“if you can’t afford fair salaries, it’s time to fix your machine—not squeeze your people.”
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the disruptors
with liz farr
like many accountants, dominic piscopo, the founder of big4transparency.com, was frustrated by the lack of transparency in salary data. “i’d found it really, really frustrating trying to get good quality data on what to expect, looking ahead for my salary,” piscopo explains. before creating the platform, piscopo discovered his firm offered the lowest starting salaries in his city. by gathering compensation data from peers and presenting it to leadership, he secured “a little bit under a 10% pay bump” for his entire cohort.
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“data is so powerful,” he says. “if you can advocate for yourself and show real objective numbers, then it becomes a real conversation, versus just like, ‘oh, my employee is throwing a fit.’”
what began as a simple spreadsheet shared on reddit “went really, really viral, kind of right away,” confirming a significant need in the accounting community.
“nobody really knew if they were getting paid fairly,” he says. “firms kept that information under wraps, and professionals had no reliable way to benchmark their compensation.” today, big four transparency is “the largest crowd-sourced database of accounting salaries on the market.”
the platform now collects comprehensive data from thousands of accounting professionals, including demographic information, firm details, compensation, job satisfaction scores, and self-reported weekly hours. due to the anonymous nature of submissions, accountants across firms, from entry-level staff to seasoned partners, are willing to share their salary data.
while initially focused on helping individual accountants, big four transparency now partners with firms seeking to offer competitive compensation. “i’m working with a lot of firms directly who want to be competitive in their compensation,” piscopo shares. “every firm that i work with now might be impacting 500, 1000, 10,000 people by helping them stay more current to the market.”
many firms aren’t deliberately underpaying staff—they simply lack accurate market data. “some firms aren’t competitive because they just don’t know that they’re not competitive,” piscopo explains. “the mission here is to just reduce the information asymmetry.”
while big four transparency focuses primarily on compensation, the platform has expanded to track trends in job satisfaction, remote work preferences, and career progression. the data reveals interesting patterns, including a “clear curve of satisfaction throughout one’s career in public accounting.”
“interns are over the moon. they’re so happy to be there,” piscopo observes. job satisfaction typically bottoms out at the senior level before gradually improving. while equity partners have slightly higher job satisfaction than senior managers, they never recapture the high job satisfaction they had as interns. “the question i get from students a lot is, ‘when does this become worth it?’ and my answer often is that you start to turn that corner at manager.”
the accounting industry is at a crossroads, says piscopo. salaries are rising, expectations are shifting, and firms that resist transparency risk losing top talent. “if you don’t pay your people what they’re worth, they’ll find someone who will,” he warns.
“the days of salary secrecy are numbered,” says piscopo. “and it’s about time.”
11 key takeaways
- we still face a taboo about openly discussing compensation, but big four transparency’s anonymous nature allows those conversations to happen.
- compensation is significant at the lower levels of accounting. small $2,500 pay gaps for interns may not seem like a big deal, but they make a big difference for people trying to get a start in life.
- pay differences can be dramatic at higher levels, especially with small firms that try to pay as little as possible. having access to pay information can help you make the right choices.
- firms may need to work on pricing and see where to communicate their value. this may mean finding places to deliver value.
- if your firm can’t pay market rates, you may need to evaluate the machine you’ve built. are there efficiencies, technology, and processes that you’re not applying? short-changing talent can be more expensive over the long run.
- it’s up to firm owners to build a machine that can appropriately compensate team members while generating profit.
- going into a compensation discussion armed with data allows you to advocate for yourself. you can ask for more pay or a plan to bring your performance up to market standards.
- if a firm says they don’t plan to pay competitively, you can decide whether to stay or move on. maybe the hours, the people, and the culture make it worthwhile to stay, or maybe another choice would be better for you and your family.
- job satisfaction is highest for remote employees and lowest for in-office.
- remote firms that do not need specialized talent or business development in specific markets do not need to compete for labor from high-cost markets like new york city, san francisco, seattle, or boston.
- we are products of our environment, so if you don’t have the right people in your environment, listening to accounting and entrepreneurial podcasts can fill part of the gap.
more about dominic piscopo
dominic piscopo is the founder of big 4 transparency, the largest open crowdsourced database of accounting salaries on the market with nearly 20,000 rows of submissions that over 250,000 accounting professionals trust as a source for salary data. in september 2024, big 4 transparency raised a funding round, mostly from firm leaders using the product so that dom could move to working on the business full-time and improve their offering for working with firms to harness the data to help inform their salary decisions and make keeping up with the rapidly evolving compensation landscape easier and more affordable than ever.
transcript
(transcripts are made available as soon as possible. they are not fully edited for grammar or spelling.)
liz farr
welcome to accounting disruptor conversations. i’m your host. liz farr from 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间, and here we’re talking to people, and we’re doing some really interesting things in the accounting profession. my guest today is dominic piscopo, founder of big four transparency and host of the big four transparency podcast. welcome to the show. dominic,
dominic piscopo
thank you so much. liz, i really appreciate it. like we kind of spoke about earlier, we crossed paths a number of times at the conference, at bridging the gap last year, but didn’t get the opportunity to connect. and so, you know, this is, this is dual purpose. i’m honored to be on your podcast, and i’m really enjoying getting to speak with you.
liz farr
well, the feeling is mutual. now, can you tell listeners what is big four transparency?
dominic piscopo
yeah, absolutely. so it’s in its current state, is the largest crowd source database of accounting salaries on the market. and it was actually just kind of started as just, you know, a one off project. i wanted to learn how to use no code tools. i’m a cpa myself. and the first application i could think of was people keep having these little discussions online, you know, salary threads and things like that, discussing compensation on reddit and fishbowl and all of that. and i had found, in my own journey, i’d found it really, really frustrating trying to get good quality data on, you know, what to expect, looking ahead for my salary, particularly. and so that was kind of the first application i thought of that i could, you know, build without too, too much difficulty, and i put it out there on reddit, and it just went really, really viral, kind of right away. and that’s where i realized that this was a real need in the accounting community, and i’ve been building at it ever since for about three and a half years now.
