Accounting
Fieldguide launches AI agent to automate audit testing
Advisory and audit solutions provider
Specifically, the new Audit Testing Agent automates the process of matching client evidence to samples, extracting and validating key data from documents, and annotating and documenting test results. The Audit Testing Agent supports a wide variety of document-based audit tests, including revenue cut-off, expense verification, unrecorded liability testing, and fixed asset additions.
It is being rolled out as an enhanced feature of Fieldguide’s existing audit platform, meaning current Fieldguide customers can now access its capabilities. Fieldguide CEO Jin Chang, in an interview, described the new offering as a true end-to-end audit solution that encompasses the entire engagement lifecycle. He contrasted it with similar products in the market, which he said are more like point solutions that handle only one or two steps in the process or are meant for very specific applications like invoice testing.
“When we talk about agents, we think of agents as a more holistic, multistep workflow approach,” he said. “Our argument is actually that many solutions in the market are not quite agentic. They’re more [like the] AI workflows that Fieldguide has already been building.”
He noted that many solutions will surface discrepancies and possibly make suggestions for manual adjustment. In contrast, he said, Fieldguide’s new AI will go beyond these steps and do things like suggest follow-up questions to clients, draft the communication, evaluate the client response, perform a quality check on the new evidence provided by them, and “connect the dots back to what the auditor is testing for.”
“By the time the response gets back to the audit team, Fieldguide AI has already pre-tested for quality after evidence and responses come back [to them]. Our agents will test again, document the results, and ultimately the results that are documented flow all the way through to the end financial statement reports,” said Chang.
He noted that this approach still retains a human in the loop philosophy, which means it’s not actually initiating the client communications with no supervision. While theoretically it could act much more on its own, he said CPA firms are not yet comfortable with that level of independent action from their tools. He contrasted this with other industries, such as software development, where agents are being built with a significantly higher degree of autonomy. Still, this does not mean the AI sits idle waiting for the human to interact with it. Even with this more controlled approach, the agents are still performing some tasks independently.
“Fieldguide field agents can be autonomous at a very extreme end,” said Chang. “However we need to make sure to meet CPA firms where they are in their AI transformation journey. … What we found is that current levels of comfort in the industry [necessitates] a human in the loop approach where our agents are suggesting next steps and doing proactive analysis. For example when the client uploads evidence, our agents are [performing this analysis without] waiting for the auditor to check. I would say we are about halfway in the journey of more full autonomy, mostly because the level of comfort in the industry is at this current place.”
Understanding that audit methodologies can vary greatly, the solution sports a high level of customization at multiple levels. This includes the ability for users to set their own materiality thresholds along with their own risk preferences and other best practices. Once set, the AI will use reinforcement learning to better understand how the auditor does things and match itself to their habits.
“We have customization at every level: firm, practice, partner and down to per engagement preferences too, because we found that even with the same partner, two different clients, he or she may prefer a different way of doing things too,” said Chang. “So what we have incorporated is reinforcement learning at the engagement level, at the audit level, so that the client specific preferences continue on a year to year basis.”
Chang said he is “very confident” in the quality of the AI’s outputs, saying they had to design with quality in mind: while consistent accuracy is important for everyone, it is “non-negotiable” for audit professionals. This quality is at least partially driven by what he said was a proprietary evaluation framework that generally involves a series of specialized LLMs monitoring the outputs of the primary LLM for errors and exceptions it may have missed. Using this framework as a check on accuracy, Chang said the AI has been able to not only perform tests much faster than humans, but it has also been able to find errors that human teams made in previous audits.
“Fieldguide’s goal is to enhance the quality of audits. We want to help CPA firm partners sleep better at night too, knowing that their audit quality is market leading, not just [producing] efficiencies at the margins. We take a lot of pride in the quality of our AI outputs. We actually would love to see other AI players in the space care more about quality, not just speed. We think that’s just better for the market,” he said.
While some developers take the approach of having the LLM simply interpret and communicate the calculations made by more deterministic AIs, Fieldguide has the LLMs themselves doing the work, with the specific task matched to the model best equipped to perform it. By giving them access to the right tools, said Chang, LLMs can carry out a wide variety of tasks on their own.
