Tag: Brackets

Going Concern March Madness: Busy Season Survival — Food & Beverage vs. Technology

For the last two seasons, Going Concern March Madness pitted accounting firms against each other to decide just which firm was the coolest in this fair land. Sadly, we have decided to end this exercise. It was a good (?) run but has been exhausted for reasons that include: 1) a Rothstein Kass three-peat was not something anyone was prepared to endure and 2) the underlying premise of the bracket was based in fantasy or, dare I say, complete bullshit. Does this mean that Vault's annual prestige ranking has lost all purpose? That's not for me to say.

And the Coolest Accounting Firm Is…

After four rounds of bracket magic including a back and forth championship match-up, we have our very first winner of the Going Concern March Madness: Coolest Accounting Firm competition. Let’s look at the final bracket.


For those of you that haven’t been refreshing the page for the last 48+ hours, Rothstein Kass pulled their final upset, this time of West Coast rival Moss Adams. Along the way RK dismantled the biggest of the Big 4, Deloitte, McGladrey and BDO.

You may think that such a run of upsets was the result of the double-entry stars perfectly aligning themselves but RK Co-CEO and Managing Principal Steve Kass explained it differently, “Many will look at results and call Rothstein Kass a ‘Cinderella story,’ or characterize our victory as an upset. Though we embraced the underdog role, we knew that our low seeding was more likely a function of strength of schedule. The fierce competition we encountered during the season prepared us for the rigors of the tournament, while quality of our recent recruiting classes left us confident that we could make a run at the title,” Mr. Kass said. “As thrilled as we are by our success, however, there will be no champagne sprayed in locker room celebrations, nor ticker tape parades through the halls of our offices. Over the years, we’ve observed that the more time you spend reflecting on how cool you are, the less time you have free to do cool things. Notwithstanding, winning was pretty cool!”

So it sounds like it’s back to business as usual for RK. Undoubtedly, this victory will catapult them up Vault’s prestige rankings making for a much more difficult tournament next year but for now they get to enjoy the spoils of a champion (which, in this case, is nothing – our publisher wouldn’t spring for a trophy but he’d love to hear from you about it). So congrats to Rothstein Kass on a great run and to the rest of the firms out there – get better.

Oh, and anyone expecting a “One Shining Moment” montage needs to slap themselves across the face right now. And then again.

Going Concern March Madness Update: Reznick’s Magic is MIA; Grant Thornton, BDO on the Ropes

Look gang, since too many of you are distracted with doing billable work to email us anything half way interesting, I’m guess I’ll just update you on the progress in Round 2.


The two highest remaining seeds – Grant Thornton and BDO – are looking defeat square in the face right now to their respective opponents – Crowe Horwath and Rothstein Kass. First round comeback kid Reznick Group is currently getting worked by Moss Adams which makes should make us all wonder what happened to the teamwork we saw in the first round. Perhaps they’re a one-trick pony?

Finally, in the least talked about match-up, Mickey G’s and Dennis Rader’s favorite firm (ideas for something better are welcome) look like they’ll be taking it down to the wire. There’s just over thirteen hours left to vote, so get the word out sooner rather than later (sorry Clifton Gunderson).