liz farr
oh, perfect. and i can tell from your accent that you must be from canada. so
dominic piscopo
i am, i am. it’s funny because i’m always like, what accent? but i’m sure it’s there, yeah,
liz farr
but it’s just a little bit. it’s the the out.
dominic piscopo
there we go. i was raised french, too, so that may be that’s probably impacting it as well. yeah. oh, fantastic.
liz farr
now, besides salary data, what else are you collecting?
dominic piscopo
yeah, yeah. so a whole lot. and it started off kind of basic demographic information, what city people were in, so just kind of data to help, kind of corner, you know who your cohort is, of data to help, you know, make that more useful, as well as kind of like bonus data, you know what stream of accounting you’re in, what firm you’re at, all of the above. it’s very, very granular. and then as time went by, i actually added a few fields. you know, this gets filled out by 10s of 1000s of people. so i’m very choosy when i add a field, but i started asking questions around office model, you know, to see if in office people were, you know, less satisfied with their work and things like that, than remote workers. i started collecting data on job satisfaction as well as self reported weekly hours worked. and i’m so glad i did, because now we have, you know, this huge repository of those entries that we’re able to do a lot of analysis on, and then, kind of independently from all of that, we also now collect, i guess, you know, candidates. so around nine months ago, when i was starting to take this a lot more seriously, or maybe a year ago, we launched a talent pool as well, because so many people are using big four transparency to figure out if they’re being compensated properly. well, if the answer is no, you might be interested in hearing about some opportunities. and so i really tried to kind of flip the recruiting model on its head, so instead of recruiters always reaching out to you, trying to push you into roles, it was more of a passive thing. so i have some, you know, 300 plus applicants of people who’ve shared exactly what they would be willing to leave their current role for. and we do a little bit of like a matching service based off of those people and some of the firms that we work with from a compensation data perspective. and, you know, we know what those firms are paying, and we know what those individuals kind of, you know, pay expectations are, and so we’re able to make these, like, really, really high intent meetings between people.
liz farr
that’s incredibly useful. and i wish that something like this had been around when i was still in public accounting. so, you know, i probably would have pointed out to the the the partners, hey, i’m being underpaid. but they would have said, hmm, that’s nice,
dominic piscopo
yeah. well, so i actually have a story about that working out. and. i, i always say, like, you know, be careful with this, because not everyone would have the same situation. but when i was working for one of the big four in my city, when i got my full time offer, i was, like, i was it was really a blow. like, i, you know, you get this job. you’re like, i made it, yay. this is awesome. and in canada actually, like, starting salaries and accounting firms are actually quite a bit lower than in the us as well. and i’ve always been like, a really open, social guy, and so i was kind of asking people like, hey, like mine came in really low, how about all of yours? and actually found out that we were the lowest paid firm in the entire city for starting salaries. and i did actually, and this was before big four transparency existed, so it was a lot more legwork for me, but i actually basically canvassed all of the people at my level in the city that i knew, and got what they were making, and i presented it to the partner, and i got my whole cohort. i think it was like a, you know, a little bit under a 10% pay bump, but i was able to get a pay bump for my entire cohort. and so that’s like, that was for sure in the back of my mind when i was building this, where i was like, data is so powerful, and it’s one thing to try and advocate for yourself, but if you can advocate for yourself and show, like, real objective numbers, then it becomes a real conversation, versus just like, oh, my employee is throwing a fit, right if you can show real data, this becomes a real conversation. so, yeah, yeah.
liz farr
so we’ve already talked a little bit about why compensation is important, but what? why would you say that it really is the main thing that you’re collecting? why is it so important
dominic piscopo
well, so there’s a kind of a few elements to that answer. i would say, first of all, i would say compensation is incredibly important because, again, like, we’re not going to work just because, right, like, at the end of the day, you know, it’s great if you can be somewhere purpose driven and all that, but particularly when you’re at the lower levels and you’re just trying to, like, get by, you know, maybe buy your first house, do whatever that might be. like, small differences and this, this is a problem of perception, right? like hr and management and stuff like that. might not think that a $2,500 pay gap for interns is a big difference, but when you’re living that life, that actually matters an incredible amount. and when we talk about more senior levels, the pay differences can be a lot larger. and so for people like, it’s really important that you have access to that data to, like, make the right choices, and then to be able to kind of advocate for yourself as well. if you know some firms, you know some of the smaller firms maybe are just kind of taking the approach of we’re going to pay as little as we can get away with. and a lot of firms aren’t like that. but like for those firms, it’s important that you be able to stand up for yourself and kind of present that. so that’s kind of why i think the compensation part is incredibly important. now, there are other things that are really important too. there’s culture. there’s all these things not super easy to capture in a spreadsheet. so, right? so this is like a really like quantitative thing, and i’ve dabbled into the qualitative stuff with, like, job satisfaction and things like that, but this is like the one thing, like hard numbers, and people can use it to help themselves. and it’s also just like, it’s a really useful thing, and everyone’s curious about salaries. and unfortunately, there’s still a little bit of a taboo where sometimes it’s hard to get open discussions going about it. and so the kind of anonymous nature of big four transparency allows those conversations to happen.
liz farr
i like that because, you know, and i understand why you focus on compensation, because that is something that you can actually nail down. but and culture is also important. but some thing a culture that one person might like is something that another person would really hate. so exactly,
dominic piscopo
that’s true as well. very subjective, yeah,
liz farr
yeah. and sometimes the culture might not be great, but the team you’re working with can be the glue that keeps you there. now, how does big four transparency help accountants? you know, besides helping them to get a more objective view of their compensation?
