Accounting
Practice Profile: Daydreamers and envelope-pushers at accounting firm BPM
To date, two different meetings with bosses have ended up defining Lindsay Stevenson’s career.
In the first, she was distraught and overworked in the office of the Arizona accounting firm where she was employed as a CPA about nine years ago.
“I sat in the managing partner’s office and cried that I didn’t think the profession was ready for me, that I wanted to change how I worked and served clients,” she shared.
Her husband was worried she was a workaholic (a condition she describes as mostly self-inflicted, not due to the particular firm) but she had started public speaking about change leadership at industry events and volunteering at the American Institute of CPAs, which gave her more satisfaction than her long hours of client-facing work.
So she left her public accounting job to work as a vice president of finance and tax at a bank, and then launched her own consulting firm that helped firms become more purpose-driven by aligning culture with strategic initiatives, and introducing equity and inclusion initiatives and training.
But then came her second pivotal meeting, this time with Jim Wallace, CEO of San Francisco-based Top 50 Firm BPM.
“He asked, ‘What would you do if you could create your perfect dream job?'” she recounted. “I wanted to work in transforming and helping firms, and the profession, to think differently. He said, ‘Let’s do that.’ I said, ‘Oh, really?'”
rMIRABELLA PHOTOGRAPHX
While Stevenson had enjoyed her job at the bank and “really, really loved” the work her consultancy was doing to help firms innovate, her external role had some drawbacks.
“The bad part with consulting is that you never see the end results,” she said. “You’re designing what’s important and getting pumped up, but at the end of the day, they do the heavy lifting, they can celebrate, and they see how it is operating on a daily basis.”
But since Wallace gave her that opportunity to draw up her dream job, Stevenson has been able to do all of that, becoming BPM’s chief transformation officer three years ago. She has since built a transformation team of nine people to guide the firm’s wide-ranging innovation efforts.
Incremental changes
Among the recent initiatives that Stevenson’s team is undertaking is a firmwide project: building a “data lakehouse,” which improves business intelligence and machine learning by migrating data to a new management platform created to house both structured and unstructured data. From forming the committee to implementation launch, the project took 11 months.
“The process is essentially, we need this, and we submitted it to the PMO [project management office] and [said] ‘It will take this investment, this energy’ … and we got the greenlight,” she explained. “We created a separate steering committee of genius people that understand the data, internal and client-facing, and then had months of researching vendors. We went through demos before finally choosing vendors and a new product team and, with the IT group, identified the resources we needed from them to be successful.”
Large-scale projects like this require project managers, but BPM’s transformation team also oversees smaller initiatives that don’t require a full-time PM. Recently, the assurance team wanted to use artificial intelligence-assisted writing tool Grammarly to improve their internal and client communications, so BPM beta-tested it with a small group to great success before expanding the user base. And Stevenson’s team is also helping the firm try out and collect feedback on virtual-office software Kumospace for potential future implementation, while the IT team recently built the tax department a chatbot to provide quick, safe and relevant tax information within the firm’s internal, private environment.
The range of project sizes underscores Stevenson’s philosophy of gradual shifts being key to success.
“Any organization wishes they spent 100% of their time on innovation and cutting-edge, crazy ideas that could change the world,” Stevenson explained, “but in reality, most transformation is all incremental changes that bring you closer to the outcomes we are really passionate about.”
Of course, this runs the risk of instilling impatience — or even disillusionment.
“The challenge in the day-to-day environment is you can feel not as inspired by big ideas, the kind that trigger that excitement, when working on one step to make it possible,” she shared. “Those incremental shifts build a strong foundation for meaningful transformation — if you don’t spend time on that, there is failure on the big side. All of us are daydreamers by nature, envelope-pushers, but [change] needs to be realistic and impactful: the steps to get outcomes; the big, flashy things to report at the end are not the whole process. There’s always so much going on, so focus can be challenging.”
Transformation is inevitable
Daydreaming and envelope-pushing is not only what attracted Stevenson to her role but led her to create it, and with that, a new way of thinking throughout the firm.
