Connect with us

Accounting

50 years in accounting | Accounting Today

Published

on

In 1971, armed with a bachelor’s degree in business administration as well as an MBA with a concentration in accounting, I launched into my first job as a junior accountant at Coopers & Lybrand, a pillar of what were then known as the Big Eight accounting firms. My colleagues and I wore suits and ties to work every day (before ties became less fashionable and workplaces became semi-virtual) and we mainly provided audit and tax services. 

Fast-forward three years to Aug. 2, 1974. “All in the Family” was the No. 1 TV show in America and “Annie’s Song” by John Denver topped the Billboard music charts. That same day I joined my brother at a nascent firm called Amper, Politziner & Mattia — which ultimately became today’s EisnerAmper, and which has been my professional home for 50 years.

As I look back on five decades-plus in the profession, it has been substantially transformed. Firms like EisnerAmper now provide a wide range of accounting and consulting solutions, ranging from traditional audit and tax work to advisory and outsourcing services. This expanded range of solutions includes my own specialty in forensic accounting, a practice I helped build and in which I take great pride. Many firms have created separate entities for their advisory services and audit functions. 

Technology has had a huge impact, accelerating tasks that were once painstakingly manual, freeing up people to do more strategic and value-added work. Our teams now boast more diverse backgrounds and varied experiences. In addition, new organizational structures such as private equity ownership and employee stock ownership plans have begun to take their place alongside the traditional partner model, bringing fresh financial and intellectual capital to help firms evolve and expand.  

What I often tell younger colleagues is that, despite the passage of time, the fundamentals that allow a person to succeed in accounting haven’t changed. This remains, at its core, a service-driven and relationship-based business. Knowledge, professionalism, deep insight into clients’ opportunities and challenges, and a passion to help them reach their goals — those qualities still form the basis for everything we do.

Below are some additional thoughts about how to succeed in accounting, informed by my perspective as a long-time practitioner — and someone who has found great professional and personal satisfaction through my engagements with colleagues and clients.   

1. Invest in relationships. If “location, location, location” is the mantra of the real estate and retail sectors, then “relationships, relationships, relationships” is the accounting equivalent. You need to master the principles of accounting, of course. But it’s the relationships you build — by honing your business acumen and actively listening to your clients — that give others a reason to respect you and value your perspective. 

p1a4vh2u6s1lqh1r37fvcg3i1rkhc.jpg

Showing clients that you care about their businesses is also important. Something as simple as calling a client in the evening when they’re not expecting it shows you’re thinking about them. But it conveys even more—that your ethos is to go over and above, that you are committed to exceeding client expectations.

2. Expand your skillset. New entrants into the profession would be well-advised to continually expand their horizons by developing the specialized capabilities that are increasingly in demand in a fast-changing and complex business environment. For example, in just the past few years, understanding the world of digital currency has become a must-have skill in my specialty of forensic accounting. Where the adage in forensic accounting is “Follow the money,” we must now add to that, “Follow the digital money.” 

Similarly, becoming proficient in areas such as technology, corporate strategy, global commerce, law and regulation, and especially soft skills, among others, is the key to adding value for your clients, your firm, and your own career.

3. Stick with it. The learning curve in accounting can be steep, particularly in your “rookie year,” and may be filled with repetitive tasks, deadline pressures, and not a lot of time devoted to creative problem-solving. But the process provides tremendous training for young employees who are willing to learn the business from the bottom up. 

As I mentioned, the profession has evolved and expanded into a wide range of disciplines, and there are many ways for highly talented, motivated, and dedicated individuals to find their niche in the accounting world — just as I did with forensic accounting.

4. Lead with growth in mind. I’d be remiss if I didn’t also offer a few words of advice for accounting firm leadership. In a profession that must constantly attract and retain talent, it’s crucial to keep employees engaged and encouraged. Mentoring is a big part of that process, along with providing a path for associates to enhance their career opportunities and increase their value to the firm. It’s all about creating a work environment that will attract, cultivate, and support the talented people we need to serve our clients — while growing our business in the process.

As someone who has made accounting my life-long vocation, I have found the field to be very rewarding — professionally and personally. Constantly learning and acquiring new skills, building trusted relationships with clients, mentoring young associates, and contributing to the growth of our firm have been the highlights of my career. The practice of accounting keeps evolving, but the satisfaction to be found from working in this vital profession hasn’t changed in more than 50 years. 

Continue Reading

Accounting

IAASB tweaks standards on working with outside experts

Published

on

The International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board is proposing to tailor some of its standards to align with recent additions to the International Ethics Standards Board for Accountants’ International Code of Ethics for Professional Accountants when it comes to using the work of an external expert.

The proposed narrow-scope amendments involve minor changes to several IAASB standards:

  • ISA 620, Using the Work of an Auditor’s Expert;
  • ISRE 2400 (Revised), Engagements to Review Historical Financial Statements;
  • ISAE 3000 (Revised), Assurance Engagements Other than Audits or Reviews of Historical Financial Information;
  • ISRS 4400 (Revised), Agreed-upon Procedures Engagements.

The IAASB is asking for comments via a digital response template that can be found on the IAASB website by July 24, 2025.

In December 2023, the IESBA approved an exposure draft for proposed revisions to the IESBA’s Code of Ethics related to using the work of an external expert. The proposals included three new sections to the Code of Ethics, including provisions for professional accountants in public practice; professional accountants in business and sustainability assurance practitioners. The IESBA approved the provisions on using the work of an external expert at its December 2024 meeting, establishing an ethical framework to guide accountants and sustainability assurance practitioners in evaluating whether an external expert has the necessary competence, capabilities and objectivity to use their work, as well as provisions on applying the Ethics Code’s conceptual framework when using the work of an outside expert.  

