improvetheworld.net<\/a> \n<\/em><\/p>\nthe center for accounting transformation\u2019s public accounting advisory board met last quarter to discuss some of the biggest issues facing the public accounting industry.<\/p>\n
the strongest themes revealed during the meeting is that there simply aren\u2019t enough accountants to handle the growing workloads; innovation and automation must be implemented faster to streamline processes and free up accountants to increase advisory services; and time, as the scarcest of resources, is the primary commodity for any professional, but is especially true for accountants.<\/p>\n
during the discussion, board members considered causes and possible solutions, which firms can use to guide several strategic decisions in 2022.<\/p>\n
providing a diverse view of public accounting<\/strong><\/p>\nthe center for accounting transformation created its public accounting advisory board to counsel on strategic direction, services, and program planning. \u00a0\u201cwe recognize the value and importance of engaging a variety of perspectives on the accounting industry in discussing and addressing issues facing accounting firms. this advisory board brings together a collective of diverse experience, innovation, and insight that will help align the efforts of the center to complement and elevate the work being done by other industry associations, consultants, and vendors,\u201d said donny shimamoto, cpa, citp, cgma,\u00a0 founder and managing director of intraprisetechknowlogies, a cpa firm focused on organizational development and innovation management for small businesses, middle-market organizations, and nonprofits. shimamoto, who also formed the center, added, \u201cas a group that prides itself on embracing transformation, the center created this advisory board with innovative leaders within the profession who enable us to seize the opportunities and nurture the seeds of transformation in collaboration with the next generation of accounting, technology, and association leaders.\u201d<\/p>\n
the center\u2019s public accounting advisory board members include:<\/p>\n
\nsona akmakjian, cpa; senior director, global accounting strategic partnerships, avalara<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\na cpa with 29 years of transactional tax services and automation experience, akmakjian is recognized for her deep industry expertise.<\/p>\n
\nvictor a. amaya, cpa; director of partner fulfillment, botkeeper <\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\namaya has served as chair of the board for the colorado state society of cpas, as a member of the pcps executive committee with the aicpa, and is a current member of the aicpa council.<\/p>\n
\njessica cormier, cpa; vice president of talent development, allinial global<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\na 2014 graduate of the aicpa leadership academy, cormier has more than 17 years of experience in business leadership, financial management, and public accounting. she is a 2017 recipient of the louisiana society of cpas\u2019 women to watch emerging leader award.<\/p>\n
\nsarah elliott, cpa; co-founder and principal, intend2lead <\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\nelliott has been recognized as one of the most powerful women in accounting by the aicpa and cpa practice advisor for the past four years and as one of the top 50 women in accounting by practice ignition.<\/p>\n
\nkari hipsak, cpa, cgma; senior manager, firm services team, aicpa<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\nhipsak leads pcps resource creation for accounting and auditing emerging issues, manages pcps it resource development, including cybersecurity, oversees the g400 initiative, and maintains the aicpa alliance with firm associations and networks.<\/p>\n
\nmike maksymiw, cpa, cgma, msa; executive director, firm foundation, aprio<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\ngrowing up in a sole practitioner household, maksymiw worked for 16 years at 3-5 partner firms, and knows firsthand the knowledge and wisdom gained from working in an environment where you see everything about a client, from the shoebox through the financial statements.<\/p>\n
\njennifer scott, founder, ceo and chief people officer, hireeffect<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\nscott\u2019s specialties include employing conscious business and positive leadership tools to improve employee engagement and retention and helping companies create and sustain the kind of culture that attracts top talent.<\/p>\n
staffing is more than just a number-of-people issue<\/strong> \naccountants have long battled the staffing issue, and there doesn\u2019t appear to be any relief in sight.<\/p>\n\u201cthe way that the market looks, we\u2019re not going to have enough talent to do the work that we have if we don\u2019t change how we do the work,\u201d maksymiw said. \u201cit\u2019s not a five-year or 10-year problem, it\u2019s from now on, there will always be more work than people. and the way that\u2019s been historically solved is with technology and automation.\u201d<\/p>\n
he continued, \u201cthe best analogy i heard was farming used to be 40% of the workforce. and now it\u2019s 1%. but we produce 20 times more food.\u201d<\/p>\n
weston agreed, saying, \u201cthe thing we hear, year over year–and we haven\u2019t been able to solve–is staffing.\u201d<\/p>\n
one of the staffing issues also recognized was a shift in the values of many professionals.<\/p>\n
explaining the typical work cycle in public tax firms, weston explained, \u201c[firms] literally would say, \u2018starting this week, you\u2019re mandatory 55 hours,\u2019 then two weeks later, you\u2019re mandatory 65, then you\u2019re mandatory 65 plus all day saturday. you didn\u2019t push back. you didn\u2019t say, \u201ci need work-life balance.\u201d<\/p>\n
scott added, \u201cwe\u2019ve been doing a lot of talking about the great resignation. the way we\u2019re talking to our clients about looking at it is that it\u2019s a great recruitment opportunity for firms who are offering work-life balance, part time jobs for the firms that can do job sharing situations so that stay-at-home moms who used to be business professionals can come and do the work until 2:30 in the afternoon and go be with their kids.\u201d<\/p>\n