“When I was first brought on, we were building innovation and transformation into the culture, to be woven in and directed in more intentional ways,” she said. “Quickly after that, we brought in our transformation manager and worked to build out change in our leadership strategy, and what that looks like as we progress and weave it into projects … . At the same time, our director of business intelligence and data governance has a team focused on transformation, how we are leveraging data, do we have a data roadmap, how do we position ourselves to have access to business intelligence. We have two teams inside the transformation [department], and since then we have built out our project management office where we manage and filter products, and the PMO helps with resource management and allocation.”
Stevenson oversees weekly team meetings that are structured to give every direct report four minutes to address their top three priorities, then list any barriers or “asks” of the team or firm.
“It’s really effective for us as a team, to collaborate with each other; it works really well,” she said, explaining that as none of the team members are in the same location, meetings are conducted remotely over Microsoft Teams.
Stevenson credits BPM’s being “really great around strategic planning” for helping work these ideas up the leadership chain: “There is a lot of connection to strategic priorities. We make time for ideation, because you never know when something really great is going to strike. With our strategic ideas and outcomes, we keep each other in check. It’s so fun to work on that … . Sometimes it isn’t as fun to be accountable, to [ask], ‘Is this something we want to be five years from now?’ If the answer is unclear or no, we don’t focus on that.”
Having to shoot down ideas is a continual, but necessary, hurdle for Stevenson and her team.
“There is so much talent in the organization, from the interns up to the CEO, really smart, engaged, incredibly bright people who have ideas all the time,” she shared. “The hardest thing, in the beginning, is saying no to something. There are a lot of really good ideas, but only some are really great.”
It is Stevenson and her team’s job to help the firm discern the difference, and to inspire staff to tap into the kind of idealism that has guided her career, and led her into this role of guiding others.
The transformation team was created “so people don’t feel so discouraged, so they keep thinking, keep dreaming, keep considering,” she said. “You don’t know when a good idea is going to become a great idea … . We want the firm to transform, for people to share ideas, to continue to grow, and we have to lead by example.”
The House Ways and Means Committee held a hearing Tuesday to mark up the so-called “one, big beautiful bill” extending the expiring provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act while adding other tax breaks for tip income, overtime pay and Social Security income and eliminating tax credits from the Inflation Reduction Act for renewable energy as well as the Direct File and Free File programs.
“Today, this Committee will move forward on President Trump’s promise of delivering historic tax relief to working families, farmers and small businesses,” said committee chair Jason Smith, R-Missouri, in his opening statement. “The One Big Beautiful Bill is the key to making America great again. This moment has been years in the making. While Democrats were defending IRS audits on the middle class and tax carveouts for the wealthy, Republicans on this Committee got on the road, to hear from real Americans about how the 2017 tax cuts benefited them. This bill wasn’t drafted by special interests or K Street lobbyists. It was drafted by the American people in communities across the country.”
Democrats blasted the bill. “In 2017, Republicans passed a tax law that was supposed to pay for itself, raise wages, and help working families,” said ranking member Richard Neal, D-Massachusetts. “None of that happened. Instead, it exploded the deficit, worsened inequality, and left everyday Americans behind. Now they want to double down on the same failed playbook. One that rigs the system for billionaires and big corporations while everyone else pays the price.”
Among the provisions, the bill would make the expiring rate and bracket changes of the TCJA permanent and increase the inflation adjustment for all brackets excluding the 37% threshold, according to a
Other changes and limitations to itemized deductions would be made permanent, including the limitation on personal casualty losses and wagering losses and termination of miscellaneous itemized deductions, Pease limitation on itemized deductions, and certain moving expenses.
The bill is likely to go through some changes when it goes to the Senate. “Politically, we’ve been talking about the process for the last couple months,” said Mark Baran, managing director at CBIZ’s national tax office. “Congress is finally able to pass a concurrent resolution to unlock the budget reconciliation process.”
