professional services operations

Accounting enrollment rose 8.9 percent to 205,180, a third straight increase. Graduates fell 6.6 percent and new CPA exam candidates dropped from 42,626 to 28,082 over the same stretch.

Total revenue growth at the top 100 accounting firms rose from 10.4 to 12.8 percent. Organic growth fell from 7.8 to 7.0. The entire acceleration was bought, and the benchmark moved with it.

Services business activity jumped to 59.1 in July while the services employment index fell to 47.4. Demand keeps expanding and the payroll that delivers it keeps contracting.

Billable utilization fell to 66.4% in 2025, a 19-year low, in a year revenue and margins recovered. The gap between high performers and the rest is not software ownership. It is system integration.

Back-office cost in professional services scales with client count by design. Here is why hiring makes it permanent, and how operated back-office and AR automation break the link between growth and overhead.

Your people are faster with AI and your margins have not moved. The return on AI lands at the process level, not the person, and most firms only changed the person. Here is the gap, and how to close it.