AUDIT & ASSURANCE

It’s Time for a New CPA Career Track

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How are you assessing your team?

By Alan Anderson, CPA
Transforming Audit for the Future

I’m fortunate to have two great former auditors working with me in Accountability Plus – my son Tyler Anderson and Corey Schmidt, who met working together as auditors. But that firm – like most firms – was focused on total hours worked and realization rates, and had no tracks for auditors who didn’t fit in the normal staff to senior to supervisor to manager to partner progression.

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As Corey told me, “Tyler and I were good with workflow management and managing processes, and that’s what our firm should have had us focus on.” Corey demonstrated that when he was assigned the employee benefit plan practice at that firm, and through his leadership, improved fee realization from 60 percent to 100 percent.

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What Empowerment Does for Your Firm

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two men talking across a table, one holding a sheet of paper, window and brick wall in background

Ten ways to get started.

By Alan Anderson, CPA
Transforming Audit for the Future

Empowerment seems like it would be the easiest attribute to build up in a firm, but it’s actually one of the hardest. Firms go to these Kumbaya events on leadership and trusting your team, but then when they go back to the office the next day, nothing has changed.

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Empowerment is last in my book because it’s the furthest from what clients value most. Clients look at What’s In It For Me – they value what’s relevant to them. But empowerment is the most important attribute in our framework. It’s the key to unlocking the power of your team.
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Accountants Race to Tame AI before AI Outruns the Practice

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Only 1 in 5 firms has an AI strategy, leaving most firms with varying degrees of chaos.

Barely three years since ChatGPT launched, 98% of accountants are using AI regularly. 88% use it in client service.

By CPA Trendlines Research

With artificial intelligence now firmly embedded in the daily life of tax and accounting firms, the profession’s next test is whether practitioners can learn to run AI before AI outruns the practice.

A new crop of research studies and benchmarking surveys suggests firms have yet to fully govern the tools, price the work, train the staff and protect client trust under AI regimes. Reports from the AICPA, Karbon, CPA.com, Blue J, Intuit Firm of the Future, KPMG, Personiv, the ACCA, Rightworks, Business.com and Citrin Cooperman show AI adoption is no longer in doubt. Coping with it is.

MORE Artificial intelligence | Supkis Cheek: Most Accountants Are Missing This AI Shift | |Private Equity’s Big Bet Faces an AI Shake-Up | Doug Slaybaugh: How to Define “Values in Motion” | At ENGAGE 2026, a Profession Richer and Less Certain Than Ever. | Jen Cryder: From Membership Model to Market Maker | Big 4 Transparency | Three Tech Priorities with Rapid ROI | The Google Playbook for Young Accountants | AI Can Fix Your Workflow—or Break It in Seconds |

Karbon says 98% of accounting professionals use AI, up 15 percentage points from last year, with 55% using it several times a day and 74% using it daily or more often.

Intuit says 88% of accounting professionals used AI for at least one client service in the last 12 months, and 86% used AI for at least one firm operation. Some 46% of firms are investing in AI training, 21% have an AI policy, and 21% have an AI strategy. Intuit says 30% describe AI as embedded by default in daily work, while 54% use it only when it seems useful.

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Six Skills That Every Auditor Needs

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Empowerment is for the whole organization, not just the rookies.

By Alan Anderson, CPA
Transforming Audit for the Future

Empowerment means that teams feel like they have ownership over the outcome, outputs and the process of what they are doing. They need to feel it’s OK to try doing things differently and even to make a mistake – and learn from it. The quality of everyone’s work improves when they have the confidence to present new ideas, and to push back when they think there’s a better way to do something. And empowerment delivers results – especially when it is partnered with owned accountability.

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Unfortunately, most of us have a better idea of what an empowered team and empowering managers do not look like than what they do look like. Let’s look at a few of the ones you may have seen in your time working.
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Tyler Anderson: Audit Transformation Is a Mindset, Not a Destination | The Disruptors

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“Audit” and “transformation” shouldn’t contradict each other.

The complete video episode, with commentary and transcript, is first available exclusively to PRO Members | Go PRO here
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The Disruptors
With Liz Farr
For CPA Trendlines

The words “audit” and “transformation” don’t often appear together. Some might say they contradict each other. But for Tyler Anderson, Director of A&A Innovation at Accountability Plus, audit transformation is something that has been needed for many years.

MORE Tyler Anderson on Re-Inventing Accounting

MORE DISRUPTORS Candy Bellau: The $350 Pricing Mistake that Nearly Broke this Boutique Firm | The Disruptors | Poe: What P.E. Really Wants from Firms | The Disruptors  | Blake Oliver: Build a Biz that Runs Without You | Daiber: Use Succession as a Growth Strategy | Cannon: Busy Season is Self-Inflicted | Carroll: When One Person Can Break the Firm | Rampe: Build a Roadmap Even When the Road’s Not There | Chang: Killing SALY, One Agent at a Time |

MORE CPA Trendlines Streaming Network

Anderson, along with his colleagues Corey Schmidt and Alan Anderson from Accountability Plus, served as subject matter experts for the 2025 Audit Benchmark Survey conducted by CPA.com, which sought to understand the current state of audit transformation. The CPA.com team included Emily Remington (Director of Audit Product Management), Amy Bridges (Senior Manager of Practice Development), and survey methodologist Katherine Blackburn. The resulting report, The Audit Transformation Report, was released at Digital CPA in December 2025. Liz Farr, host of The Disruptors, served as the report writer. 

Audit transformation is often misunderstood as a destination or a future state reserved for large firms with deep pockets and advanced technology. But according to Anderson, transformation is far more practical and accessible. “I see it as the process, not really like it’s an end state or anything, but it’s really the evolution of audit,” he explains.    READ MORE →