“Based on our evaluations, certain LLMs tend to be better at math and other very deterministic use cases, whereas other LLMs are better at creativity or understanding documents or images and so on. I will note that anyone who makes blanket statements around LLMs not being good at one particular thing, I would argue, is not doing a proper evaluation across other LLMs,” he said.
In general, client data is encrypted and stored in Fieldguide’s secure AWS environment. In some cases, when working with very large firms, they will work through their own cloud infrastructure instead, but Chang noted this is more of a premium enterprise service for international firms with global mandates.
Chang added that Fieldguide is ISO 27001 certified, completes annual SOC 2 reports, and will soon be ISO 42001 certified as well.
He estimated that, for a mid-sized firm of 100 professionals, implementation time would be between three to four weeks; for a larger firm it might be between three to nine months, depending on the scale of the rollout.
Pricing is generally per-engagement, as the intention is to help CPA firms be more efficient. He argued that per-seat pricing disincentivizes efficiency, as the vendor makes more money the more people use the product. The purpose of this new solution, said Chang, is to enable firms to grow more without having to hire more, a goal that would be at odds with a per-seat pricing plan.
“A lot of CPA firms who’ve been using our generative AI features the last several years are now reaching a point where they could use another step change in human productivity and quality. … The firms upgrading to our Field Agent solution can grow the top line without necessarily growing headcount one to one,” he said. “Our goal is to help CPA firms create nonlinear growth with revenue compared to headcount.”
Jody Padar, an author and speaker known as “The Radical CPA,” and Katie Tolin, a growth strategist for CPAs, together launched a training and technology platform called XcelLabs.
XcelLabs provides solutions to help accountants use artificial technology fluently and strategically. The Pennsylvania Institute of CPAs and CPA Crossings joined with Padar and Tolin as strategic partners and investors.
“To reinvent the profession, we must start by training the professional who can then transform their firms,” Padar said in a statement. “By equipping people with data and insights that help them see things differently, they can provide better advice to their clients and firm.”
The platform includes XcelLabs Academy, a series of educational online courses on the basics of AI, being a better advisor, leadership and practice management; Navi, a proprietary tool that uses AI to help accountants turn unstructured data like emails, phone calls and meetings into insights; and training and consulting services. These offerings are currently in beta testing.
“Accountants know they need to be more advisory, but not everyone can figure out how to do it,” Tolin said in a statement. “Couple that with the fact that AI will be doing a lot of the lower-level work accountants do today, and we need to create that next level advisor now. By showing accountants how to unlock patterns in their actions and turn client conversations into emotionally intelligent advice, we can create the accounting professional of the future.”
“AI is transforming how CPAs work, and XcelLabs is focused on helping the profession evolve with it,” PICPA CEO Jennifer Cryder said in a statement. “At PICPA, we’re proud to support a mission that aligns so closely with ours: empowering firms to use AI not just for efficiency, but to drive growth, value and long-term relevance.”
The accountant the world urgently needs has evolved far beyond the traditional role we recognized just a few years ago.
The transformation of the accounting profession is not merely an anticipated change; it is a pressing reality that is currently shaping business decisions, academic programs and the expected contributions of professionals. Yet, in many areas, accounting education stubbornly clings to outdated, overly technical models that fail to connect with the actual demands of the market. We must confront a critical question: If we continue to train accountants solely to file tax reports, are we truly equipping them for the challenges of today’s world?
This shift in mindset extends beyond individual countries or educational systems; it is a global movement. The recent announcement of the
The CIMA/CGMA proposal for 2026 is not just a curriculum update; it is a powerful manifesto. This new program positions analytical thinking, strategic business partnering and technology application at the core of accounting education. It unequivocally highlights sustainability, aligning with IFRS S1 and S2, and expands the accountant’s responsibilities beyond mere numbers to encompass conscious leadership, environmental impact and corporate governance.
The current changes in the accounting profession underscore an urgent shift in expectations from both educators and employers. Today, companies of all sizes and industries demand accountants who can do far more than interpret balance sheets. They expect professionals who grasp the deeper context behind the numbers, identify inconsistencies, anticipate potential issues before they escalate into losses, and act decisively as a bridge between data and decision making.
