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Creating a continuous learning culture in an accounting firm

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Every firm leader is looking for the “secret sauce” to attract and retain top talent. While there’s no one-size-fits-all answer to that problem, one aspect of becoming an employer of choice is creating a culture of continuous learning.

Today’s employees want personal and professional learning and development opportunities. It’s not enough to offer training or talk about growth in performance reviews. An authentic continuous learning culture is embedded in the firm’s ethos, reflected in leadership behaviors and backed by investment. It’s about creating an environment where learning is an ongoing process, not just an annual obligation or an item to tick off during performance evaluations.

Here’s how to build that culture in your firm.

The L&D leadership mindset

For a continuous learning culture to thrive, leaders have to champion it. Firms that excel in learning and development view it as an asset, not an expense. It’s a strategic investment in the firm’s future success. The managing partner and other senior leaders need to visibly and vocally support L&D initiatives, prioritizing L&D with their actions and funding.

Leaders should also model this commitment to learning. The best firms are those where leaders actively participate in continuous learning, setting an example for others. This creates an environment that celebrates knowledge and growth and recognizes learning as a driver of personal and organizational success.

Watching a webinar online - online CPE - online learning

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Moving from a ladder to a lattice

Historically, CPA firms followed a clear career path, with steps leading from staff to senior, manager, and ultimately partner. But this rigid structure no longer fits the modern workforce. Today’s firms must adopt a more flexible, customized approach to career development, embracing the idea of a career lattice, rather than a ladder.

This shift acknowledges that people’s careers can move in many directions. Employees may leave the workforce temporarily, pivot within the firm, or take on roles that align with their unique strengths and interests. Customizing L&D opportunities to each individual’s talents helps firms retain valuable employees who might otherwise seek opportunities elsewhere.

Broadening learning beyond required CPE

One common misconception in many firms is that L&D is reserved for CPAs and other employees with professional designations. However, a continuous learning culture involves every team member, in every department, from the newest hire to the most seasoned partner.

Send all staff members — not just CPAs or senior leaders — to conferences, training sessions and seminars. Engage external speakers and host internal knowledge-sharing events to make learning a company-wide initiative.

Graduating from college isn’t the end of learning — it’s the beginning. Encourage and empower accountants, administrators, IT staff and everyone else in the firm to continue learning and growing throughout their careers.

Steps to building a continuous learning culture

Creating a learning culture takes deliberate effort and planning. It’s about more than just offering a few online courses or hosting an annual training day. Here’s a structured approach to building a learning-centric environment in your firm:

1. Examine current L&D programs. Assess the strengths and weaknesses in your existing learning programs. Identify gaps in skills, knowledge or accessibility and address these areas.
2. Plan learning objectives. Define what you want your team members to learn. This could be technical skills, soft skills or specialized industry knowledge. Align learning objectives with firm goals and individual career paths.
3. Empower subject matter experts. Leverage the expertise within your firm by encouraging subject matter experts to create and deliver learning content. This can be formal or informal training, mentoring or knowledge-sharing sessions.
4. Ask employees what they want to learn. Leadership should set broad learning goals but also ask employees what they’re interested in learning to offer relevant and engaging training.
5. Make learning accessible. Online platforms, in-person workshops and microlearning modules help make training accessible to everyone in the firm. Make use of various formats to cater to different learning styles.
6. Set aside time for learning. One barrier to continuous learning is time. Encourage employees to prioritize learning by setting aside dedicated time for development. Whether it’s a weekly “learning hour” or scheduled quarterly training sessions, this shows the firm’s commitment to growth.
7. Experiment with learning methods. Different people learn in different ways, so experiment with various techniques like peer-to-peer learning, on-the-job training or formal courses. Providing multiple options keeps learning dynamic and engaging.
8. Create a library of resources. Build a library of resources like industry journals, webinars, case studies and podcasts for employees to access as part of their learning journey. Encourage employees to share the resources they discover with the rest of the team.
9. Integrate learning into daily workflows. Make learning a natural part of the workday by incorporating it into daily activities. This could involve assigning learning objectives to projects, promoting mentorship programs or offering real-time feedback that supports growth.
10. Make knowledge sharing a habit. Encourage employees to regularly share what they’ve learned with others through internal presentations, team meetings or even informal “lunch and learn” sessions.
11. Reward learning. Recognize and reward employees who actively participate in learning and development. This could be through bonuses or simply public recognition of their efforts.
12. Measure and adapt. Continuously measure the effectiveness of your L&D initiatives. Use employee feedback, performance data and business outcomes to adjust your learning programs. What works today may need to evolve as the firm grows and changes.

Creating a continuous learning culture isn’t just about keeping employees engaged; it’s about building an adaptable, innovative and competitive firm. When learning becomes part of the firm’s DNA, employees feel more engaged and valued, turnover decreases and the firm becomes more agile in responding to market changes.

Remember, learning is a journey — not a destination. By fostering a culture of continuous learning, you invest in your firm’s future.

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Accounting

IAASB tweaks standards on working with outside experts

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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.  

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Accounting

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

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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.

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Accounting

At Schellman, AI reshapes a firm’s staffing needs

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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.”

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