The “Hive Mind” Effect at Bridging the Gap
With Nancy McClelland
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Recorded live at Bridging the Gap 2025 in Denver, Randy Crabtree sits down with Nancy McClelland—CPA, community builder, and self-described member of the BTG “hive mind”—to talk about what keeps drawing her back to the conference year after year on Episode 263 of The Unique CPA. Nancy is candid about the real challenges of running a sustainable firm and how BTG gave her not just ideas, but permission to act on them. She also talks through the two sessions she ran at BTG 2025: one on effective collaboration between bookkeepers and tax pros, drawing directly on what she hears inside Ask A CPA, and another on reasonable S corp compensation that managed to make a technical audit topic feel like an advisory opportunity. It’s no surprise, but Nancy brings the same openness and practicality to this conversation that she brings to everything else she contributes to the profession.
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Hello, and welcome to The Unique CPA with your host, Randy Crabtree. Bridging the Gap 2026 is coming soon, so we’re bringing you conversations from last year’s event. Stay tuned for the thoughts of top voices in the profession as we look forward to BTG Charlotte. The Unique CPA is brought to you by RandyCrabtree.com. Log on to learn more.
Hi, Randy Crabtree here. We are recording live at the Bridging the Gap Conference 2025 in Denver, Colorado. Day two, afternoon of day two, and I am sitting with Nancy McClelland. Nancy, thanks for sitting down and having this discussion.
Thank you so much for inviting me to be here, not just at the conference, but at this table.
Well, this is an amazing honor for me to be able to sit here with you at this table right now. But let’s jump into this, and talk about the conference, ’cause I know you have some thoughts about this conference, and I’d like to get your ideas of what you like about this conference in general, but then I want to talk about this year. ’Cause I’m feeling something different this year. So just talk about why this conference is important to you.
Alright, well, first again, thank you very much for having me here and I am really excited to talk about this. It’s one of my favorite topics because as you know, and I have said numerous times in my MSN article from my Ask a CPA group with the bookkeeping buds on socials, this is my very favorite conference, and I write an article every year on my top 10 accounting conferences, this is number one. And the reason it’s number one for me, and this is from the first year, is that I’m really challenged by working too much and I’m challenged by working too hard, and I’m challenged sometimes by trying to find that balance between the amount of work I’m doing and the meaning and the mission behind the work. When I came to Bridging the Gap the first time, I didn’t know what to expect. and I came away with so many actionable insights on what I can do to run a sustainable CPA firm. We put them immediately into, I mean, not all of the things that I learned because there was too much, but one piece at a time, we just started implementing them. And my firm, I can honestly say, I don’t think I’ve ever said this to you before, my firm is honestly substantially healthier than I was, than when I came to the first Bridging the Gap, and in no small part because of this conference.
Wow. That’s amazing. And that’s one of the reasons we started this conference because we saw there was different ways to run a practice and we saw there was different ways to take care of yourself as well as your practice, and to hear that that’s been implemented. Because I’m always afraid that people leave here and like, yeah, that was great information. And then they forget about it and then they come back next year and think that’s great information.
That’s a challenge. I mean, I think that’s a challenge at any conference. It’s very hard to find that time, you know, you’ve got a lot of enthusiasm, you’ve got a lot of emotion, there’s a lot of feel good, especially at Bridging the Gap, there’s a lot of feel good. I mean, it’s an incredible group of people that are attending, it’s an incredible group of people that are presenting. But then, you know, you’ve got to get back home and you’ve got to find the time to implement those things. So many of the things that I learned at Bridging Gap in the first two years, and now, you know, halfway through this third year, were things that actually, they weren’t even that hard to implement. I just never, part of it was being given the ideas in the first place, right? So the creativity of some of the ideas that we’re hearing, part of it was being given permission, and that is really hard. Part of it was just sort of comparing notes with my colleagues and seeing what they’re doing that has worked for them, but also what has not worked for them, because what’s going to work for one person isn’t necessarily going to work for another. And there’s such an emphasis on lots of collaborative sessions here, lots of panels. We get to hear from more than one person how a particular topic is being addressed. And so I get to hear, oh, I don’t think it’s going to work, that’s going to work for me, but maybe this other way is really going to work for me. So I’m not saying that these things are easy to implement, but they are a lot more tangible and effective and actionable than most of the other conferences that I go to.
Yeah. And just having this open mindset to think I can absolutely, or I should,
The permission is important. I have a friend who, she teases me sometimes, she’s like, Nancy, stop “should-ing” all over yourself.
I’ve heard this, yeah.
But you know, it’s true. Like, oh, I feel bad because I didn’t do this or didn’t do that. And Bridging the Gap is not about that. It’s about like seeing the potential and then, you know, picking a few of those things that are going to make the biggest impact in your practice.
Yep. And not getting overwhelmed with the options, because there are. I mean, how many sessions do we have here? I don’t even, I mean, there’s a lot of sessions.
You know, one of the only complaints I have about Bridging the Gap is that I can’t be in more than one place at the same time. I wish I had Hermione’s Time Turner from Harry Potter where I could just go back and take every single session that’s being offered. It’s a weird complaint to have because it’s a good problem.