dominic piscopo
yeah, i’m, you know, one of the big ones is kind of alluding to that story i kind of just shared, where, if you think you are underpaid, you know, going into a compensation discussion. like, i feel like this is not good, is not going to be a conversation that’s going to go well for you. whereas, again, if you can go in with real data and advocate for yourself and say, like, you know, here’s where the market’s at, i don’t think i’m a below market performer, we need to address this, what’s going on, and if you tell me i’m a below market performer, that’s maybe something we can work on. but otherwise, like, what’s going on here, right? and if the answer is simply, we just aren’t going to pay competitively, well, then at least that person now has answers, and they can then decide, like, do i want to stay here? because the hours and the culture and the people are so great, maybe, or do i need to move on to do what’s right for myself and my family, right? and so that’s kind of the biggest way that i see it actually, like actively helping people. there’s a lot more kind of, like scalable ways that we’re trying to get involved, right? so now i’m working with a lot of firms directly who want to be competitive in terms of their compensation. and so every firm that i work with now might be impacting, you know, 500 1000 10,000 people by helping them kind of stay more current to the market. because again, in my case, when i told that partner that i was, like, aware that we were the lowest paid in the entire city. they had no idea. and, like, i was like, if this big four firm doesn’t know, and the result is like, oh my god, and they’re scrambling and trying to figure it out. like, what chance does a smaller firm have, right? like, they don’t have those resources. and so oftentimes, like providing the data as well. like, the mission here is to just reduce the information asymmetry, right? so if everyone knows what’s going on a you can have really good discussions and be like, some firms aren’t competitive because they just don’t know that they’re not competitive, right? so, yeah, well,
liz farr
that’s, that’s cool, and i and i really like that you’re starting to work with firms to try and get their get them at least knowledgeable about compensation. so, and
dominic piscopo
i mean, i’m not gonna lie and say that that’s just like for furthering the mission. like, at the end of the day, this also has to be sustainable as a business. and so i feel very, very strongly that i want this to remain a free resource for accounting professionals to use, right? and so when i was kind of exploring options, and like, people who were interested in funding this, you know, some people were like, oh, you can gate access, and, you know, you’d make a ton of money that way. and i was always like, i can’t do that. that’s not like to me. there was like a social contract between me and everyone who’s shared on this website that, like, i kind of owe it back to them that this needs to be like a community tool available. and so if it’s like, well, how can i make money on this now, it then becomes okay, i’ve maintained the standard of the data that individuals have access to. and then on the flip side, how can i monetize this is you have to build out a suite of products, analytics, everything around that that is so good that firms are going to want to pay for it, even if maybe you know, they can open and view the spreadsheet for free instead, it’s like, well, i can actually just get you your numbers every quarter, updated quarterly in 10 minutes or whatever, right? and so that’s kind of been like the social contract between me and and the users of big four transparency where it’s like, okay, well ultimately you’re going to monetize on the firm side. but again, you have to justify that by building out something that’s so good that it makes sense for them to pay for. so yeah, that
liz farr
makes sense because, you know, like you said, the data is there, but the partners at the firms don’t really have the resources, they probably don’t have the bandwidth to go in and create the report for themselves that would tell them, okay, among firms my size in this region of the country, this is what i should be paying, or these are the ranges, yeah, yeah, if they can, if they can pay somebody to do that, i think that’s brilliant, that you’re doing that. and yeah, and so you’re, you’re competing with, like the robert half and companies like that,
dominic piscopo
yeah, kind of, i don’t want to go off on robert half, if you’re a firm using the salary guide, don’t there’s, there’s other resources that i would say, you know, i would say, like, i’m competing, maybe more so with, like the mercers and like aons and, you know, various and competing, you know, offering something very. very different. but like, those are at least, like good resources. and you know, mine has its own benefits, theirs have their benefits, but those are good resources. so like, yeah, the mercer reports, the aon reports, some firm alliances do, kind of like comp surveys and stuff like that. so kind of competing against that, and then, to agree, a degree, also just competing against ignorance, right? like, so i have to explain to some people, like, why this actually matters, and why you shouldn’t just be taking shots in the dark with someone’s livelihood and then and then try to kind of get them on board that way. so yeah, yeah,
liz farr
yeah, yeah, no, i agree. i remember when i first started in public accounting, i knew what the other people who were getting job offers were getting, who were graduating with me, and so when i brought that up at an interview, they just said, oh, i can’t pay that. um, but i ended up taking the job. but fortunately, part way through the year, the partner gave me a bump up in salary, so i got up to that level. nice, good. oh, that was good. and now one thing that you mentioned in another podcast is that there’s a connection between pricing and compensation. so could you talk about that? i think this is really cool.
