Accounting
CAS practitioners still hesitant on AI says ITA poll
The entire world has been awash in AI for the past few years and accounting is no exception. Yet, when polled by the Information Technology Alliance, it was found that few in client accounting and advisory services reported they were using AI in any form, and when they were it was mainly generalist tools like Copilot. Considering the technology’s potential for the accounting profession, Michael Pynch, chief information officer for top 25 firm Wipfli, found this puzzling.
“I was surprised to see so many CAS [practitioners] that aren’t using those technologies, given how much we talk about it. So the question to the group is, why? What’s stopping us?” he said during the ITA’s spring collaborative in Memphis, Tennessee.
John Fleischer, chief information officer for top 10 firm CBIZ, suggested that the sheer diversity of tools on the market might be a little overwhelming and paradoxically make people more hesitant to adopt them. He also noted that AI still has significant risk factors which certain practitioners may not want to deal with. Despite this, he echoed Pynch’s puzzlement as to why so few were using AI.
“[This] is one of the areas where it seems like we should have the most opportunities to automate and use AI to really drive up margins. I think it’s gonna have to come. I’m not sure why we’re not there yet,” he said.
Sarah Sieman, senior director for CAS business transformation at CBIZ, said one big barrier is that people don’t always know what to do with it, and asking experts does not always help.
“I literally had this conversation with some of our AI experts, they’re like, ‘What do you want to do with AI?’ And I’m like, ‘Well, what can we do with AI?’ They’re like, ‘Well, what do you want it to do?’ So I think there’s a little bit of an education component. You can have it rewrite your emails, but there’s so much more that it offers,” she said.
There are a lot of opportunities out there, according to Sieman, but people need to understand the technology itself before being able to understand how it can solve their problems. For one, people don’t necessarily know how to prompt properly. She said many are still treating it like a Google search and so are unimpressed with the results. They don’t always understand that you need to provide more context for a better answer, and that you may need to iterate a few times for the best answer.
With this in mind , she said CBIZ regularly holds prompt writing classes to improve people’s use of AI. Another thing she has found helps are what she called ‘road shows’ for specific use cases that have been used successfully in other parts of the firm. This has served to start some “ideas turning in their heads” when they recognize how the use case might be applied to, say, tax or CAS. Such efforts are essential for maximizing the usefulness of AI.
“Everyone kind of knows what AI is, but to understand how to really use it well is another story,” she said.
James Winton, a partner with top 25 firm Moss Adams and the other panel moderator, noted that there might also be some skepticism, as the hype behind the technology has sometimes meant it overpromises and underdelivers. He also suggested, though, that another issue might simply be inertia: it’s harder to retrofit existing systems for AI versus starting from scratch as certain startups have done.
“The mature tools on the market that are like the backbone of our practices are having a harder time spinning out the AI in their product, whereas the startups like that’s that was the basis of their product, and they’re way better at it. So it might require us just being more agile to give up those like core tools that we’ve always used,” he said.
Sieman also noted that there may also be questions over who controls an AI solution. Many clients want help implementing AI solutions at their businesses, and many CAS firms are eager to help develop them.
“If we figure [AI] out and come to some sort of plan, then it becomes a matter of who owns what. What happens if the client’s disengaging and what happens with that product that you built or created for them? I think that is also part of why there is a hesitancy to even touch on that. We don’t necessarily have a roadmap for that,” she said.
During the talk, someone from the audience brought up another possibility: the billable hour. While there has been a shift to other pricing models over the years, such as value-based or per-unit pricing, the billable hour remains common in CAS practices. Very bluntly, if a process that used to take 8 hours now takes only 1, that’s a major loss in fee income
“If you’re in the billable hour world, it’s not good to innovate, because you lose all of your hours. And then you risk [the client will] get rid of you. So in the traditional model, it doesn’t work,” she said. “So CAS practices that are smaller, which are not CPA firms and not in the billable hour world, can innovate faster.”
Deloitte is moving its North American headquarters to Hudson Yards in New York City.
The Big Four Firm committed to 800,000 square feet of the 1.1 million-square-foot tower known as 70 Hudson Yards, the
Related Companies, the real estate developer behind the more-than 60-floor tower, reportedly reached an agreement with Deloitte before construction even began, which is slated for June.
Related Companies and Oxford Properties Group, the codeveloper of Hudson Yards, declined to comment. Deloitte did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
KPMG is also planning to
KPMG currently leases approximately 800,000 square feet at 345 Park Avenue, where its worldwide headquarters are located, as well as 560 Lexington avenue and 1350 Sixth Avenue. In its relocated headquarters, it will occupy approximately 450,000 square feet across 12 floors in the new 58-story Two Manhattan West building, which finished construction in January 2024.
The Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission, in collaboration with the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, have introduced the
The new certification, offered through the Institute of Internal Auditors and the Institute of Management Accountants in addition to the ACFE, aims to help professionals enhance their expertise in fraud risk management. COSO is jointly sponsored by the IIA and the IMA, along with the American Accounting Association, the American Institute of CPAs and Financial Executives International.
