Accounting
FAF report finds Private Company Council effective
The Financial Accounting Foundation released a
The FAF, which oversees FASB and the PCC, as well as the Governmental Accounting Standards Board, began
Previously, FASB and the American Institute of CPAs had operated a joint committee known as the Private Company Financial Reporting Committee. The FAF, the AICPA and the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy set up a Blue-Ribbon Panel on Standard Setting for Private Companies in 2009 to study the issue of allowing greater input from private companies, and the
The PCC uses a Private Company Decision-Making Framework to advise FASB on the appropriate accounting treatment for private companies for items under active consideration on the FASB’s technical agenda. The PCC also advises the FASB on possible alternatives within GAAP to address the needs of users of private company financial statements. Any proposed changes to GAAP are subject to endorsement by FASB.
Led by the Standard-Setting Process Oversight Committee of the FAF Board of Trustees, the review elicited input from stakeholders vita surveys, virtual meetings, and letters in response to a request for public comment.
The FAF trustees determined that, overall, the PCC is fulfilling its mission and duties effectively and that it should maintain its current mission, remit and structure. The trustees also affirmed the PCC’s current meeting operations and culture. However, the report did point to opportunities for positive change, including ramping up the PCC’s communications activities, publishing a PCC annual report, and enhancing recruiting activities to identify and select new PCC members in the future.
“Good governance prompts us to conduct periodic reviews of our important advisory councils,” said FAF trustee and co-chair of the Standard-Setting Process Oversight Committee Timothy Ryan, head of technology and business enablement at Citigroup, in a statement Wednesday. “I am pleased that stakeholders largely expressed support for the PCC while making excellent suggestions for potential improvements to make it an even more effective body.”
Many stakeholders agreed the PCC is effectively fulfilling its advisory role to FASB, striking the right balance between reducing complexity and ensuring relevant and reliable information to stakeholders, according to the report. They also expressed views that the PCC has been successful in addressing the needs of the users of private company financial statements, indicating they have observed wide adoption of private company alternatives and practical expedients.
“Overall, the sentiments focused on the positive impact the PCC has had on financial reporting for private companies and their stakeholders since its establishment in 2012, with a recognition that the PCC is the optimal vehicle to continue this important work,” said the report.
Several stakeholders said the PCC has successfully educated FASB on issues where private companies operate differently than how public companies operate. For example, the PCC provided feedback to FASB on certain aspects of the leasing standard, and on areas that resulted in GAAP alternatives for private companies for goodwill, intangibles, hedge accounting and variable interest entity consolidation standards.
“We are grateful to the many stakeholders who freely shared their diverse perspectives about the PCC,” added FAF trustee and co-chair of the Standard-Setting Process Oversight Committee Manju Ganeriwala, the former treasurer of the Commonwealth of Virginia, in a statement. “We are confident that the PCC can sustain its excellent track record of providing thoughtful, expert advice and counsel to the FASB for many years to come.”
The AICPA praised the findings of the report. “The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants appreciates the thoroughness of the Financial Accounting Foundation’s review of the Private Company Council, and we share the report’s findings that the council has been effective in its mission,” stated AICPA vice president of financial reporting Daniel Noll. “The AICPA has observed all of the PCC meetings since its inception and notes that it has fulfilled its role well, both in suggesting changes to existing GAAP and in advising on prospective GAAP. As the FAF’s report notes, there are thousands of public companies in the United States but millions of private companies, so this is a critical advisory role for our capital markets. We look forward to more important work by the PCC and its continued advocacy for stakeholders who depend on financial reporting by private companies.”
Big Four firm PwC announced new agentic AI capacities, including a model that proactively identifies areas of value leakage and acts inside the tools teams already use to fix them itself.
The new solution,
The software, which is supported by PwC’s recently released
The system connects directly into ERP environments, continuously monitors key metrics, and acts inside the tools teams already use. For example, a supply chain agent might detect rising shipping costs and automatically reroute deliveries to reduce spend. Finance agents can spot and correct billing errors before they reach the customer. Clients typically see measurable efficiency gains in the first quarter, with continued improvements over time as the system learns and adapts.
“Too many transformations still rely on one-off pilots and stale data, stretching the gap from insight to impact and suffocating ROI,” said Saurabh Sarbaliya, PwC’s principal for enterprise strategy and value. “Agent Powered Performance flips the economics by distilling PwC’s industry transformation playbooks into AI agents that turn static insights into compounding gains, without rebooting each time.”
Agent Powered Performance is platform-agnostic and built on an open architecture so it can work across different LLMs based on client preferences and task-specific needs. It works with major enterprise platforms including Oracle, SAP, Workday and Guidewire.