dominic piscopo
yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah. so pricing to the ultimate client and compensation like they can be totally disconnected, right? otherwise, you know, a if you’re increasing pricing super steadily, first of all, good job, because so many accountants are really bad at that, but not increasing to any degree or not keeping up with the market of labor costs. well, then at that point, you’re kind of sort of exploiting and just kind of trying to see how much can i get away with. and that might work for a little while, but like, ultimately, that’s going to kind of come back and bite you. you know, you’re going to start running into retention issues, and then any of the cost savings that you may be made at that point are probably going to be poured into recruiter fees and, like retraining and all that. so it’s just not a sustainable way of operating your business, ultimately, and then vice versa, right? if you’re looking at, you know, the market rate of salaries, and it’s, it’s moved a lot since i started big four transparency, i would say, thank goodness, because i think it’s it’s stagnated for like, a decade prior pretty much, but then it’s finally began to move, and now it’s moving a lot. and so if you’re looking at these and you’re saying, hey, i can’t afford this, well that should be a signal to you as well, where it says, well, the market can afford this and you can’t so maybe it’s time to take a look at like the machine that you have built and how that machine is functioning. because if you cannot afford the price that people are willing to pay at market rates for inputs, well then something’s going wrong in that process. right? because other people are and they’re still probably operating at their 20 to 30 ish percent margin. so you got to kind of look at your processes, tech enablement, you know, kind of that whole streamline and figure out what might be broken at the end of the day. and that goes all the way to the end of pricing. and so, right, like, if you’re not able to make that connection there where your talent costs are too high and cannot be supported by the business. well, again, there’s that whole chain of like, are your employees happy and productive? are they equipped with the tools that they need to be working effectively, right? are they able to leverage their time spend time on higher value items, and maybe you have a lower paid employee who’s still paid appropriately for what their qualifications are. so that might look like shifting administrative duties away from a partner to an executive assistant and things like that, right? are your employees being empowered to leverage their time appropriately. are you up to date on technology, so you’re not wasting all kinds of time there? and then, if all those things are good, well, then you got to look at pricing. because i again, like, it’s a hard conversation to have, and a lot of places aren’t, you know, aren’t on top of their pricing increases. and it gets complicated in the real world, like, i’ve seen it, i’ve had these conversations of, like, you know, reporting to a partner, saying, hey, this like, this budget makes no sense. and it’s like, oh, you know, that’s a widow, like, she lost her husband. you know, we’re like, we can’t do that this year. and i understand that. but it’s like, at a certain point. you need to start looking at those things, and it’s like, well, maybe next year, you need to have a hard conversation with that person. and if that’s every file, and every file has some reason, well then again, at some point, like that’s something going wrong. and ultimately, i think, as the business operator, it’s up to you to build a machine that can appropriately compensate individuals and still be profitable for you at the other end. and you need to kind of take a look at all of those processes and pricing. so, yeah,
liz farr
yeah, yeah, you know. and if you know, accountants are really bad about giving away their work for free too.
dominic piscopo
yeah, yeah. and, like, it’s hard, like, after i left deloitte, i had, i had just kind of, on the side, built a, like, crypto tax business, and you know, i did really well at the pricing aspect. like, i increased because my first year, i, like, vastly under billed to get people on board, basically, and then with taking on only, like one other customer out of like, you know, it was a small book of business, like five or six people, but taking on only one other customer, i had doubled the entire business. and it was because, again, like, you gotta, you gotta work on pricing and see where you can and communicate your value. and sometimes that means also going and finding new places to do the value, right? like, i was just engaged to do the book bookkeeping type tax work, but then i started being like, oh, we could do tax loss harvesting, and you’ll save 50 grand this year and this and that, right? and so there’s, like, such an avenue of places, but, yeah, they’re hard conversations to have for people, but they’re a lot easier if you’re able to go to the table with, like, actually, here’s an opportunity that can bring you more value, and here we can work on that. i think that’s the ideal scenario. but sometimes it’s just a hard conversation that has to happen, for sure, yeah,
liz farr
yeah, and i agree with the hard conversation, yeah, that, you know sometimes you do want to be kind to your clients, yeah, but we can’t work for free. and conversely, if you’re going to charge more, then maybe you should be doing a little more than just the tax return and the basic bookkeeping, yeah,
dominic piscopo
yeah. and there’s, there’s such good voices about that, like, you know, logan graf, when he came on my podcast, went on like, a 20 minute plus rant about it, and he was like, oh, i’m sorry for venting. and i was like, no, no. like, you’re going in deep. and people need to hear this, right? and they need to hear where it gets ugly and all that. and there’s, luckily, there’s some voices that are incredibly well informed about this stuff, and they’re doing it every day, like in their businesses, and they know, like, you know, what’s the pushback? what’s this? what’s that? and they’ve seen it where it’s like, yeah, i lost 10% of my customers, but on average, i’m earning 30% more and i’ve filled out capacity, or i’ve opened up capacity for more high value customers, and actually now i’m working less and making more is kind of pretty much how that story generally goes. so yeah, if that’s your thing, you know, maybe pause this. go check out some of those voices i’ve heard, like ron baker, a lot, ryan lazanis, like there’s, there’s some people who are just unbelievably good when it comes to the pricing thing. so yeah, yeah,
liz farr
yeah. dominique molina is another one. i had her on my podcast, and she, when she still had a firm, she got rid of 90% of her client list, and i think doubled or tripled her revenue, because she was able to provide a lot more service and a lot more value. wow, i’m sending
dominic piscopo
her a connection right now. i’m going to check that out. actually, she wasn’t on my radar. so, yeah, thank you for that. yeah,
liz farr
no, she’s great. yeah, so one of the parameters that you look for, that you track, is job satisfaction. what besides compensation, what else impacts job satisfaction?
dominic piscopo
i mean, there’s a lot of things like, you know, some of the firms where the hours are a little bit lower tend to have higher job satisfaction scores. however, that is a little bit debunked. so i recently just did like, a bit of like the best in the rest awards, is what i call it, but like the highest rated firms and the lowest rated firms on the big four transparency data and for example, like citrin cooperman, was in the top three best firms for hours, but was in the bottom three firms for job satisfaction. so there’s more to it than the hours, of course, right? and there’s more to it than the compensation, which. is where you know the measuring on the spreadsheet becomes difficult, so culture is super important. there’s also definitely, like an industry trend, right? there’s like things are heading in a certain way. for example, tax above all, right, now has been on a big upward trend the last three years. job satisfaction is like, clearly and definitively improving, which is very interesting to see. audit also improving, like the advisory, consulting risk kind of all over the map. they’ve like year by year, good, year, bad, year, stuff like that, a lot more volatile. but like tax and audit have been steadily improving. so what does that mean? well, maybe in a more volatile time, people really start to value the job security that they have, although that’s not an absolute, but like, you feel pretty okay if you’re like a tax manager, probably right now, compensation has been moving up in the field. there’s probably a better amount of tax technology to lean on, where you’re maybe spending less time doing the kind of nitty gritty, boring stuff you don’t like, and you actually, you know, face to face with clients like that feels good. that feels intrinsically rewarding, and stuff like that. there’s also a very clear curve of satisfaction throughout one’s career in public accounting. so interns are over the moon. they’re so happy to be there. their job satisfaction is really high. analyst starts to go down. seniors, i think, was the lowest of the low managers. it’s a little bit higher, but still pretty low. senior managers, a little bit higher, and then equity partners, very slightly higher. so it kind of does this like u curve and like seniors is like the lowest point, and nobody ever captures the job satisfaction they had as interns. unfortunately.
