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TorontoCPA, CMAEst. 1995

I build accounting firms that run like software companies.

I’m a CPA who used to write code. Thirty years at the point where accounting meets technology — automating the parts of this profession that should never have been manual, and living with whatever I ship.

Andrew Wall in his studio — glasses, dark jacket, a podcast microphone and monitors behind him.
Toronto · the room most of this gets tested in
Years where accounting meets code
30+Years where accounting meets code
Joined the family firm, started automating it
1995Joined the family firm, started automating it
Hubdoc Cloud Accountants, North America (2018)
Top 50Hubdoc Cloud Accountants, North America (2018)
Following the work on LinkedIn
7,000+Following the work on LinkedIn
01Double entry
Debit

You're building a business

Books, tax and structure, handled by a firm that works the way you already do.

This is the half that leaves. The accounting work happens at CPA4IT, because a firm is better at it than any one person.

Credit

You're running a firm

What I'm testing, what's working, and what's overhyped. Including the failures.

This is the half that stays. Ideas, rooms, experiments and the community being built around them.

The accounting work happens at CPA4IT. This site is for the ideas, the rooms and the experiments.

02The long version

I joined my dad’s firm in 1995 and immediately tried to automate it.

Everyone told me the profession didn’t work that way. They were right for about a decade.

Thirty years later I run a firm that’s paperless, cloud-native and largely automated — and I spend most of my time helping other people get there.

Andrew Wall at his desk with an Intuit K2E award, a laptop open beside him.
The office, and an Intuit K2E award that turned up along the way
03Try it

Your rate isn't your ceiling. Your calendar is.

This is a model with a hard end to it. Move the sliders and watch how much of that end is your rate, and how much is just hours you have to be awake for.

Your inputs

$95
32

Which means

Billing 1,472 hours a year. That’s 74% of a conventional 2,000-hour working year spent on work you can actually invoice — admin, sales and everything else sits on top.

What that time earns

$139,840

$0$828,000 — the most this model can ever pay

−$34,481 gone

Nothing replaced it, because nothing was earning except you.

There is a number at the end of that bar. Raising your rate moves you along it; it doesn’t move the end. That end is your calendar.

04Currently building
CPA4IT

A modern accounting firm built around entrepreneurs, technology and smarter workflows.

Visit CPA4IT
The firm
NorthStarrs

A course library for owners and firms, and the community being built around it.

Years of courses — Canadian tax, incorporation, worker classification, AI, the tools a practice actually runs on — in Start, Grow and Thrive bundles. Thrive carries the community.

Browse the library
Courses + community
Lake Effect

The in-person front door to that community — a small group of owners, on an island, for one evening.

The best conversations at industry events rarely happen on the stage. They happen after the session. Over dinner.

Apply for the next one
A few times a year
GPT EPD

One AI experiment a day, for thirty days, in whichever part of the business needs it most.

Nine pillars, 360 experiments, free. Most AI talks leave you inspired on Thursday and back in the same inbox on Monday — this is the version with the reps in it.

Choose your pillar
Starts 1 Oct
FridAI Live

Real conversations about AI, automation and the future of accounting.

No polished keynote. No AI fairy dust. Just practical experiments, ideas and lessons from inside a real accounting firm.

Watch on Facebook
Every Friday
05The room

Lake Effect — Dinner with people who get it.

Running a business is lonely, and the people who understand it are busy running theirs. So a few times a year I get a small group of owners on a ferry.

Free seats are held for CPA and CPB students.

How often
A few times a year
Last one
Wednesday 30 September 2026
Where
RCYC Island Clubhouse, Toronto Island

Next evening

The next one isn’t dated yet.

Applications stay open between evenings — they are how the next room gets built.

The lawn at the RCYC Island Clubhouse, looking across the harbour at the Toronto skyline, with lounge seating in the foreground.
06Writing

Four arguments, written down.

All writing

How we built Lake Effect in two weeks

Andrew's own account of the launch, drafted 18 September 2026 and published in full

But somewhere between the first idea and what Lake Effect has become, I realized I was trying too hard to build an event.

A place where accountants, bookkeepers, entrepreneurs, students, technology companies and people I respect could sit around a table and talk about what is really happening in their businesses.

We imagined structured conversations about AI, automation, workflows, barriers to adoption and practical experiments firms could run.

Building the AI Ready Firm.

The next room is small on purpose.

A few times a year I get a group of owners in a room in Toronto. If that sounds like your kind of evening, put your name in.

Managing Partner, CPA4ITChartered Professional AccountantCertified Management AccountantSpeaker, Intuit QuickBooks Get Connected