Issue No. 1  ·  June 23, 2026
Coverage Audit & Assurance Tax M&A Digital Assets Forensic

Research · Lead

The Ledgerism State CPA Licensure Tracker: 150-Hour Status, Alternative Pathways, and Mobility for All 55 Jurisdictions

CPA licensure requirements by state are changing faster than at any point in 25 years, and this is a living tracker of where every jurisdiction stands. It covers all 55 NASBA jurisdictions (50 states plus the District of Columbia, Guam,…

By chrisomo · Jun 23, 2026

$3.7TUS accounting industry est. 2026
658KActive CPAs in the US
42PE recapitalizations of CPA firms 2021–2026
23%Big 4 PCAOB inspection deficiency rate FY2024

From the newsroom

Latest reporting

The Seven Desks

Coverage by lane.

News

FASB pronouncements, IRS revenue rulings, PCAOB enforcement, and M&A deal flow that moves the accounting profession.

Learn

Long-form guides on QoE, EBITDA adjustments, SOC 2, and the standards every controller is supposed to know.

Playbook

Operating playbooks: starting a CPA firm, building a tax practice, scaling an audit shop, surviving busy season.

Software

Practice management, audit automation, crypto accounting platforms. Real comparisons, no affiliate spam.

CPAs

Rankings of CPA firms by city and specialty, with named partners, license verification, and M&A experience.

Regulatory

State board of accountancy actions, AICPA SSAEs, PCAOB AS releases, SEC enforcement against accounting firms.

Research

Original data: PE roll-up tracker, audit-firm rotation index, crypto-CPA market sizing, salary surveys.

Software Shootout

Karbon vs Canopy vs TaxDome vs Jetpack.

The four practice management platforms most CPA firms shortlist in 2026. We ran 30-day trials on real client engagements: workflow fit, mobile reliability, e-sign integration, billing accuracy, and the hidden-cost line items that surface at year two. Pricing ranges from $39 to $129 per user per month.

Read the comparison →

2026 Comparison

What we score on

  • Workflow fit for real practice
  • Mobile reliability in the field
  • E-sign + document management depth
  • Recurring billing accuracy
  • Vendor support and renewal escalator

Original Research

Data we calculated. Methodology disclosed. Citable.

We publish original datasets on the accounting profession because the trade press reuses the same numbers from the same sources for years at a time. The PE Roll-Up Tracker catalogues every recapitalization of a CPA firm since 2021 with deal terms. The Audit Firm Rotation Index covers 1,140 SEC registrant auditor changes. The Crypto CPA Market Sizing report estimates $2.4 billion in 2026 fees across 380 firms. Methodology is disclosed on every dataset. Anyone can cite us with attribution.

42

CPA firm PE recapitalizations tracked since 2021

1,140

SEC registrant auditor changes catalogued since 2020

$2.4B

Estimated 2026 crypto CPA market size (380 firms)

See the Research desk →

From the archive

“The STR may be regarded as a combination of a ledger with some encryption and communication scripts. Or you might regard it as a ledger with an http or email daemon bolted onto it.”

— Todd Boyle, Shared Transaction Repository, 2003

Restored 2026

Todd Boyle's general ledger papers.

Twenty-seven essays and software specifications on general ledger architecture and distributed accounting, written between 1997 and 2010. Cited by the Nakamoto Institute, Ian Grigg's iang.org, the Apache Confluence wiki, and the Financial Cryptography blog. Restored at their original URLs to preserve the citation chain that runs from double-entry accounting through triple-entry accounting to Bitcoin.

Browse the Boyle archive →