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Back office support for the accounting firm defines you and your firm. Are you servicing clients who are part of the past, or are you servicing clients living into the future? Remember the new generation of business owners has never owned a filing cabinet, fax machine, landline, printer and turntables (only if they are into retro music!).

MORE: Yes, You Can Be an Outsourcer | How Back Office Support Adds Value | AI Is Not Your Enemy
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The diagram above is how I think about “advisory services.” The traditional role of an accountant has been as steward and operator. If you’re happy there, then that’s OK, this post will help you streamline your processes and technology to deliver these services more efficiently and profitably. And if you want to move into higher valued (and higher paying!) work and play a role in transforming your clients’ businesses, and play the role of strategist and catalyst, then we’ll show you how.
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Three Fundamental Questions to Ask in Audit

July 24, 2023

By Alan Anderson

Are you teaching your team the real work or just the compliance work?

By Alan Anderson, CPA
Transforming Audit for the Future

Instant download:
“The New Manifesto for Accountants.“

When I started in accounting, we wrote audit programs out by hand, and we thought about what it was we needed to do to carry out our audit procedures.

And then, the firm got a copy machine. That started the arts and crafts period of public accounting.

MORE: The Big Issues in Audit: Frustration, Inconsistency and Technology | Five Ways to Increase Audit Efficiency | Early Adopters Gain an Edge in Audit | Talent Retention: Five Tips for an Audit Adjustment | Six Benefits of an Internal Audit | The Ten Financial Controls That’ll Make You a Hero | Five Cash Reports You Can’t Live Without | When an Audit Is a Great Thing
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Because we were going to do the same as last year, every year we would make a copy of last year’s hand-written audit program, cut out the sign-offs, tape that on a new page, make sure to draw the lines for the sign-offs, and then we’d make a copy of that. Then we had our audit program for the new year.

How Tax Practitioners Became Cybersecurity Risks

July 23, 2023

By Donny Shimamoto

Tax professionals are a hacker’s dream.

By Donny Shimamoto, CPA, CITP, CGMA
On Cybersecurity for Accountants
Center for Accounting Transformation

In 2015 the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) held its first Security Summit[i]. By creating a public-private partnership via the summit, the IRS is seeking to protect more taxpayers and more tax dollars from tax-related identity theft.

MORE: How Hacker-Proof is Your Firm? | Donny Shimamoto: Future Firm Growth Requires a Mindshift | AI, OCR, NLP & CPAs: Oh My! | Accounting Nerds, Unlock Your Super Powers | Early Adopters Gain an Edge in Audit | Dustin Wheeler: For Serious CAS Success, Hire Tech Teams | CSR for CPAs: The Missing Ingredient | Donny Shimamoto Explains How ‘Agile’ Applies to CPA Firms | Staff Retention for Remote Workers | Why the Future is in Risk Advisory | Ready for Non-CPA “CPA” Firms?
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Partners in the summit included the IRS, state tax agencies and the private sector tax industry—for example, financial institutions, cybersecurity practitioners and tax practitioners.

The summit brought together people from the full value chain of tax compliance. Taxpayers submit information to tax practitioners, who prepare the returns and submit them to the tax authorities.