“The House and the Senate have completely different instructions on what they’re going to cut and how they’re going to score,” he added. “Some of that’s very controversial, and that needs to be worked out. But now we’re getting into the actual crafting of provisions and legislation.”
According to a
The bill would also allow businesses to include amortization and depreciation when figuring the business interest limitation through Dec. 31, 2029, while making permanent the excess business loss limitation.
In addition, the bill would retroactively terminate the Employee Retention Tax Credit for taxpayers who filed refund claims after Jan. 31, 2024.
In keeping with Trump campaign promises, the bill would eliminate taxes on tips for employees in certain defined industries where tipping has been a traditional form of compensation. There would be a new $4,000 deduction for seniors that phases out starting at $75,000 of income. The bill would also eliminate taxes on overtime pay.
The bill would give individuals an above-the-line deduction for interest on loans used to purchase American-made cars, but that would be capped at $10,000 with income phaseouts starting at $100,000 (single) and $200,000 (married filing jointly).
The bill would also increase taxes on certain private college investment income up to a maximum of 21% on universities with a student-adjusted endowment above $2 million.
It would also roll back some of the renewable energy provisions from the Inflation Reduction, including a phaseout and restrictions on clean energy facilities starting in 2029, while also limiting or eliminating clean housing energy and vehicle credits. The bill would sunset major IRA clean electricity tax credits, including the clean electricity production tax credit (45Y), clean electricity investment tax credit (48E), and nuclear electricity production tax credit (45U) begin phasing out after 2028 and finish phasing out by the end of 2031; repeal hydrogen production credit (45V) for facilities beginning construction after 2025, according to the Tax Foundation. It would also phase out advanced manufacturing production credit (45X) for wind energy components after 2027, for all other eligible components after 2031. Across several IRA clean energy credits, the bill would repeal transferability after the end of 2027 and further limit credits based on involvement of foreign entities of concern. On the other hand, it would expand the clean fuel production credit (45K), and tighten rules on the 126(m) limitation for executive compensation.
The bill would terminate the current Direct File program at the Internal Revenue Service and establish a public-private partnership between the IRS and private sector tax preparation services to offer free tax filing, replacing both the existing Direct File and Free File programs.
The Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board is asking for input on emerging accounting issues and questions related to reporting entity reorganizations and abolishments as the federal government endures wide-ranging layoffs and reductions in force, including the elimination of entire agencies by the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency.
“Federal agencies and their functions, from time to time, have been reorganized and abolished,” said FASAB in its
Reorganization refers to a transfer, consolidation, coordination, authorization or abolition of one (or more) agency or agencies or a part of their functions. Abolition is a type of reorganization and refers to the whole or part of an agency that does not have, upon the effective date of the reorganization, any functions.
The Trump administration has recently moved to all but eliminate parts of the federal government such as the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and earlier this month, Republicans on the House Financial Services Committee
FASAB issues federal financial accounting standards and provides timely guidance. Practitioner responses to the request for information will support its efforts to identify, research and respond to emerging accounting and reporting issues related to reorganization and abolishment activities, such as transfers of assets and liabilities among federal reporting entities. The input will be used to help inform any potential staff recommendations and alternatives for FASAB to consider regarding short- and long-term actions and updates to federal accounting standards and guidance in this area.
The questions include:
- Have any recent or ongoing reorganization activities or events affected the scope of functions, assets, liabilities, net position, revenues, and expenses assigned to your reporting entity (or, for auditors, your auditees)? If so, please describe.
- What accounting issues have you (or your auditees) encountered (or do you anticipate) in connection with recent or potential reorganization activities and events?
- Please describe the sources of standards and guidance that you (or your auditees) are applying to recent, ongoing, or pending reorganization activities and events.
- Have you experienced any difficulties or identified gaps in the accounting and disclosure standards for reorganization activities and events? What potential improvements would you recommend, if any?
FASAB is asking for responses by July 15, 2025, but acknowledged that late or follow-up submissions may be necessary given the provisional nature of the request. Responses should be emailed to [email protected] with “RERA RFI response” on the subject line.
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