Agent OS Model Context Protocol
PwC also
By integrating this standard, agent systems registered as MCP servers can be used by any authorized AI agent. This reduces redundant integration work and the overhead of writing custom logic for each new use case. By standardizing how agents invoke tools and handle responses, MCP also simplifies the interface between agents and enterprise systems, which will serve to reduce development time, lower testing complexity, and cut deployment risk. Finally, any interaction between an agent and an MCP server is authenticated, authorized and logged, and access policies are enforced at the protocol level, which means that compliance and control are native to the system—not layered on after the fact.
This means that agents are no longer siloed. Instead, they can operate as part of a coordinated, governed system that can grow as needs evolve, as MCP support provides the interface to external tools and systems. This enables organizations to move beyond isolated pilots toward integrated systems where agents don’t just reason, but act inside real business workflows. It marks a shift from experimentation to adoption, from isolated tools to scalable, governed intelligence.
Research Composer
Finally, a PwC spokesperson said the firm has also launched a new internal tool for its professionals called Research Composer, a patent-pending AI research agent embedded in the firm’s ChatPwC suite, designed to accelerate insight generation by combining web data with PwC-uploaded content.
Professionals will use the Research Composer to produce in-depth, citation-backed reports for either the firm or its clients. The solution is intended to enhance the quality of client work by equipping teams with research and strategic analysis capabilities.
The AI agent prompts users through a step-by-step research workflow, allowing them to shape how reports are packaged—tailoring the output to meet strategic needs. For example, a manager in advisory services might use Research Composer to evaluate white space opportunities across industries or geographies, drawing from internal reports and up-to-date market data.
Eide Bailly, a Top 25 Firm based in Fargo, North Dakota, is growing its presence in the Pacific Northwest by adding Traner Smith, based in Edmonds, Washington, effective June 2, 2025.
Traner Smith’s team includes two partners and 16 staff members and specializes in tax compliance and advisory services. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Eide Bailly ranked No. 19 on
Eide Bailly already has offices in Seattle, but hopes to grow further in the Pacific Northwest. “We’re pleased to welcome the talented team at Traner Smith to Eide Bailly,” said Eide Bailly managing partner and CEO Jeremy Hauk in a statement Monday. “Their expertise with high-net-worth individuals, real estate and privately held businesses aligns well with our strengths, and their client-centric approach is a perfect cultural fit. Having an office in Edmonds, Washington, is a great complement to our existing presence in Seattle. Together, we’re poised to deliver even greater value to families and businesses in the Seattle metro area.”
“Joining Eide Bailly is a natural next step for us — it provides access to deeper technical resources in areas like state and local tax, national tax, succession planning and international tax while allowing us to continue the personalized service our clients value,” said Kevin Smith, a partner at Traner Smith, in a statement.
“With this expanded support and platform, we’re excited to grow our reach, elevate what we do best, and help more clients than ever before,” said Shane Summer, another partner at Traner Smith, in a statement.
Eide Bailly has announced several other mergers in recent weeks. Earlier this month, it added
In 2023, Eide Bailly added
Top 100 firm
“We began working with Knuula in Spring 2024 to streamline our engagement letter process,” said Don Murphy, Managing Member of BMSS. “It quickly became clear that Knuula was not only a strong solution for us, but also an ideal partner in advancing industry-wide automation.”
While the specific terms of the deal were not disclosed, a spokesperson with Knuula said that, after this investment, BMSS and a collection of 21 of their partners now own 13% of the company. The investment represents not some passive revenue deal but an active collaboration between the two companies, with the spokesperson saying they will be working closely together on things like product development, new features, improvements, and networking.
The deal comes about a year after Knuula integrated with QuickFee, a receivables management platform for professional service providers, which allowed users to have engagement letters directly connecting to their QuickFee billing platform, tying the execution of the letter directly to the billing process.
“We’ve long sought to partner with a firm focused on strategic innovation in the accounting space,” said Jamie Peebles, founder of Knuula. “To develop a perfect solution for large firms, it is ideal to have a partner that is willing to work closely together and iterate quickly. This requires constant feedback between our two teams. The IT team from BMSS worked with our development team constantly and helped us iterate rapidly. We also had consistent input from partners, manager, and administrative staff to help us make valuable changes to Knuula. BMSS was a perfect partner for us.”
PwC AI agent acts proactively to preserve value
Eide Bailly merges in Traner Smith
BMSS announces investment, collaboration with Knuula
New 2023 K-1 instructions stir the CAMT pot for partnerships and corporations
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