Alex/Getty Images/iStockphoto
The certificate program builds on the Fraud Risk Management Guide that COSO first introduced in 2016 and expanded in 2023, to provide a more comprehensive approach to identifying, assessing and mitigating fraud risks. The second edition of the guide outlines five key principles organizations should follow to establish an effective fraud risk management program.
The COSO Fraud Risk Management Certificate gives participants the necessary skills to implement a robust fraud risk management framework based on COSO principles. The program includes self-paced learning modules, and a certifying exam. Upon successful completion, participants will earn an official COSO Fraud Risk Guide Certificate and Digital Badge, demonstrating their proficiency in fraud deterrence and management.
“Managing fraud risk is a challenge for organizations of all sizes,” said COSO executive director and chair Lucia Wind in a statement Wednesday. “This program provides professionals with the knowledge and tools needed to build strong anti-fraud controls, risk assessments and programs, ultimately strengthening organizational resilience and fostering a culture of integrity.”
The certification program includes practical strategies for implementing COSO’s fraud risk management framework; best practices for fraud deterrence, detection and response; integration of fraud risk management with internal controls and data analytics; plus case studies and real-world applications.
“In continuing our partnership with COSO our organizations form a united front against fraud,” said ACFE president John Gill in a statement. “The ACFE is pleased to join forces once again to develop this new certificate that will assist professionals in navigating fraud risks, as well as continue guiding organizations in establishing a comprehensive and effective fraud risk management program.”
Separately, the ACFE recently released the
Accounting firms are among the groups with fraud experts who assist clients. “I have several fraud projects going on right now,” Brian Lafountain, a partner at The Bonadio Group in Pittsford, New York, told Accounting Today. “The thing that I’m running into in most of my jobs is a lack of adequate policies and procedures being in place. The key thing is the controls that are built into the policies and procedures, which are approvals, authorizations, reconciliations. As you’re going through the procedures or whatever your daily operational responsibilities are, there’s things that need to be built in to identify or to raise a flag when something is off or something doesn’t reconcile, or a prompt that you can’t go further in the process until you get somebody’s approval.”
He has recently been working on a project for a local municipality in which an employee has allegedly misappropriated funds. “I believe she purposely keeps no documentation, so that makes it very difficult for us when we come back and try to recreate events, to try to confirm that money is missing because there’s no source documentation,” he said. “She takes tax payments from local vendors or local residents, or she issues building permits and things of that nature. … They come in and they pay that, and she doesn’t ever give them a receipt.”
The lack of receipts or a cash log can make it difficult to accumulate the evidence. “We see a lot of that, honestly, a lack of documentation, a lack of documented policies and procedures, things of that nature, and a lack of internal control that severely increases the risk of something nefarious happening,” said Lafountain. “If you don’t have controls in place to monitor these things, then it can perpetuate itself and keep going on through months and months at a time before it’s ever caught. The vast majority of the frauds that we catch, we catch via a whistleblower of some sort. It’s a tip that comes in, whether it’s an email tip or a phone call, whatever it is.”
The Bonadio Group offers a toll-free fraud and abuse hotline that it sells to its clients. “The messages come directly to my group here at Bonadio, and we have a staff of Certified Fraud Examiners who answer that phone and document the allegations,” said Lafountain. “It’s all anonymous, so the organization is not involved. We prepare a report of what the allegations are, and then we send it back to the organization so that they can follow up on it.”
He noted that in the latest ACFE occupational fraud report, the
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the European Union has some “internal matters” to sort out before the bloc can enter into
“We’re negotiating with a lot of different interests,” Bessent said Tuesday during a briefing at the White House. “Some of the European countries have put on an unfair digital service tax” on the U.S., he said.
The U.S. has for years objected to moves by foreign countries that
“Other countries, Germany and Poland, don’t have that — we want to see that unfair tax on one of America’s great industries removed,” the Treasury chief continued. “It’s going to be a give-and-take. They have some internal matters to decide before they can engage in an external negotiation.”
The EU’s economy chief, Valdis Dombrovskis, said in a Bloomberg Television interview Monday that there’s “still lots of ground to cover” in the talks. He also said in a tweet that he’d had a “cordial and candid” meeting with Bessent in Washington last week, comparing notes on the impact of U.S. tariffs.
Bessent said he has been mostly involved in negotiations with Asian countries, such as Japan and South Korea. A few days before President Donald Trump announced a 90-day pause on higher tariffs for dozens of trading partners, Bessent said he was
“These governments actually want to have the framework of a trade deal done before they go into elections, to show that they have successfully negotiated with the United States,” Bessent said in response to a question about domestic pressures in Japan, South Korea and Canada. “So we are finding that they are actually much more keen to come to the table, get this done and then go home and campaign on it.”
Deloitte to move North American headquarters to Hudson Yards
COSO, ACFE offer fraud risk management certification
Bessent cites digital services tax as sticking point in EU talks
New 2023 K-1 instructions stir the CAMT pot for partnerships and corporations
The Essential Practice of Bank and Credit Card Statement Reconciliation
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