Number of the Day: $839,687

Equity partner compensation at the top 100 accounting firms (excluding the Big Four) was $839,687 in 2023, up from $620,936 in 2019, according to data from INSIDE Public Accounting (IPA).

Ahead of releasing its top 500 accounting firm rankings for 2024 and new analysis of the top 100 firms next month, IPA published stats showing how much staff and partner compensation has risen in the past four to five years.

“Staff are getting paid 15.7% more than in 2020, while partner compensation increased by 29.2% over that time. Staff are beginning to catch up to the big gains the partners made at the beginning of COVID,” Chelsea Summers, IPA’s director of survey operations, said last year.

The following information from IPA represents the trim average, or the average of 90% of the numbers from the middle of the data set, the publication said:

Equity partner compensation was $839,687 last year, up from $620,936 in 2019.
Non-equity partner compensation was $307,579 in 2023 versus $275,318 in 2019.
Professional staff compensation (excluding partners) was $104,370 last year, up from $90,149 in 2019.
Managing partner compensation averaged $1,726,853 in 2023, significantly higher than the $1,247,266 average in 2019.

Data released by IPA in 2013 showed that the average pay for professional staff was $80,448, an increase of 3.1% from 2012, while average equity partner compensation at the top accounting firms totaled $415,483. A year later, IPA said the average pay for professional staff in 2014 decreased to $76,657, while average equity partner compensation increased to $443,502.