liz farr
yeah, you know, i recently wrote, worked on a piece with al anderson about seniors in audit, yeah, and how challenging it’s been during the pandemic, because when everyone went remote, it was really difficult for seniors to learn how to be seniors and how to be effective as seniors. yeah, so we went through sort of a phase where we have these seniors who have never really worked in person, and maybe the firm they were at the audit team didn’t have a good setup and culture for doing remote audits yet. so now they’re seniors and they don’t really know what to do.
speaker 1
yeah, i could definitely imagine that being a challenge. and, you know, i think a lot of it too is like, at least where i am, like in the market too, not to bring it all, all back to compensation. there’s more than that, for sure. but where i’m at in the market, i’m based in ottawa, which is like a big government town. it’s where capital is. and one of the questions i get the most from students and stuff like, i’ve been doing a lot of university tours lately. but the question i get from students a lot is like, when does this become worth it? and my answer often is that you start to turn that corner at manager. so again, this is going to be different market to market, depending on the other opportunities and all that. but for us, if you were to go out of school and, like, take a government job in ottawa, you’re actually earning more money, right off the bat in government. and these people in general, right? aren’t working nearly as hard. or, like, you know, they don’t have a busy season. they don’t have this and they’re working towards a pension and things like that. and so they see their friends, you know, going out on the weekends, blah, blah, blah, earning more money than them, not really working all that hard. like, that is tough on the morale. and i used to see that all the time. me and a buddy of mine actually, like, built a whole spreadsheet trying to, like, you know, do a discounted cash flows of an accounting career, and be like, does this ever make sense? but like, we didn’t even have real data, so, you know, kind of challenging. but like, typically at the manager level, you’re actually, like, bringing some degree of unique value, where you can maybe start to have some differentiated level of bargaining power, or you start getting a lot of offers that are, like, really quite interesting. and like, this summer, i was helping recruit for a bunch of remote manager roles, paying, like, a ton of money because they were having trouble getting these managers because it was a bit of a talent shortage. and so that kind of rings true in my local market too, where it’s like, you’re probably not actually really ahead. and. so you’re like, a manager level person in big four, and then at that point, you’re like, just barely making more, but like, you start to see the trend now you’re making a little bit more than the average, you know, than the person who went to get a government job, and you’re getting eight or nine or 10% a year increases, and they’re getting three four. and you’re like, okay, cool. like, what’s up and up from here, right? and it sounds bad, but people compare themselves all the time, and so that’s a big question i get, is, when does this become worth it? and to me, it’s like, kind of after manager. and so that helps, and then, like, the scope of responsibilities, you’re just dealing with a lot more difficulty once you hit senior versus before,
liz farr
that is very true now. now, what about remote versus on site? what kind of patterns do you see in compensation? there
dominic piscopo
patterns and compensation. so, i mean, i’m going to start by satisfaction, just because we were on that remote employees higher job satisfaction like pretty clear hybrids. next full in office is the lowest for what you’re getting paid. it’s a little bit of like a tricky sorry, it’s a bit of a tricky analysis to run, but it’s going to depend heavily on where you live and what your local market is, right? so for a lot of the accounting firms i work with who hire remote i have all the cities in my data set categorized by cost of labor, which was a whole process, but anyways, and they’re in buckets. and so when i’m working with a remote firm, i’m kind of asking them, like, do you have need for extremely specialized talent, or people who can do business development in very specific markets? because if not, in this analysis, what we’re going to do is we’re going to look at the buckets of compensation, and we’re going to take out the very high cost of labor markets. there is no reason a remote firm needs to be competing, or no reason unless those exceptional questions, the answer is yes, needs to be competing for talent in new york city, san francisco, seattle, like boston, like all of these, like, right? like the a tier cost of living cities, and you can even go a step further, depending on where you’re at, maybe you don’t even need the high cost of labor markets, and that, like, makes recruiting a little bit higher or a little bit harder and stuff like that. but that’s a bit of a trade off. but generally, right away, if you’re hiring remote, we’re not looking at the very high cost of labor markets, so you’re benchmarking yourself against the rest of the country, and you can still hire 85% of the people who are going to be completely happy with the salary, and those 15% for whom this is a very low salary will self select out, or maybe they really need a job, and they take it and they’re just, you know, earning a little bit less than they should in new york city. and so are you getting paid more in office versus remote? is really going to depend on where you are, right? like, if you’re in central idaho, there’s probably, like, you should really, really consider some remote options and weigh them against the in person firms, because this is going to be a lower cost of living area. and a lot of these other firms might be benchmarking the ones working with me anyways, between low cost and high cost of living. and so while you just left a very low cost pool, went into a medium ish cost pool, and so you’re going to be doing better if you’re in new york city. why are you living in new york city to work a remote job, right? like, you know? and if you are like, you might be having to take a hit financially, because, again, like, they shouldn’t be competing for talent in that same echelon of that market. so yeah, it’s really going to depend where you are for sure.
liz farr
well, it’s an interesting and not entirely straightforward but thorough answer, yeah, and i wish that back when i was contemplating leaving public accounting, remote had been a more viable option for me. you know, i live in new mexico, and that as a state is just going to be a lower cost market, because there just isn’t as much money in new mexico. there aren’t as many people so but i know that if i could have worked remotely for somebody in a. missouri or california or colorado or even arizona, i would have made more.
