FloQast, an accounting software developer based in Los Angeles, recently debuted Audit Jamz, an accounting music album that provides an enjoyable way for CPAs to earn continuing professional education credit.

The album, which dropped in October, comes from FloQast Studios, which also produces the YouTube sitcom series PBC, featuring several former cast members of “The Office” working for an accounting department at a tech startup.

The Audit Jamz album includes a compilation of different genres on each track, inspired by the compilation albums of the late 90s and early 2000s, with CPE credit provided by FloQast’s FloQademy. 

“The idea came as we were brainstorming creative ways to get CPE credits out there and make them more fun to get,” said FloQast CEO Mike Whitmire. “That’s really the purpose of our FloQast Studios group. A big part of it is to produce CPE content that’s a little more entertaining while educational at the same time.”

FloQast director of strategic planning Drew Carrick, also known on YouTube as The Rapping CPA, and FloQast Studios head Josh Sims teamed up on the project. 

“Josh Sims is an incredible musician, and he was able to come up with all the music,” said Whitmire. “We wanted to do an album where each song was from a different genre. Josh would create the music, and it’s amazing. You could just be like, ‘Hey, man, make a country song.’ And he could go and make a country song. You can say, ‘Hey, make a rock song.’ And he can make a rock song. We’re able to do all that internally. And then Drew Carrick from the FloQast Studios team went ahead and wrote the lyrics and did all the rapping and singing and all that good stuff.”

Last month, FloQast also debuted a new book, “Shift Happens,” co-authored by Whitmire and  FloQast accounting operations evangelist Stefan van Duyvendijk. Despite the jocular title, it takes a more serious professional approach than Audit Jamz.

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“That’s more about what we see in the industry today, and where we really think it’s going,” said Whitmire. “It’s about the rise of the operational accountant and the operational mindset, thinking really less about numbers and the derogatory beancounting type notion. It’s more about helping the organization drive more operational efficiency. What we found is accountants are really good at process improvement and workflow management, and if they can take that skill set and really drive it across the organization, they’re able to produce really, really big results. That’s more about the professional landscape, how we view the change going forward.”

Meanwhile, FloQast Studios is getting set to debut the third and final season of PBC, a sitcom whose cast has included Danny Trejo from “Machete” and Kate Flannery and Creed Bratton from “The Office.”

The final season is expected to be released by the end of the year, and there may be a wistful note as it concludes. “I would say it’s a very satisfying and melancholy end to the series,” said Whitmire.

He sees an educational role for the series, even though there’s no CPE credit. “On the PBC side, that’s an attempt to really highlight accounting, explain what we do from behind the scenes,” said Whitmire. “I don’t think there’s an actual good understanding of what accountants do on a regular basis, if you ask the average person on the street, and we’ve actually done this before. We sent Drew down to Venice, and we had him ask people what accountants do. The answer you get, time and time again, is taxes. And then the second answer behind that is kind of wealth management, which I found to be an interesting answer that we got on the street there. But the reality is, most accountants work inside corporations. They’re part of the team. They go through various struggles together. There’s a lot of team bonding, and I find that to be one interesting factor of accounting that’s really left out of the equation is how much it is a team sport. You really start to develop relationships with your team. You’re in it together, you’re trying to hit deadlines together. That camaraderie, to me, is one of the more rewarding parts of being in the profession, and that’s just not highlighted. And as you’re going through the series, you’ll see our accounting department going through all those trials and tribulations that a growing accounting department has to go through. It’s about really pulling together as a team to get through it.”

FloQast has also been advancing its software, taking it beyond the close management features it originally highlighted. The company recently showed off its latest offerings at its Take Control user conference. 

“We got to unveil all of our new products that we’ve put out in the last year,” said Whitmire. “2024 was a really heavy year for product investment for us, and we were able to unveil a lot of that at our user conference. The big shift we’re making is we started out with month-end close management, and that was sort of the focus upfront. And we think with the platform that we built out and a lot of the automation capabilities that are now possible because of AI, we’re at a point where we can really help transform accounting departments at large, and so we have broader positioning now. We call ourselves an accounting transformation platform, and our goal is to really help automate a lot of the mundane work and drive big operational efficiencies within an accounting department.”

He sees a significant role for AI in the program. “We think AI is a great tool for automating a lot of this mundane work and puts accounting and accountants in a position to really help close the work-life balance, take care of some of that mundane work and hopefully elevate them to do the more interesting stuff that we really learned about in college when we were taking these accounting courses,” he said. “It’s more the technical side of it, less of the rote work side of it.”

Advanced technology is needed as accounting firms and departments have more trouble filling open jobs amid the shrinking talent pipeline, which is one of the subjects of his book. 

“I do think it’s a really dire situation,” said Whitmire. “We actually are going down in the number of accountants that are able to do this job on a year over year basis, and the demand for accounting is going to continue to go up. So we have to close that talent gap somehow, and we believe technology is the best way to close that talent gap. And so the idea of the talent gap is one of the big discussions within the book. Not only are we going to be losing people in the profession, there’s going to be more standard accounting work to be done, and our role is going to shift to drive more efficiency. And so to do all of that, you simply have to lead with technology, and the people who are able to make that change and adapt to the new technologies that are coming out are really going to be the people who are effective and successful going forward. And that’s one of our goals at FloQast, is to build technology that accountants can leverage to automate their own work. We really want to put the power in the hands of the accounting department, because we think they’re best suited to take a look at how they can optimize and automate their own work.”

Intuit Inc. and H&R Block Inc. shares fell on Tuesday, after the Washington Post reported that the leaders of President-elect Donald Trump’s “Department of Government Efficiency” discussed creating a new way for Americans to file their taxes.