We’re very fortunate, we have very good speakers. So let’s talk, because I mentioned earlier this year, every year has felt amazing to me and every year I’m really enjoying it and I really see that people are enjoying it, which makes me excited to see that people are enjoying it. That’s, to me, been even elevated this year. I don’t know, I shouldn’t have led with that kind of question, but what do you think?
Well, no, you’re not leading the witness on this one, because I feel the same way. We ran into each other in the hallway and you were like, “Wow.” I asked, I checked in with you and I was like really, how are you doing? And you were like, “I feel great. I feel like there’s something different this year. There’s just like, you can feel it in the air. It’s just so positive.” And I have some theories about that. Part of it is that a lot more people signed up this year. And a lot of them are first timers and they heard, somebody mentioned it the first day when you were asking the crowd, like, why are you here? Somebody said “the hive mind.” The hive mind told me this was the place to be. Well, I’m part of the hive mind, right?
Yeah, you are.
And what they heard was all the types of things that I just told you, and also they heard about the emphasis on mental health. They heard about the emphasis on vulnerability. They heard about how important it is that we put our oxygen masks on first, right? They heard about that and then they say, well, I want to go to this conference because I want to find out, is this hive mind, like, is this real? Are they saying this place really exists? You know, is this Brigadoon, truly? And so they have come in with a new energy and a new optimism, and a new enthusiasm that I feel like has even leveled it up from where it’s been before. That’s my theory about why this year feels even more.
Yeah. I agree and I think it’s a lot of, all of that you just said, and then all the people that have been here the first two years, and this is what you’re getting into the hive mind as well, that have raved about, and you’ve been a champion for this, and I appreciate that. And I didn’t mention, but you are also part of the Advisory Council, which has been unbelievably beneficial to me and helpful to me. So thank you for that.
It was wonderful when you asked me. And you were like, you can take time to think about it. And I’m like, I just did. The answer is yes. I had no hesitation.
Yeah. But all those people from the first two years, and all the raving they’ve done and all the posting that they’ve done about this, I think created that hive mind, created that sense of, “I can’t miss this, I’ve missed this, look at what I missed the first two years. I can’t do this again.” And they’re coming with this energy of anticipation, expectation, and I’m going to meet new people. That is just, I walk through the halls and I just feel a new energy. And it was great the first two years, and it’s just even elevated this year. So I think you and I are on the same page where we’re going.
Absolutely. And I actually, I want to add to that. I feel like sometimes it takes people some warming up at a conference before they get to the point where they feel like they have something to contribute. Because one of the wonderful things about being at conferences in general, but I’m going to say Bridging the Gap in particular is that it’s not just about being talked to. It’s not just like the speaker is going to talk to me, and I’m going to take notes and then I’m going to go back home and implement it. There’s a lot of brainstorming, there’s a lot of bringing fresh ideas, there’s a lot of sharing what our pain points and what our challenges are with each other, which of course, as you know, I feel like vulnerability is definitely a strength. And one of those strengths is when we are coming together to share what our challenges are, not just our solutions, but our challenges. It makes other people, it gives them permission to be like, “Oh, actually, you know, I struggle with that too. I don’t have to pretend to be a superhero.” And I feel like from the first moments of the first day, people were already ready to participate.
Well, and that was proved out that first session that I did. When I asked that question of why are you here, the very first person that answered was their very first conference ever. They started their firm eight months ago, or even less than that, and they were the first one to participate and speak up. I was amazed.
And two of the people that I’ve heard participating the most are two members of my Ask a CPA community that won Accounting Cornerstone Foundation Scholarships. Now you’re on the board of the Accounting Cornerstone Foundation. These are scholarships that are specifically for people who have never attended an accounting conference of any kind. And you know, it’s an all expenses paid trip. They are two of the people I’m seeing interacting the most, making sure that they’re connecting with new people, making sure that they’re doing the networking to creating the community so they can go back home and continue to draw on that through the rest of the year.
I actually probably think that that’s partly because of the community that they’re in already, which is Ask a CPA, which you run. Can you give us a little background on that community.
Yeah, absolutely. As a matter of fact, I have to thank you personally, and Bridging the Gap from last year, because there were a bunch of people who ended up joining my Ask a CPA community. I think I had either just launched, or was just about to launch the community, right when last year’s Bridging the Gap happened. I won an award at Bridging the Gap for Mentor of the Year, which was very special to me, and I found out afterward that a lot of these people who it turned out had been asking me to start a community, they had all nominated me for that award, and they didn’t tell me about it and I found out afterward – it was very special.
So Ask A CPA is a community that I run. It is a paid subscription community. And what it is, is it’s designed for bookkeepers who have questions for their clients’ tax professionals, but for whatever reason, they feel like they can’t ask those questions. Now it could be because the CPA is too busy, which happens a lot, they’re just non-responsive. They haven’t been attending Bridging the Gap, so they don’t know about managing their workflows efficiently, and so they’re feeling overwhelmed. It could be because they don’t have good communication skills, which is the case unfortunately with a lot of tax pros who do tax only. It could be because they are condescending toward bookkeepers and they actually think less of them. There are lots of different reasons.