dominic piscopo
yeah, yeah, for sure. and, like, you know, some of these firms who are remote first, like, you know, they a lot of people kind of like, oh, the benefit of going to the big four or whatever is, like, this opportunity for remote, there’s, like, such good, like, medium, small firms that are remote first too, if that’s not your vibe, like, you don’t have to choose one or the other. and again, like, i’m working with a bunch of them, i’m and that’s increasing where. like, yeah, that compensation is really good if you’re in like, a low, medium cost of living market. so
liz farr
yeah, yeah, yeah, it just depends on what’s important to you. now, what impacts have you seen from publishing this data? do you have any any great stories of people winning the compensation battle,
dominic piscopo
yeah, yeah. i have, i have people kind of inbound all the time telling me, yeah, like, you know, i came with, like, the spreadsheet that prepared this and that to open a dialog. and it’s often not, like this heated negotiation that you think it’s going to be in your head. it’s often like, hey, like, objectively, i’ve looked at this like this, you know, increase i’m getting is below market. can we have a conversation about that? like, it doesn’t need to be this, like, heated confrontation thing. and it’s often like, you know, i get told, you know, the partner took a couple weeks or whatever, and has come back to me and then actually adjusted either mine or my cohort salary, things like that, right? some other people basically getting, like, gas lit by recruiters, telling them, like, oh, this is as good as it gets, comp wise and stuff. and then doing their own research and being like, okay, like, calm down. i’m gonna take a step back and i’m gonna make sure that i’m actually, like, going somewhere good. you know, some people have reached out to me saying, like, i was really getting caught up in the doom and gloom of, you know, instagram, memes, reddit, fish bowl, whatever. and was like, i really thought, like, accounting seems so bad, but then i actually looked at the data, and i was like, oh, you know what? like, this actually, this is what i’m signing myself up for, and i’m okay with that. and like, this is actually, like, a good path for me. so definitely a lot on that front, a lot of firms i’ve worked with too, have, like, you know, one of my, one of my first customers was getting a really hard time on twitter. people were giving him a super hard time about some ranges he had posted. and hiring was always this, like anxiety driving thing that it didn’t have to be, but it was kind of as a response to some of the salary ranges. and we started working together, and he just, he was like, oh, like, this is great. like, i feel, i feel so comfortable with this now. and they’re actually, like, very transparent internally in their company now, which is something that matters a lot, so they can actually, like, discuss the ranges. there’s actually a lot of customers that now that i think of it where this has happened, but where they felt like, not this person in particular, but someone else who had told me, like they were really anxious again, about, like, when it became compensation time, because they knew that they were not being equitable or fair. and it’s not because they were like a monster or anything like it. it’s literally because, at the time they brought this person in, you know, they didn’t push for it, and they came in at whatever salary, and then the next person came in, and they really negotiated, and, you know, they brought them in at this salary, and now they have whatever, you know, a senior one who’s making as much as a senior three, or something like that. and they were, like, really freaking out about this. and so once they kind of got this, they set up a plan to, like, get everyone within the levels they should be, plus, like, having merit bonuses and stuff like that. and that completely got rid of the anxiety that they had around kind of having comp discussions and stuff like that. and they also just like, it’s the right thing to do. like, you can’t, yeah, you can’t have someone where it’s like, listen, i know i’m underpaying you, like, severely, but you haven’t said anything. and so, like, hooray me. so they kind of did the right thing. and, like, got rid of that. and i think that brings a lot of peace of mind to the individuals too. when you’re like, i know i’m not being taken advantage of, this person’s actually, like, doing real research, and is going to keep me out of band that i’m okay with, you know, and is going to stay current to the market. a lot of peace of mind comes from that. i’ve lived that first firsthand. the last job i was at, they had like, a commitment to keep us at the 75th percentile for a level based off of, like, this same market for about the first two years i was there, and i was like, oh my god. what a relief. like, actually don’t feel. like, i need to, like, entertain conversations with other employers. i don’t feel like i need to be scoping out the market as much. like, this is like, so much peace of mind is coming from this. and then they and then they fell off that wagon. they were like, actually, we’re no longer gonna commit to that. you know, growth hasn’t been what we wanted it to be all that. and immediately, like, you know, employee churn spiked, like, my own mental well being, of like, oh, this is great. like, i’m just gonna stay here. like, i started spending mental energy. of like, oh, do i need to have this conversation with this other person? oh, should i, you know, talk with this recruiter? oh, should i be checking doing my own research all this? and then, like, that peace of mind is so valuable, and it just, like, conserves your mental energy when they’re like, you know, you know that they’re doing the right thing and that you don’t have to worry about it. so, yeah, yeah,
liz farr
yeah, i can, i can say that this would really ease the stress, the mental stress for accounting firms, you know, not just the staff and the employees, but the firm overall. when there is an objective source of data, they can look to to see where their compensation lies, so that they don’t have to churn in their minds. are we underpaying? are we overpaying? yeah, where are we and you know, in accountants, we like things in little, neat boxes, yeah, i really do now. what are some other things that you’re focused on developing this year, you mentioned you had some exciting things coming up. so,
dominic piscopo
yeah, yeah. well, so, yeah. so, i mean, since september, when i raised the round of funding for this. i’ve been full time on this. so for a long time, this used to be like one of two side projects, and then i got rid of my tax book of business, and then it was a side project, plus work, and now it’s all i do. and so it’s been really, really nice. like it feels like every month now is like a year of progress from before, which is really, really awesome, and it allows me to do a lot more things like, you know, this talent pool, which was like, kind of a big thing after last busy season. and so right now, yeah, what i’m working on is kind of making a much nicer, much more kind of enterprise friendly type dashboard for the firms that i’m working with. so i have a lot of clients who basically, when they signed on, i would just basically send them a spreadsheet with a bunch of with a bunch of pivot tables and like analysis done by me, like custom for them. and then a number of months ago, i still send out the raw data, but i kicked off a dashboard where, that’s where it’s like, at a glance, you can know within like 10 minutes, like you just basically select your sample size, and it tells you everything you need to know, all the percentiles, everything