Accounting advisory services

A deal is closing. A standard is changing. Your controller just resigned three weeks before quarter-end. Whatever the trigger, the question is the same: Can someone help me get out of this jam—correctly, defensibly and fast?

Accounting advisory at RSM can. We offer the single door to accounting challenges that the office of the chief financial officer faces—technical, transactional or talent-driven. You don’t have to know whether your issue is technical accounting, deal accounting or a resourcing gap. You bring the situation; we bring the answer and the people who have done it before.

This isn’t stale, by-the-book compliance—it’s top-caliber technical depth, delivered in a modern, technology-enabled way that takes complexity off your plate. RSM serves both private equity-backed and public companies, meeting each where they are.

Don’t face the challenge alone. These are the moments we’re built for.

Every accounting challenge is different. RSM organizes around the situation you’re in—not our organizational chart—with the goal of delivering outcomes that exceed your expectations.

Your team is stretched thin

The resiliency workbench

Technical accounting talent on demand—through periods of compression, transactions, audits and the day your director of revenue walks out. Not staff augmentation. Retained access to the people you can’t hire fast enough.

A deal is in motion

Transaction and M&A accounting

Business combinations and purchase price allocations (ASC 805), opening and closing balance sheets, carve‑out and divestiture financials, and the technical memos that make the numbers stand up to diligence.

The public markets are calling

Capital markets and IPO/SPAC readiness

Get audit‑ready and exit‑ready: Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reporting, Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) and internal controls, pro formas and defensible position papers built on the front end.

Every number must be defensible

Technical accounting and remediation

Complex accounting consultation and position papers, restatements and material‑weakness remediation, and on‑call answers to the questions that don’t fit the textbook.

A new standard is bearing down

Accounting standards implementation

Revenue recognition (ASC 606), leases (ASC 842), Current Expected Credit Losses and whatever the Financial Accounting Standards Board hands you next—scoped, adopted and documented without derailing your close.

Being public is consuming you

The managed public‑company back office

SEC reporting, technical and functional accounting, and controls—managed as one integrated solution. Let RSM help carry the compliance of being public, in a risk‑managed way, while you focus on growth.

Two journeys, one door

Whether you’re scaling toward an exit or carrying public‑company complexity

The accounting challenges of a PE‑backed portfolio company and a public registrant aren’t the same. RSM meets you where you are—without making you choose the wrong door.

Private equity backed and privately held

Build a finance function that protects value

Lean teams, fast growth and an eye on the exit leave little room for accounting. Clean accounting is a value creation lever, not a back office afterthought.

Scale a lean accounting function as the company grows
Get audit-ready and exit-ready—before diligence does it for you
Support add on acquisitions, carve-outs and integrations
Protect the multiple with diligence-proof numbers

Public companies

Keep the engine technically sound—and lighter to run

From routine quarters to transformative transactions, public companies need depth on demand. Not every registrant needs to own all of it internally.

Ongoing technical accounting and complex transactions
SEC reporting, SOX and internal controls
Transaction accounting—ASC 805 memos and the post close walk
Restatement and remediation, handled with discretion

The talent gap, solved differently

Why hire for it when you can have RSM’s bench behind you?

There aren’t enough experienced accountants—and the gap is widening. Hiring means carrying the cost, the training and the risk that your new hire doesn’t stick around. And no single person carries every technical specialty you need.

So we changed the model. RSM becomes your retained resiliency arm—access to the full technical bench, deployed when lifecycle events, compression or a sudden departure demand it.

A specialist, right now

A defined need filled fast—the revenue or lease professional you can’t find on the open market.

A retained bench

Build your own pre-vetted team on a retainer and draw from it through every period of pressure.

An embedded function

We run the books and the reporting on an ongoing basis-outcome-based, not billed by the hour.

Why RSM?

What you get at RSM that you won’t get elsewhere

Big‑firm technical credibility. Middle market accessibility. None of the distance.

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Professional depth

Top-caliber technical specialists who do the work—not partners who only review a file. The people in the room have solved your problem before. We stay through the year’s pressure points—a retained relationship, not a one-off project or a staffing requisition you re-sell every time.

Human head silhouette linked to network nodes representing AI and digital intelligence.

Artificial Intelligence

Modern and technology-enabled

We use technology to take cost and time out of how we deliver, so you get a faster, more competitive answer.

We can—and we do

Built for the middle market and fluent in both the private-equity and public-company worlds. We don’t just tell you what we can do; we show you what we’ve done.

Accounting Advisory FAQ

: Accounting advisory is RSM’s single door for any accounting challenge—technical, transactional or talent-driven. Rather than asking you to navigate service-line names, we start with your situation and bring the right specialists, from new-standard adoption and M&A accounting to SEC reporting, remediation and interim resources.

: Whenever accounting stops being routine: A transaction, a new standard, an impairment, an audit, a restatement, an IPO or exit, or a sudden gap on your team. The earlier you engage, the more options you have to keep the numbers defensible and the timeline intact.

: Yes. RSM supports PE-backed and privately held companies—scaling lean finance functions, getting audit- and exit-ready, supporting add-on acquisitions and carve-outs, and keeping accounting clean so it protects value through diligence. RSM serves over 4,500 private equity-owned portfolio companies.

: Yes. We prepare companies for the public markets end to end: SEC reporting, SOX and internal controls, pro formas and defensible technical positions—built on the front end before you go public.

: Yes—but we do it differently than a staffing agency. Our bench gives you retained access to technical accounting talent through periods of compression, transactions, audits and departures. You can engage a specialist for an immediate need, build a retained bench you draw from or have RSM run the function on an ongoing, outcome-based basis.

: A staffing agency sends you a person and bills by the hour. RSM gives you access to a full technical bench—revenue, leases, SEC reporting, controllership and more. You’re buying capability and resiliency, not a seat.

: We help with revenue recognition (ASC 606), leases (ASC 842), credit losses (CECL), business combinations (ASC 805) and other complex areas including derivatives and hedging—plus whatever the FASB issues next. We scope, adopt and document each without disrupting your close.

: Yes. For public companies that don’t need to own everything internally, RSM provides an integrated, risk-managed solution spanning SEC reporting, technical and functional accounting, and controls—so your team can focus on growth.

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RSM Canada LLP is a limited liability partnership that provides public accounting services and is the Canadian member firm of RSM International, a global network of independent assurance, tax and consulting firms. RSM Canada Consulting LP is a limited partnership that provides consulting services and is an affiliate of RSM US LLP, a member firm of RSM International. The member firms of RSM International collaborate to provide services to global clients but are separate and distinct legal entities that cannot obligate each other. Each member firm is responsible only for its own acts and omissions, and not those of any other party. Visit rsmcanada.com/about for more information regarding RSM Canada and RSM International.

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