So I wanted to create a space, because I truly believe that the capacity crunch that we’re seeing throughout the accounting world, specifically in tax and audit, that capacity crunch is really threatening the quality of our profession, and the quality of the services that we’re providing to small business owners, and therefore threatening the fabric of our communities. I will go so far as to say this is a serious problem for everyone. They can’t, tax preparers, they can’t be cleaning up the books during tax season, so they should want to collaborate with these bookkeepers and answer their questions and figure out ways that they can be more efficient, figure out ways that they can be on the same page, and not performing some of the same duties. And so my bookkeepers in this amazing group, they ask their questions, I answer their questions both in our Circle community and twice a month on recorded calls. And then we parse each of those questions out and make them all searchable.
That’s great.
It’s been amazing. It’s been absolutely amazing. We have 16 of our members here at the conference this year.
That’s amazing. I said you were a champion for this conference. You definitely are. So thank you for that. So let’s talk about this conference specifically, your sessions because you have two sessions. The first one I want, mainly I want to talk about the one that has to do, that interacts, that was, is probably inspired by, I assume, Ask A CPA.
Yes. So that one is called “Effective Collaboration Between Bookkeepers and Tax Pros.” So very directly related to Ask A CPA. Now with Ask A CPA, I get to talk to the bookkeeper side of things, right? I get to hear their questions, I get to hear their complaints. At #TaxTwitter Retreat last year, I got to talk to the tax pros and find out what are their frustrations, you know, and what did they want bookkeepers to know that they feel like bookkeepers don’t know, what are their horror stories? And so I was like, you know what? I’m going to bring those together because at Bridging the Gap, I can get both of those sets of people in the same room. And so yeah, we’re going to talk about why we should bother. Spoiler alert, one of the reasons is that the other person that you’re working with is a human too, and life is just better when we remember that we’re working with other human beings. But there are a lot of more work-centric reasons for this collaboration to exist. And we talked about the capacity crunch.
So I’m excited because I’m going to be able to talk about why this is important. I’m going to be talking about how we do it, and I’m going to bring up a couple of special guests from the audience who are going to tell us about some of their personal experiences. So I’m pretty excited about it. And then the other session was one that I did earlier today, which was so much fun. I don’t know that I’ve ever had more fun really putting on a session. It was on taking reasonable compensation for S corps, so a pretty technical topic, but it was about taking that and making it not only an audit risk we’re protecting our clients, but how to turn that into an advisory win, which is in keeping with this Bridging the Gap theme of how do we increase the amount of revenue that we are generating from our existing clients, not just churn and burn and getting new clients and moving onto the next one, but looking at our existing clients, showing them that we care about them, and that we’re taking care about them, and at the same time protecting ourselves from preparer penalties and increasing our revenue. That was with Al-Nesha Jones and Dawn Brolin and we had a blast. It was so good.
I’m sure you did. I was able to step in for a few minutes, and I could tell you definitely were having a blast. So I want to wrap up: I want to thank you and I want to thank you for multiple things. I want to thank you for sitting down with me today. I want to thank you for being on the Advisory Council. I want to thank you for what you’re doing to try to make this profession better for everybody from a mental side, from a work-life balance side, from everything. And the sessions that you did today and the sessions you’re doing tomorrow are really leaning into that, so thank you so much.
Can I thank you also? Because I have one thing that we haven’t mentioned that I really want to thank Bridging the Gap and The Unique CPA podcast for, which was you were the person who helped Questian Telka and I launch the She Counts Podcast, which is the real talk podcast for women in accounting. Back in April, you were our launch interview, it was absolutely wonderful, you’ve been an ally and an advocate, and we are so lucky to have you. So thank you very much.
Well, thanks again for being here.
About the Guest
Nancy McClelland, CPA is a passionate believer that personal relationships, creative solutions, and reliable technology drive small business success – especially in our accounting industry. With her CPA firm The Dancing Accountant, Nancy has been on a lifelong mission to support small businesses and their communities – as well as educate the professionals who serve them, through her “Ask a CPA” community for bookkeepers. Known for her fun, personal and direct style, it’s no surprise she insists that the future of accounting is built on relationships.
Named Top Client Accounting Services ProAdvisor by Insightful Accountant, Bridging the Gap’s “Mentor of the Year,” and one of Ignition’s Top 50 Women in Accounting, she writes an award-winning blog for MSN with insights and resources for both business-owners and accounting professionals. She is an engaging and knowledgeable speaker as well as an entertaining and colorful dancer!
Meet the Host
Randy Crabtree, co-founder and partner of Tri-Merit Specialty Tax Professionals, is a widely followed author, lecturer and podcast host for the accounting profession. Since 2019, he has hosted the The Unique CPA podcast, which ranks among the world’s 5% most popular programs (Source: Listen Notes). You can find articles from Randy in Accounting Today’s “Voices” column and the AICPA Tax Advisor, and he is a regular presenter at conferences and virtual training events hosted by CPAmerica, Prime Global, Leading Edge Alliance (LEA), Allinial Global and several state CPA societies. Randy also provides continuing professional education to Top 100 CPA firms across the country.