to set up ranges. and you can again, then get really granular in the raw data. but sometimes, like, communicating all the updates and changes, typically every quarter to users can be a little bit tricky. and so right now, we’re, like, actively, actively working on building out, like an enterprise dashboard for users to just log into and everything’s there that’ll also simplify communication for what they’re looking for in terms of talent. so like i said, i help the firms i’m working with with introductions to talent. we just charge a 6% placement fee, $1,000 of that goes to the candidate, and then the rest is kind of retained within the business. and then, like, that’s not a super smooth flow of communication sometimes. and so within the enterprise dashboard, the idea is to have, you know, a request box for, like, hey, this is what i’m looking for. and then it’s going to have all of your dashboards and, like, a csv download file of your raw data. and then we’re also working now on analytics around, not only, like the absolute salaries and where are they now, but we’re working on a new page of the dashboard, which is like a trend analysis of, like, how has everything shifted year over year? for people to be able to see that, like, the changes in the markets are not happening, happening kind of unilaterally. so i got asked by one of the big firm alliances i was doing a webinar for, and they asked specifically for trends. and i didn’t know that this was as big of a trend as it was till i did this for the webinar. but like, you know, the last year for example, like intern through, like senior level, salaries increased a lot more than like, manager and up, for example, and then tax and all audit salaries increase, actually a significant amount more than advisory and consulting, and like all these changes, and it’s really hard to keep track of, right? and so yeah, we’re kind of building that all out into a dashboard, and then i’m this is a little bit lot further out, but probably this year too, we’re building out like an ai chat component, where you can interact with the data, and then you could also interact with the candidate list. so it’s like a no names thing, but it would just be like, hey, i’m looking for, you know, senior managers with experience in tax who’ve worked at a big four firm. and it would tell you, you know, there’s this many candidates. are you interested? like, this is what some unique qualifications of them all are. so being like a big data business ai is obviously like a huge opportunity. so trying to get on top of that, yeah?
liz farr
well, that sounds really, really exciting. i love it, yeah. thank you now, yeah. now, another thing that you do is you also host a podcast, the big four transparency podcast, so, so tell tell me about that. where does that fit in with all of this?
dominic piscopo
i thought it would fit in a lot more neatly than it does some of the, some of the initial thought around it was like, oh, you know, get your name out there and have these conversations with people. and, you know, just by virtue of talking to firm owners, like, some of them might end up buying the product, and then, you know, other firm owners are going to see the podcast and the conversations and all that, and sign on hasn’t been that linear and clean and all that. and like, i don’t know where conversions come from all the time, and i don’t know how much of this is driven by the podcast or not, but very quickly i was like, oh, wait, i think i love this. and so it was really, really nice, and it just enabled me to, like, get a much deeper connection with so many people that you know again, like you and i right now, like, next time i see it at the conference, i’m going to be pumped and, oh, liz, what’s up? like, so it allows you to connect with people a lot deeper. and early on, i was like, you know, i’m going to do 10 or 20 episodes and, like, we’ll see from there. because i was like, i might become boring. like, people don’t want to hear someone’s journey. and like, people have such awesome lives and stories and stuff, and you just need to get it out of them. but like, everyone has had such a unique adventure and path to get to where they are today that, like, you know, you can talk to 20 firm owners, and like, you can get 20 completely different conversations, and they’re going to be so cool. and then, you know, i speak to other people in the industry, not just firm owners and stuff like that, and people just have such good stuff to share. and like, to me, like this feels like i’m doing, like an mba in public accounting, like i’m learning crazy amounts of stuff from these people and just making connections with, like, some incredible folks. and so, you know, the roi of the podcast not proven out, but i was very early on. i was like, i really love this. and just for the curiosity of meeting the people, and i’ll be keeping my eye out, but i’m sure it’s the same for you, where, like, yeah, you’re at a conference, and it’s like, oh my god, there’s like, 20 people here have spoken with and like, i know their story. i know what they’re all about. and it’s so cool, like to have that level of connection with like, such a broader scope of people that, yeah, i recommend it so highly for like, almost everyone. like, i think even if you’re doing it just for you and like, it never picks up, like, a big, big audience, like, it’s super valuable. it’s really, really, really nice,
liz farr
yeah, yeah, yeah. and i would say it’s, it’s given me an excuse to reach out to people that i never would have spoken to otherwise, yeah, yeah, you know, and even if you don’t do your own podcast, just listening to these podcasts can really broaden your horizons to what’s available out there in public accounting,
dominic piscopo
yeah, no, i would say, like, podcasts have completely changed my life, like as a listener, where, like, i was never like as an employee, like i was always a good like, i was always very like, productive and stuff, but i always felt like off. or like, within a few years, i would be like, very i’d feel very much like too constrained by the confines of my role and stuff like that. and i did not grow up in a family of entrepreneurs. i don’t have that in my circle. and then i just kind of gravitated towards those podcasts. and you know, like when people say, like you are very much a product of your environment. well, if you don’t have those people. around you, listening to them via podcasts can kind of, in some shape or form, fill that gap. and like speaking with people who’ve done like or like listening to people who’ve talked about their entrepreneurial journeys, building all that, i think, is what really pushed me into just being like, man, we’ll give it a try. and then the idea of, like, building something that people want and going out and selling it, and, like developing it just becomes very normal. it’s like, all my, all my, you know, i’m putting up air quotes here, all my friends, but like, all my people that i’m listening to are doing it, so why not me? right? and so i think it’s so, so valuable. and even just understanding your industry, like, even if you’re doing it purely for research, but like, knowing what’s going on in the accounting industry, like, it’s a whole soap opera out there, like there’s stuff going on and, like, first of all, it’s interesting, but you should know, because this is, like, your career, this is, this matters for you, for sure.
liz farr
yeah, yeah. and you should know what’s going on beyond the confines of your cubicle and beyond the confines of your firm and even beyond the confines of your city? yeah, yeah. now i want to ask you to get out your crystal ball. okay, start thinking now, where do you see the accounting profession in 10 years?
