; (2) replace shadowing with structured, software-specific training inside your
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By Vincent Howard, CPA | Managing Partner, Howard, Howard and Hodges | Skillability for Accounting Firms Last updated: 2026 | 14-minute read TL;DR — The Short Answer A CPA enablement platform is the people layer of an accounting firm’s tech stack — the system that makes your staff actually able to operate everything else. Firms
19 Jun
Accounting Workforce Development Platform for CPA Firms: Why Training Software Isn’t Enough Anymore
By Vincent Howard, CPA | Managing Partner, Howard, Howard and Hodges | SkillAbility for Accounting Firms Last updated: 2026 | 14-minute read The Short Answer (TL;DR) Most CPA firms do not need more “training software.” They need a workforce development system. There is a major difference. Training software gives people content. A workforce development platform
By Vincent Howard, CPA | Managing Partner, Howard, Howard and Hodges | Skillability for Accounting Firms Last updated: 2026 | 14-minute read The Short Answer (TL;DR) Advanced tax planning seminars are worth attending — for the right reason, which is rarely the reason firms send people. A good seminar (Thomson Reuters TaxWatch University, AICPA conferences,
By Vincent Howard, CPA | Managing Partner, Howard, Howard and Hodges | Skillability for Accounting Firms Last updated: 2026 | 15-minute read The Short Answer (TL;DR) For a century, accountants learned the profession by doing the grunt work — reconciliations, transaction coding, trial balances — and developing judgment through thousands of hours of hands-on repetition.
12 Jun
How to Reduce Staff Turnover at Your CPA Firm: Why It’s a Training Problem, Not a Salary Problem
By Vincent Howard, CPA | Managing Partner, Howard, Howard and Hodges | Skillability for Accounting Firms Last updated: 2026 | 13-minute read TL;DR — The Short Answer Public accounting firms lose 15% to 22% of their staff annually, and first-year accountants leave at rates of 25% to 35% — the highest of any tenure group.
By Vincent Howard, CPA | Managing Partner, Howard, Howard and Hodges | Skillability for Accounting Firms Last updated: 2026 | 14-minute read TL;DR — The Short Answer The shadowing method — sitting a new hire next to a senior CPA to “learn by watching” — costs accounting firms approximately $9,500 per hire in lost billable
By Vincent Howard, CPA | Managing Partner, Howard, Howard and Hodges | Skillability for Accounting Firms Last updated: 2026 | 16-minute read The Short Answer (TL;DR) Accounting is not a dying profession. It is a splitting one. Three forces are colliding at once — a collapsing talent pipeline (300,000+ accountants left the profession between 2019
09 Jun
How to Turn Order-Taking Tax Staff into High-Ticket Advisory Engines (Without the Recruiting Tax)
By Vincent Howard, CPA | Managing Partner, Howard, Howard and Hodges | Skillability for Accounting Firms Most accounting firm owners are trapped in an expensive, defensive talent game. We look at our existing team and see compliance processors who require constant oversight. Then, when we want to expand our firm’s capacity to deliver lucrative advisory
By Vincent Howard, CPA | Managing Partner, Howard, Howard and Hodges | Skillability for Accounting Firms Last updated: 2026 | 13-minute read The Short Answer (TL;DR) General HR research says a new employee takes 6 to 12 months to reach full productivity — Gallup puts it at around 12 months, other studies at 8 months
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