pointing out it could be an overall culture concern, amaya said, \u201cwhat are the values that they\u2019re living, how they perform, and how we set it up in a totally different manner,\u201d he explained, \u201cso that it actually drives the ability for people to want to work there and stay there, instead of finding a reason to be there for three or four years and then get out because the possibility of going somewhere else is better.\u201d<\/p>\n
scott noted that a culture happens whether you want it to or not. \u201cyou can state what your values are, but that doesn\u2019t mean that\u2019s what your people experience. if you don\u2019t live those values, if you don\u2019t walk those values, if you don\u2019t make business decisions based on those values, they\u2019re a sign on the wall and they\u2019re absolutely meaningless.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201chow about retirees,\u201d weston asked, adding another consideration. \u201cthey have this knowledge. they have these years of expertise. tap into them.\u201d<\/p>\n
accountant burnout is reaching a breaking point<\/strong><\/p>\nduring discussions around digital transformation and automation, bill penczak, chief transformation officer for the center inquired if there was a pain point that is an impetus for adoption or change. scott quickly responded, \u201cthey can\u2019t handle it anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n
citing that accountants are either out of time or they\u2019ve recognized that they\u2019re not spending enough time with their clients, scott continued by sharing that “they\u2019re spending too much time in the back office, trying to put together their business, trying to keep it afloat, especially over the last two years. they recognize that they need to be back in front of their customers and in front of their employees, in front of whoever their stakeholders are and not stuck behind these very manual, very time-consuming processes.\u201d<\/p>\n
commenting on her experiences, alisa nishimoto, pmp, director of accounting firm services for intraprisetechknowlogies, llc, acknowledged that the lack of automation is there and “they come to us because they either have too many things in place that are disconnected, and there\u2019s a lack of integration, and they\u2019re looking for a better solution. they come to us because they want to streamline their processes better.\u201d<\/p>\n
in summary, penczak concluded that \u201csomebody will get to a breaking point, perhaps, and say, \u2018okay, we really need to fix this for fill-in-the-blank next busy season or before the end of the year or whatever else, someone will experience a pain point that really is the straw that breaks the camel\u2019s back.\u201d<\/p>\n
transformation is survival<\/strong><\/p>\nadvisory board members agreed that technology adoption is no longer an option, but a necessity. calling it \u201csurvival,\u201d cormier said, \u201ci don\u2019t think we need to spend any time trying to convince somebody to transform because the ones who are already thinking about it, we just need to assist them, lay out steps and bring together groups that can collaborate.\u201d<\/p>\n
maksymiw added that the biggest issue he sees is that firms know they need to embrace and adopt automation to curb the attrition affects, but that firm managers don\u2019t seem to have clear instructions for implementation or time to investigate all options to determine the best fit for their teams, a suggestion other advisory board members echoed.<\/p>\n
another issue discussed was market-driven change, based on client base.<\/p>\n
akmakijian thinks that there are certain industries that are forcing accountants to adopt technology more than others. \u201cfor example, in the sales and use tax world, with the pandemic, everything was shut down and everyone looked to e-commerce. and they sold everything everywhere, instead of just locally through their brick-and-mortar store, creating more reporting responsibility, and they couldn\u2019t do it internally. they went to their accountants and their accountants, without technology, couldn\u2019t meet the need.\u201d<\/p>\n
the advisory board also discussed another way firms could transform: advisory services.<\/p>\n
amaya shared that he believes for a majority of those involved with compliance work, it\u2019s harder for them to make that shift. \u201cthey know what it is, but they don\u2019t know how to even get there.\u201d<\/p>\n
weston agreed, saying, \u201cthey think it\u2019s them being social and helpful with their clients and they don\u2019t realize that social, helpful conversational advice is advice that took them years to be able to give quickly and easily. and it\u2019s hard for them to think about charging for something that they\u2019ve been giving away.\u201d<\/p>\n
hipsak noted that the past year has served as a prime example of \u201cno one feeling like they\u2019ve had time to think of that higher level, but they\u2019ve been doing just that. they\u2019ve jumped into ppp. they\u2019ve jumped into erc. firms have jumped into all these new opportunities, and some jumped on board with charging for it right away. some firms feel like they gave away a bunch of their services for free because they didn\u2019t harness the opportunity. they thought they were helping their clients \u2013 which, they were, but again, you\u2019re a service.\u201d<\/p>\n
enabling accounting firm transformation<\/strong><\/p>\nthe center for accounting transformation will be using the results of the advisory board meeting to identify resources to help accounting firms through their transformation journey. summarizing, penczak said, \u201cit kind of sets the future to say, if you want to be a different kind of firm and you want to be in business 10 years from now, this is the kind of change you have to go through, and we\u2019re going to walk you through it.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
planning today for still being in business 10 years from now.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":47521,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1363,5,3120,2301,2306],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-outlook","category-pro-member-exclusive","category-talent","category-tech-and-fintech"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\ntop issues for 2022: talent, time, and transformation - 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n