dominic piscopo
um, okay, i think that lower level work one way or another, but like, i think like, the analyst and below job descriptions are going to have to completely change already. i think right now it’s quite easy or whatever. i won’t say easy, but it’s a lot easier to get a job as a manager or a senior manager, than it is to get a job as an intern or an analyst unless you are going through the traditional channels, which is, you know, the intern program and all that. people who are not going through the traditional channels are finding it very hard to find those lower level roles. and i think that the reason is, you know, offshoring, plans to adopt ai at least. i don’t think ai is there yet, but maybe in 10 years and things like that. and i think it’s going to kind of eliminate some of the lower level tasks that right now are kind of proving to be a bit of a training ground for people. and so i think that people are going to have to reimagine what those roles look like, what exactly that’s going to be. i’m not 100% sure. i think a lot more kind of review, type work versus preparation being a first set of eyes. i think, you know, there’s going to be a lot of learning in the first years, and it’s going to be more dedicated to learning versus some of the busy work that just has to get done by someone. and then i think, like, more in some of the small and mid places, but there will be like, a program of like, hey, i’m that person. like, i want to be, like, getting our name out there on the internet. i want to be doing that. i think we’re going to see more traditional type of, kind of, like growth type activities becoming recognized within the accounting firm, and those can be done by accountants or non accountants as well, right? so, for example, like tri merit, i’ve had conversations with randy, and he’s like such a disproportionate amount of my staff or business development, and that’s not like a typical firm, right? but i think more firms should probably adopt that type of mindset and kind of like move towards that. i think it’ll become a little bit more like typical businesses, a little bit more like kind of tech businesses with private equity and all of that kind of being put into question and the partnership model and stuff. i think there will continue to be partnerships that are successful or whatever, like status quo to what it is now. i think private equity is going to become a little bit of, like, its own category of firm, of like, yeah, i’m into that. let’s go like, i’m into that lifestyle, or i’m not into that lifestyle. and i think it’s going to be a little bit more understood by people. and i hope, i hope, i hope, i hope we start to see more of like an esop model in a lot more firms, employee stock option plan where, and it doesn’t have to be in a private equity backed firm like i think if i ever started a firm, i would consider that at least where it’s like, you can, you know, senior and up, you can start earning, like, small bits of equity. and maybe the kind of equity model might look a little bit more like things that we’re seeing at a startup. and i think that that’s going to be really good for a lot of people, and might make some of the lower level work interesting and more. are worthwhile, rather than it being like a gamble of like, i’m all in, i’m going to make partner. i think there’s going to be a little bit more of a spread of things like that. and i think that’s actually going to help with retention and maybe reduce workload on partners. i think workload on partner is going to have to, have to go down, because right now, yeah, like, people aren’t even like, like, it’s not the incentive it used to be. people are just seeing people like, not living the best life often, and it’s like, hey, make a ton of money, but like, like, the new generations like, more willing to compromise on that for like, a better lifestyle. i think so. yeah, those are kind of my predictions. nothing too, too crazy. but yeah, that’s kind of where i think, and i think accounting salaries are going to continue to go up quite significantly, particularly at the more senior levels. but as we become more tech enabled, you’re able to add more value, spend more time on higher like higher value activities, and i think provided that we as professionals are able to advocate for ourselves, which i’m trying really hard to support the possibility of that, but you know, you need to also just be brave and have tough conversations sometimes. but if we’re able to advocate for ourselves, we should be able to capture a little bit more of that value. and i think and hope that the profession salary growth, wage growth, earnings growth for owners as well, can continue to outpace kind of some of the general market.
liz farr
that was an incredibly thorough answer. i love it. you clearly have thought a lot about this, so i love it
dominic piscopo
40 hours a week. yeah,
liz farr
okay, that’s how that happens. yeah, and, and i liked what you touched on with the future firm model, where we’re going to have more managers and the entry level is going to be more learning and less busy work, because i have been trying to figure out how we are going to develop this middle layer of managers and upper level seniors who are reviewing the the work of the ai, essentially in the technology, you know, you have to have entry level positions. but how are you going to get somebody from college graduate to manager? what is that career progression going to look like? and you mentioned learning, and i think that that’s going to have to be a big thing that firms will have to take on is not just, well, here’s the file from last year, follow that and figure it out, but much more structured learning, not so much learning by filling in the same damn boxes 20,000 times, but yeah, understanding that,
dominic piscopo
yeah, yeah. so i think that the expectation is going to be a much quicker ramp to what we consider currently manager level functions and stuff like that, right? so, yeah,
liz farr
yeah, it’s all gonna be very interesting.
dominic piscopo
yeah, for sure, yeah. well,
liz farr
i want to thank you so much for agreeing to talk with me. dominic and i can’t wait until we run into each other in person at some conference and get to say, hey, i know you now.
dominic piscopo
yeah. so, yeah, well, i’ll be up bridging the gap again. i’m maybe gonna be in may. what is it firm growth by oh, well, i’ll be fine today. we’ll see. so i hope to catch you in may. we’ll see tbd. there’s some, some, some things in development. so we’ll see maybe, maybe, maybe not, but if not, i’ll certainly see you at bridging the gap. and yeah, thank you so much for having me on, and a huge congratulations on i think you shared i was going to be episode 96 but by the time this is live, i would expect you probably have your hundreds recorded. so huge. congratulations on that. thank
liz farr
you. thank you so much. now, if listeners want to connect with you, what’s the best way to find you?
dominic piscopo
i’m kind of all over the place. i hope i’m hard to miss. i try to i try to be present. i’m very active on linkedin, dominic piscopo, or you could look up big for transparency on linkedin, and you’ll find me through that there’s contact information on the website, bigfoot transparency.com or if you’re old school, you just want to email me dom d, o m at big four transparency.com and i will. be very active on all of those. i love hearing people what they have to say. so, yeah, i appreciate anyone, anyone reaching out.