Despite falling revenue for the first time at the nation's top 100 accounting firms, the decline wasn't so drastic as to shake the rankings among the Big Four.
Deloitte nabbed the No. 1 spot again, followed by Ernst & Young, PricewaterhouseCoopers and KPMG, respectively, according to the trade magazine Accounting Today's 2010 rankings of the top 100 firms, a list based on annual net revenue earned in the U.S.
All of the firms swam in the same troubled waters of the recession. Revenues of the top 100 firms were hurt by 2.85% last year, the first drop since the magazine formulated the list in 1994.
Among the Big Four, KPMG took the biggest hit with revenue falling 10.6% to $5.07 billion, nearly half of the $10.7 billion first place Deloitte pulled in last year.
Revenue wasn't the only thing that shrank -- staff levels fell almost across the board. E&Y shed the most workers, decreasing by 5.88% to 25,600 last year. Perhaps some surfaced at PwC, the only Big Four to add headcount. Its workforce grew 2.47% to 31,681.