AUDIT & ASSURANCE

Higher Wages, Fewer Jobs: A New Era for CPA Staffing

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AI and India Replace U.S. Staff in CPA Industry Shakeup.

The great restructuring: After the pandemic rebound, hiring gradually slows, finally going negative this year.

By CPA Trendlines Research

The nation’s tax and accounting firms are cutting job rosters even as they’re aggressively raising wages, signifying a structural retrenchment redefining how firms produce and deliver services, according to a new study by CPA Trendlines Research.

MORE Tax and Accounting Wages Hit Record Highs | Show Us the Money! Accountants Are Making More | Chris Vanover: Audit, Now with 100% Less Misery | The Disruptors | Gen AI in Accounting: Epic Transformation, or Overheated Hype? | AI Will Steal Your Job. And That’s a Good Thing | Accounting ARC | Steve Evans: Why Traditional Hiring Methods Fail | The Disruptors

U.S. firms are scaling back staff-level roles, favoring automation and offshore operations. Generative AI and cloud platforms now perform tasks once handled by entry-level staff, including reconciliations, bookkeeping, and basic tax prep. Simultaneously, more firms are offloading transactional services to overseas teams, particularly in India, in response to domestic labor shortages and cost containment efforts.

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Six Skills That Every Auditor Needs

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man intently listening to woman in office

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.

MORE by Alan Anderson
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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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Is Your Staff Truly Empowered?

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Three people having discussion at table over document and water glasses

This doesn’t overlook accountability. Quite the opposite.

By Alan Anderson, CPA
Transforming Audit for the Future

I don’t know if it was luck or by design, but when I started out at McGladrey, I landed on a team that was already doing the kinds of innovative work that I coach teams today to try out. I’ve never been a status quo type of person, so that resonated with me. I was always trying to find a better way to do things.

In my first six months, we were already working with data, using the primitive data software tools available back then, or, more likely, that we built ourselves. I was in an environment that created the art of what’s possible. We were willing to try new things. I didn’t have mentors or co-workers who would tell me “That’s not the way we do it here,” so I was able to actually do the things I thought about.

MORE by Alan Anderson
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Audit Has Become an Exercise in Filling Out Forms

Back then, at the beginning of my career, we weren’t under fee or time pressure. We were encouraged to talk to the client, to ask questions and to understand their business. But as fixed fee and fee pressures started to grow, the mindset of audit became focused on getting the work done quickly, not on providing insights or value to the clients. The empowerment mindset that I got from my team in those early days began to fade.
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Reimagine What Audit Is … and What Will Be Audited

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hand below light bulb

Artificial intelligence and other technologies challenge us to understand what these tools can tell us.

By Alan Anderson, CPA
Transforming Audit for the Future

“The only thing we know about the future is that it will be different.” – Peter Drucker

A big challenge for firms has always been change management. We’re all used to doing our work the way we’ve done it for years. Many auditors learned to audit by looking at last year’s workpapers and repeating that approach, but with this year’s numbers. So when I tell groups of auditors that the way we’ve been auditing since the dawn of time will have to change, there’s pushback.

MORE by Alan Anderson
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Change is hard. No one wants to change unless that change will bring significant, measurable results. Implementing just one or two of the ideas I have discussed in my posts can be uncomfortable and unfamiliar. Innovation takes most auditors way outside their comfort zone. But change is also essential, unless we’re all willing to see our profession go the way of the dinosaur.
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