Continue Reading

Accounting

Tariffs will hit low-income Americans harder than richest, report says

Published

on

President Donald Trump’s tariffs would effectively cause a tax increase for low-income families that is more than three times higher than what wealthier Americans would pay, according to an analysis from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

The report from the progressive think tank outlined the outcomes for Americans of all backgrounds if the tariffs currently in effect remain in place next year. Those making $28,600 or less would have to spend 6.2% more of their income due to higher prices, while the richest Americans with income of at least $914,900 are expected to spend 1.7% more. Middle-income families making between $55,100 and $94,100 would pay 5% more of their earnings. 

Trump has imposed the steepest U.S. duties in more than a century, including a 145% tariff on many products from China, a 25% rate on most imports from Canada and Mexico, duties on some sectors such as steel and aluminum and a baseline 10% tariff on the rest of the country’s trading partners. He suspended higher, customized tariffs on most countries for 90 days.

Economists have warned that costs from tariff increases would ultimately be passed on to U.S. consumers. And while prices will rise for everyone, lower-income families are expected to lose a larger portion of their budgets because they tend to spend more of their earnings on goods, including food and other necessities, compared to wealthier individuals.

Food prices could rise by 2.6% in the short run due to tariffs, according to an estimate from the Yale Budget Lab. Among all goods impacted, consumers are expected to face the steepest price hikes for clothing at 64%, the report showed. 

The Yale Budget Lab projected that the tariffs would result in a loss of $4,700 a year on average for American households.

Continue Reading

Accounting

At Schellman, AI reshapes a firm’s staffing needs

Published

on

Artificial intelligence is just getting started in the accounting world, but it is already helping firms like technology specialist Schellman do more things with fewer people, allowing the firm to scale back hiring and reduce headcount in certain areas through natural attrition. 

Schellman CEO Avani Desai said there have definitely been some shifts in headcount at the Top 100 Firm, though she stressed it was nothing dramatic, as it mostly reflects natural attrition combined with being more selective with hiring. She said the firm has already made an internal decision to not reduce headcount in force, as that just indicates they didn’t hire properly the first time. 

“It hasn’t been about reducing roles but evolving how we do work, so there wasn’t one specific date where we ‘started’ the reduction. It’s been more case by case. We’ve held back on refilling certain roles when we saw opportunities to streamline, especially with the use of new technologies like AI,” she said. 

One area where the firm has found such opportunities has been in the testing of certain cybersecurity controls, particularly within the SOC framework. The firm examined all the controls it tests on the service side and asked which ones require human judgment or deep expertise. The answer was a lot of them. But for the ones that don’t, AI algorithms have been able to significantly lighten the load. 

“[If] we don’t refill a role, it’s because the need actually has changed, or the process has improved so significantly [that] the workload is lighter or shared across the smarter system. So that’s what’s happening,” said Desai. 

Outside of client services like SOC control testing and reporting, the firm has found efficiencies in administrative functions as well as certain internal operational processes. On the latter point, Desai noted that Schellman’s engineers, including the chief information officer, have been using AI to help develop code, which means they’re not relying as much on outside expertise on the internal service delivery side of things. There are still people in the development process, but their roles are changing: They’re writing less code, and doing more reviewing of code before it gets pushed into production, saving time and creating efficiencies. 

“The best way for me to say this is, to us, this has been intentional. We paused hiring in a few areas where we saw overlaps, where technology was really working,” said Desai.

However, even in an age awash with AI, Schellman acknowledges there are certain jobs that need a human, at least for now. For example, the firm does assessments for the FedRAMP program, which is needed for cloud service providers to contract with certain government agencies. These assessments, even in the most stable of times, can be long and complex engagements, to say nothing of the less predictable nature of the current government. As such, it does not make as much sense to reduce human staff in this area. 

“The way it is right now for us to do FedRAMP engagements, it’s a very manual process. There’s a lot of back and forth between us and a third party, the government, and we don’t see a lot of overall application or technology help… We’re in the federal space and you can imagine, [with] what’s going on right now, there’s a big changing market condition for clients and their pricing pressure,” said Desai. 

As Schellman reduces staff levels in some places, it is increasing them in others. Desai said the firm is actively hiring in certain areas. In particular, it’s adding staff in technical cybersecurity (e.g., penetration testers), the aforementioned FedRAMP engagements, AI assessment (in line with recently becoming an ISO 42001 certification body) and in some client-facing roles like marketing and sales. 

“So, to me, this isn’t about doing more with less … It’s about doing more of the right things with the right people,” said Desai. 

While these moves have resulted in savings, she said that was never really the point, so whatever the firm has saved from staffing efficiencies it has reinvested in its tech stack to build its service line further. When asked for an example, she said the firm would like to focus more on penetration testing by building a SaaS tool for it. While Schellman has a proof of concept developed, she noted it would take a lot of money and time to deploy a full solution — both of which the firm now has more of because of its efficiency moves. 

“What is the ‘why’ behind these decisions? The ‘why’ for us isn’t what I think you traditionally see, which is ‘We need to get profitability high. We need to have less people do more things.’ That’s not what it is like,” said Desai. “I want to be able to focus on quality. And the only way I think I can focus on quality is if my people are not focusing on things that don’t matter … I feel like I’m in a much better place because the smart people that I’ve hired are working on the riskiest and most complicated things.”

Continue Reading

Trending