Growth remains a goal for The Bonadio Group

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From the outside looking in, the growth goal laid out within The Bonadio Group’s five-year strategic plan would appear to be quite ambitious.

“It is quite ambitious from the inside looking out, too,” CEO Bruce Zicari admitted.

Still, two years into that five-year plan — launched in 2019 not long after Zicari took over as CEO — the firm is well on its way to hitting its target of $225 million in annual revenue by 2024.

Organic growth of 9 percent each of the past two years in its core sectors of accounting and consulting, carefully pinpointed acquisitions, widening reliance on its outsourced accounting practice and client gains within its cybersecurity and IT consulting practice are contributing to increases in revenue.

“Growth allows you to stay competitive,” Zicari said. “When you grow, you provide tremendous opportunity to all of your people, you provide more in-depth resources to all of your clients and you’re able to keep up with technology and change within the industry.”

Cybersecurity services are likely to continue to gain traction. Nothing is of greater concern to accounting firms than protecting data and client privacy.

“That’s the one thing CPA firms worry about most, keeping their information safe and secure,” Zicari said. “We’ve built a world-class practice, we’ve built some phenomenal resources, that can compete with anyone on a national basis.”

Who would know more about the needs of an accounting and consulting firm than an accounting and consulting firm?

“When we go to pitch our services, we have credibility,” Zicari said. “They’ve heard of us, they know us and we certainly understand their business because we’re in the business.”

The firm ranked No. 50 on the 2021 IPA Top 400 Public Accounting Firms list with revenue of $121,661,452. The Bonadio Group also was No. 1 on the list of top CPA firms in the Rochester Business Journal’s 2021 Book of Lists and a winner in the RBJ’s Reader Rankings the past two years.

The Bonadio Group expanded its presence in New York City last week with what it termed a merger by bringing the Manhattan firm of Ganer + Ganer into the fold. The transaction, which  becomes final on Nov. 1, will bring on board 21 employees and boost the Bonadio workforce to over 800.

The deal actually had been under discussion since January of 2020.

“Over the last several years we’ve been looking for a merger opportunity,” Zicari said. “We really liked them and we kept talking and we were ready to do a merger last fall but with COVID, we decided to wait.

“The finance and accounting expertise of the Ganer + Ganer team will be hugely beneficial to our firm, and we’re extremely excited to expand our New York metro presence to continue offering the best-in-class professional services to all of our clients.”

Ganer + Ganer was founded in 1974, four years before The Bonadio Group launched in Rochester.

After a string of eight acquisitions between 2012 and 2017 — including four in 2013 — this was the first new firm to join The Bonadio Group in four years.

Besides the headquarters in Pittsford, The Bonadio Group has offices across New York in Albany, Batavia, Buffalo, East Aurora, Syracuse, Utica and New York City, as well as in Dallas and Rutland, Vt.

[email protected] / (585) 653-4020