Crete Professionals Alliance Rebrands as Current to Equip Independent Accounting Firms to Compete at Enterprise Scale

• With over 2,000 employees at almost 30 independent accounting firms across the U.S. and more than $500 million in annual revenue, Current ranks among the top 30 firms and is one of the fastest-growing companies in the U.S. accounting industry.
• Through its partnership with Thrive Holdings and OpenAI, Current launched Tax AI to support accountants with tax preparation, processing 7,000 tax returns this past tax season and decreasing time spent by about a third.
• Current’s partner firms retain equity in their own businesses along with their local branding and leadership, backed by long-term, patient investors.

TAMPA, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Crete Professionals Alliance, a national platform for independent accounting firms, today announced its rebranding as Current. The name reflects the company’s conviction that AI has created the opportunity for local firms to compete with large incumbents and bring Fortune 500-caliber advisory services to Main Street businesses.

“There's an enormous gap in accounting between the transactional service most people get and the strategic partnership reserved for large companies and ultra-wealthy clients,” said Steve Stagner, CEO of Current. “This gap has persisted because the largest accounting firms have had billions of dollars and entire technology departments for decades, while most have not. We’re arming the rebels.”

Current helps firms on its platform grow by giving them the tools, technology, and resources they need to deepen the client relationships they’ve built over time. “Our belief is that the firms that will lead the industry forward are not the largest, but the ones closest to their clients,” Stagner added.

Current provides a shared services platform, purpose-built technology, and national-scale resources. The company also invests in upskilling firms’ employees so they can use the new tools to deliver expanded services. Partner firms retain equity, leadership control, and local branding.

Current’s technology strategy brings together the people building frontier technology with those using it. As an owner-operator of Current, Thrive Holdings and its strategic partner OpenAI have embedded a team of AI engineers and researchers to build tailored AI products in partnership with accountants on Current’s platform, with the goal of freeing up capacity so they can spend more time with clients.

For the 2025 tax year, Current deployed its first Tax AI pilot at partner firms. Participating firms saw an average of 31 percent savings in tax preparation time and up to 98 percent accuracy across the 7,000 returns processed by Tax AI this season.

One accountant who spent 180 hours preparing returns last year spent just 15 this year. She used the time she got back to call every client and walk them through their return. The technology deployed by the shared services platform creates more space for accountants at its firms to work directly with their clients and, by extension, gives them the capacity to serve new clients and provide new services.

Larson Gross, a Current partner firm in Bellingham, Washington, was one of the first to pilot Tax AI. “What started as a test engagement quickly became a much larger opportunity because Current’s team delivered exactly what they promised,” said Kelli Visser, the firm’s Managing Partner.

That blend of speed and high-touch service is what clients say they want. In an independent survey Current commissioned in April, 65% of accounting firm clients said AI would improve their perception of a firm -- but 75% said they still prefer personal interaction over automated experiences. Following the success of the Tax AI pilot, Current is helping the rest of its portfolio adopt the tool.

This kind of sustained investment in technology and people requires a different ownership model than the one dominating professional services today. “The roll-up playbook is often cost extraction on a deadline,” said Stagner. “Current’s holding period is effectively forever, which allows us to make investments in people, in ways many short-hold owners wouldn’t. We’re focused on transformative topline growth.”

Current’s structure, in which partner firms retain ownership and local control, means a partner firm’s growth is its own growth. This creates the right incentive structure to invest in platform-level technology and people development that can compound over decades.

Backed by Thrive Holdings, Current now covers all four corners of the U.S., with the ambition to build a fully integrated, end-to-end advisory platform across Tax, Audit, and CAS.

About Current

Current is building a new kind of accounting firm that preserves local ownership and trusted client relationships, while using shared scale, permanent capital, and purpose-built AI tools to help entrepreneurial firms grow in an industry facing deep-seated tech disruption and continuing talent shortages. By combining Thrive Holdings’ technology expertise with Current founders Jake Sloane’s and Frank Zhang’s support for founder-led businesses, Current serves as a long-term partner to entrepreneurial accounting firm owners who want to retain their brands, leadership, and client relationships, while gaining access to a shared platform of advanced technology, global delivery, and strategic capabilities. Current is an Accounting Today Top 10 Firm for Technology and a 2026 Fastest-Growing Firm.

For more information, visit current.co.