3 Steps to Optimize Your Accounting Firm’s Tech Stack for 2026

Is your firm’s tech stack helping you grow or holding you back? Learn how to audit your software and automate the admin with industry veteran Roman Kepczyk.Summary: In this episode of the Canopy Practice Success Podcast, Roman Kepczyk (Director of Firm Technology Strategy at RightWorks) breaks down a 3 step framework for evaluating accounting technology. We discuss why identifying your Ideal Client Profile (ICP) is the foundation of a great tech stack, the truth about the "throw out your timesheets" myth, and how to adopt AI gradually without sacrificing security or accuracy. Key Takeaways: Identify Your ICP First: Why your client base dictates your software selection. Post-Tax Season Debriefs: How to use postmortems to identify workflow bottlenecks.Gradual AI Adoption: The difference between agentic AI and simple automation. The Timesheet Myth: Why you should value price but still measure utilization. Peer Validation: Using community groups (like CPAFMA) to vet new tools. 0:00 Introduction — Roman Kepczyk, RightWorks 1:17 Why your client base is the foundation of every tech decision 3:19 ICP and why it applies to workflows, not just marketing 4:52 The post-tax-season debrief every firm should be running 7:04 Premortems: a Lean Six Sigma approach to preventing failure 9:01 What's driving firms to reevaluate their tech stack right now 11:15 AI in accounting: what vendors are getting right and wrong 13:31 The human accountability layer AI can't replace 14:31 Will AI replace accountants? What agentic AI actually does 18:10 How to evaluate your tech stack when there's no obvious pain 19:06 Getting the right work to the right people — and the tools that help 25:42 The three-step framework: clients, allocation, community 26:16 Why community is your best research tool for software evaluation 31:52 Rapid fire: the biggest myth about accounting technology 34:33 Rapid fire: the most overrated tech trend right now3 Steps to Optimize Your Accounting Firm’s Tech Stack for 2026