To meet these expectations, a radical mindset shift is essential. There are firms still operating on autopilot, mindlessly repeating tasks with minimal critical analysis. Likewise, many academic programs continue to treat accounting as purely a technical discipline, disregarding the vital elements of reflection, strategy and behavioral insight. This outdated approach creates a significant mismatch. While the world forges ahead, parts of the accounting profession remain stuck in the past.
The consequences of this shift are already becoming evident. The demand for compliance, transparency and sustainability now applies not only to large corporations but also to small and mid-sized businesses. Many of these organizations rely on professionals ill-equipped to drive the necessary changes, putting both business performance and the reputation of the profession at risk.
The positive news is that accountants who are ready to thrive in this new era do not necessarily need additional degrees. What they truly need is a commitment to awareness, a dedication to continuous learning, and the courage to step beyond their comfort zones. The future of accounting is here, and it is firmly rooted in analytical, strategic and human-oriented perspectives. The 2026 curriculum is a clear indication of the changes underway. Those who fail to think critically and holistically will be left behind.
In contrast, accountants who see the big picture, understand the ripple effects of their decisions, and actively contribute to the financial and ethical health of organizations will undeniably remain indispensable, anywhere in the world.
Congressional Republicans are siding with Donald Trump in the messy divorce between the president and Elon Musk, an optimistic sign for eventual passage of a tax cut bill at the root of the two billionaires’ public feud.
Lawmakers are largely taking their cues from Trump and sticking by the $3 trillion bill at the center of the White House’s economic agenda. Musk, the biggest political donor of the 2024 cycle, has threatened to help primary anyone who votes for the legislation, but lawmakers are betting that staying in the president’s good graces is the safer path to political survival.
“The tax bill is not in jeopardy. We are going to deliver on that,” House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters on Friday.
“I’ll tell you what — do not doubt, don’t second guess and do not challenge the President of the United States Donald Trump,” he added. “He is the leader of the party. He’s the most consequential political figure of our time.”
A fight between Trump and Musk exploded into public view this week. The sparring started with the tech titan calling the president’s tax bill a “disgusting abomination,” but quickly escalated to more personal attacks and Trump threatening to cancel all federal contracts and subsidies to Musk’s companies, such as Tesla Inc. and SpaceX which have benefitted from government ties.
Republicans on Capitol Hill, who had — until recently — publicly embraced Musk, said they weren’t swayed by the billionaire’s criticism that the bill cost too much. Lawmakers have refuted official estimates of the package, saying that the tax cuts for households, small businesses and politically important groups — including hospitality and hourly workers — will generate enough economic growth to offset the price tag.
“I don’t tell my friend Elon, I don’t argue with him about how to build rockets, and I wish he wouldn’t argue with me about how to craft legislation and pass it,” Johnson told CNBC earlier Friday.
House Budget Committee Chair Jodey Arrington told reporters that House lawmakers are focused on working with the Senate as it revises the bill to make sure the legislation has the political support in both chambers to make it to Trump’s desk for his signature.
“We move past the drama and we get the substance of what is needed to make the modest improvements that can be made,” he said.
House fiscal hawks said that they hadn’t changed their prior positions on the legislation based on Musk’s statements. They also said they agree with GOP leaders that there will be other chances to make further spending cuts outside the tax bill.
Representative Tom McClintock, a fiscal conservative, said “the bill will pass because it has to pass,” adding that both Musk and Trump needed to calm down. “They both need to take a nap,” he said.
Even some of the House bill’s most vociferous critics appeared resigned to its passage. Kentucky Representative Thomas Massie, who voted against the House version, predicted that despite Musk’s objections, the Senate will make only small changes.
“The speaker is right about one thing. This barely passed the House. If they muck with it too much in the Senate, it may not pass the House again,” he said.
Trump is pressuring lawmakers to move at breakneck speed to pass the tax-cut bill, demanding they vote on the bill before the July 4 holiday. The president has been quick to blast critics of the bill — including calling Senator Rand Paul
As the legislation worked its way through the House last month, Trump took to social media to criticize holdouts and invited undecided members to the White House to compel them to support the package. It passed by one vote.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune — who is planning to unveil his chamber’s version of the bill as soon as next week — said his timeline is unmoved by Musk.
“We are already pretty far down the trail,” he said.
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