H&R Block fell as much as 8.7%, dropping to its lowest since August, while Intuit slid as much as 6.8%, erasing much of an advance that had come in the wake of the election. 

Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, and H&R Block dominate the US tax preparation industry, earning billions of dollars a year providing digital and in-person services. The DOGE discussions follow the rollout of a pilot program from the IRS for taxpayers to file their returns for free online as part of the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act.

Eilon Paz/Bloomberg

Jefferies wrote that the selloff in Intuit was “unwarranted,” as an app is “unlikely to be a high priority in a long list of initiatives” to reduce government waste, while the IRS pilot program “had little success.” 

However, KeyBanc Capital Markets wrote that given investor debate around growth in Intuit’s consumer segment, such headlines would continue to weigh on the stock.

The Washington Post report, which cited people familiar with the conversations, said that a “DOGE” panel discussed creating a mobile app for Americans to file their taxes for free. A post from “DOGE” said that the tax code had gotten too complex and “must be simplified.”

Separately, Bloomberg Intelligence wrote that an IRS entry into the tax-prep industry “could, in theory, threaten revenue for H&R Block, Jackson Hewitt and Intuit,” with almost a third of Intuit’s sales at risk. However, analyst Andrew Silverman believes the “Direct File” tool “won’t successfully compete,” as the IRS “can’t devote the resources to it and is ill-equipped to create or maintain the software necessary to appeal to taxpayers.”

Gabriela Figueiredo Dias, chair of the International Ethics Standards Board for Accountants, has been reappointed for a second term, beginning Jan. 1, 2025 and ending Dec. 31, 2026.

Figueiredo Dias has been leading the global ethics board since January 2022. During her first term, she spearheaded the IESBA through a strategy shift, including strategic initiatives that strengthened the relevance and widened the impact of the IESBA’s International Code of Ethics on innovative matters. 

Victor Machado/Bluepeach

She has also been leading development of new standards such as the soon-to-be-released sustainability-related standards, which will lay a foundation of ethics and independence as part of the global standards infrastructure for sustainability reporting and assurance.

Other new standards finalized over her first term included standards addressing the ethical dimensions of tax planning and related services, the transformative effects of technology on the accounting, assurance and finance functions, and auditor independence for group audits.

The reappointment comes at a significant time for the IESBA, as the board pursues a bold Strategy and Work Plan for 2024-2027, with a special focus on two strategic areas: culture and governance of accounting firms, and exploring extending the impact of the IESBA Code beyond its traditional scope. Other priorities include initiatives to address topics such as auditor independence in relation to collective investment vehicles, and the evolving role of CFOs. Figueiredo Dias’ first term has already brought progress on some of these priorities.

“I am honored to continue to lead the important work we are advancing at IESBA in the public interest,” Figueiredo Dias said in a statement Wednesday. “In times when ethics matters increasingly for sustainable businesses, markets and economies, it is essential that our standards meet the highest public expectations. Ethics is not optional. It is the bedrock of the accountancy profession and of the public trust in the profession’s work. I look forward to progressing the ambitious agenda we have set, with the critical collaboration of our stakeholders, as we address the complex ethical challenges our world faces today.”

Before joining the IESBA, Figueiredo Dias served as chair of the Portuguese Securities Market Commission and was a board member of the International Organization of Securities Commissions and the European Securities and Markets Authority. She also served as vice-chair of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Corporate Governance Committee.

Figueiredo Dias will be eligible for another term in 2027. “Under Gabriela’s leadership, the IESBA has tackled important projects over the past three years, which are in many instances groundbreaking and elevating the ethics agenda,” said Public Interest Oversight Board chair Linda de Beer in a statement. “The vital work on Sustainability and External Experts projects, coming to conclusion, being most pertinent. We are therefore glad to be able to renew Gabriela’s important leadership role as chair of the IESBA for a second term, in the first Standard Setting Board chair re-appointment process fully in the hands of the PIOB. We have done this in close consultation with the Monitoring Group Chair and other stakeholders who have a keen interest in the work of the IESBA. We wish Gabriela well for the term ahead, in continuing to steer the IESBA’s ambitious Strategy and Work Plan, which include the very important project on Firm Culture and Governance, central to the public interest.”

The Public Interest Oversight Board, which oversees IESBA and the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board, also announced several other new appointments and re-appointments to the IESBA and the IAASB this week that will take effect in January.

The PIOB appointed Channa Wijesinghe, CEO of the Accounting Professional & Ethical Standards Board of Australia. as vice-chair of IESBA for a two-year term, following his re-appointment to the board. Nancy Miller, managing director of KPMG US, and Obichukwu Nwazota, managing consultant of UGN Consulting Services in Nigeria, were appointed as new IESBA members. Mark Babington, executive director of the U.K.’s Financial Reporting Council, and Christelle Martin, a former ENGIE senior executive in France, were re-appointed for three-year terms, and Richard Huesken, a consultant and recently retired global independence leader at EY US, for a final year of service.

For the IAASB, Josephine Jackson, director of international audit and assurance standards policy at the U.K.’s Financial Reporting Council, was re-appointed as IAASB vice-chair for a final year of service. Nancy Cheng, audit committee chair at Shared Services Canada; Amaro Gomes, audit committee member at Banco Bradesco; Xiaoyue Sun, partner at BDO China; and Mikiko Ono, director of sustainability disclosure regulations at Recruit Holdings in Japan were appointed as new IAASB members, and Bill Edge, former chair of Financial Reporting Council and Auditing and Assurance Standards Board of Australia, and Neil Morris, global head of ESG assurance and methodology at KPMG, South Africa. were re-appointed, all for three-year terms.