Head to head
EY vs RSM
Named side by side in 4 fractional CFO and outsourced accounting firms questions, and the sample does not separate them on the balance of results.
EY and RSM were named in 4 fractional CFO and outsourced accounting firms questions measured by The Shortlist Report over 1432 AI responses: EY in 15.7% of responses and RSM in 16.8%, with neither ahead of the other on more questions than the reverse.
How EY and RSM differ
This data does not establish which firm is better. EY’s strongest result relative to RSM was on “Who provides interim finance leadership at short notice?” (18.0% versus 9.2%), while RSM’s strongest result relative to EY was on “Who can implement NetSuite or a real ERP for a growing company?” (23.9% versus 13.2%).
Those are the clearest differences in the shared sample. They measure which firm AI assistants surfaced more often for each buyer question, not service quality or client results.
Question by question
| Question | EY | RSM | Ahead |
|---|---|---|---|
| Which outsourced firms handle business tax and compliance?345 responses | 21.2% | 21.2% | Same tier — too close to call |
| Who can implement NetSuite or a real ERP for a growing company?380 responses | 13.2% | 23.9% | RSM |
| Who provides interim finance leadership at short notice?327 responses | 18.0% | 9.2% | EY |
| Which fractional CFOs help prepare a company for fundraising?380 responses | 11.3% | 12.4% | Same tier — too close to call |
How to read this
Share is the percentage of sampled ChatGPT responses to a question that named the firm at all — a measure of visibility, not of the work. A capable firm little has been written about will score low, which is a fact about how often it gets named and not a verdict on whether to hire it.
"Too close to call" is a result, not a gap in the data. Firms are grouped into tiers holding every firm the sample cannot statistically separate from that tier's leader, so two firms in one tier are reported as level however their percentages happen to fall. On 2 of these 4 questions that is what the measurement supports, and saying otherwise would be inventing precision.
Nothing here is our judgement of who is good. It is a count of who gets named. Both firms are measured over the same questions and the same 1432 responses, so neither is being scored on a sample the other did not face.
The full picture on each
- Everything measured about EYImplements SAP, Oracle, and Microsoft ERPs for global organizations; provides transformation advisory and managed services.
- Everything measured about RSMMid-market ERP advisory and implementation across NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics, Sage, and Acumatica.