Grant Thornton’s $5 Billion Buy, FASB’s Rule Fix, and Halloween’s Sugar Haul

Good morning, hope ya’ll had a fun Halloween! Here’s your quote of the day to start strong

First, your quote of the day.

“I found that my life got bigger when I stopped caring what other people thought about me.” -Tim Cook

Grab your coffee. Let’s catch up.

Today’s Ledger:

Watch Jan Haugo build a client dashboard in Claude, live. Learn why “Pricing Is How You Say No.” See how LiveCA came back from losing $100K a month. Then decide: “Would You Fire This Client?”

WorkflowCon 2026 is free and fully virtual, Nov 9–10, with 45-minute breakouts that end in a next step, not a notebook full of maybes.

Pick your sessions and register free.

Want a bigger accounting firm? You could spend years winning clients. Or buy CBIZ for $5 billion in cash. Grant Thornton Advisors just closed that deal, creating the world’s fifth-largest accounting firm. The combined business has more than 34,500 professionals and over $7 billion in annual revenue. CBIZ shares have stopped trading. It now has one owner.

Behind the shopping spree is private equity firm New Mountain Capital, which invested in Grant Thornton in 2024. The purchase reportedly involved $2 billion in high-risk bonds, meaning borrowed money comes with the expansion. Now comes the work of combining teams, keeping clients, and paying lenders. The audit businesses still need to complete a separate deal, so even this $5 billion closing doesn’t finish the job.

Read the article

A company gives an investor the right to buy its shares at a set price. Sounds simple. Then accountants have to decide where that contract belongs on the balance sheet. The rules are so tricky that companies spend heavily applying them and sometimes have to correct financial statements afterward. Investors told FASB they even ignore some resulting swings in reported value.

Now FASB wants to simplify the test, potentially letting more stock-linked contracts count as equity rather than liabilities. Companies would also have to explain contract terms that could significantly change what they pay or deliver. It’s still a proposal, with comments due January 4, 2027. For accounting teams, the promise is fewer hours untangling a rule that even investors struggle to find useful.

Read the article

You grab a fun size pack of Skittles from the Halloween bowl. It’s tiny. Practically nothing. Inside that little bag sits about 3.6 teaspoons of sugar. By weight, it’s 76% sugar. The small wrapper is doing a lot of work making that feel like a small amount.

That’s the trick with the leftover candy bowl. You’re counting wrappers, not what’s inside them. One of each of these 10 treats adds up to nearly 21 teaspoons of sugar. But “fun size” clearly wasn’t written by the person measuring the sugar.

Ever said yes to a “quick favor” and then spent an hour doing it for free? That’s why “Pricing Is How You Say No” caught our eye on the WorkflowCon lineup.

Financial Cents is hosting the free online conference November 9–10. Pick a 45-minute session, join from your desk, and get back to your clients.

See the sessions and register free

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