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Practice Profile: Daydreamers and envelope-pushers at accounting firm BPM

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2 years ago

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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?'”

Lindsay Stevenson of BPM
Lindsay Stevenson of BPM

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.”

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Accounting

Global ESG Reporting Standards and Double Materiality Compliance

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6 days ago

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August 9, 2026

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Corporate accounting departments face expanding reporting expectations as international sustainability disclosure standards achieve regulatory enforcement across major global jurisdictions. Chief Accounting Officers (CAOs) and corporate controllers are establishing rigorous internal accounting controls to treat Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) metrics with the same data precision, auditability, and governance as traditional financial statements.

Regulatory Harmonization Under Global Sustainability Frameworks
The implementation of standardized sustainability reporting frameworks—notably rules established by international sustainability accounting boards—has created unified expectations for public and large private enterprises. Corporations must report standardized metrics covering greenhouse gas emissions (Scope 1, 2, and material Scope 3), energy utilization, workforce demographics, and supply chain governance.

In Europe and other participating international jurisdictions, double materiality principles are mandatory. Under double materiality, organizations must report both how external sustainability risks impact corporate financial performance, and how internal corporate operations affect surrounding environmental and social structures.

Integrating Sustainability Metrics into Core ERP Systems
To provide auditable non-financial data, enterprise organizations are integrating specialized carbon accounting and ESG management platforms directly into core ERP systems. Automated data collectors capture energy utility invoices, logistics fuel consumption metrics, and vendor compliance records in real time.

Establishing automated, traceable data pipelines ensures that non-financial reporting is supported by clear audit trails. This structured approach allows external financial auditors to provide reasonable assurance on sustainability disclosures during annual corporate reporting cycles.

Financial Impacts and Capital Market Disclosure
Accurate ESG reporting directly influences corporate cost of capital and institutional credit ratings. Commercial lenders and institutional asset managers systematically incorporate sustainability metrics into risk pricing models. Companies that demonstrate transparent, verifiable progress in operational energy efficiency and climate risk mitigation benefit from expanded access to green bond markets and lower debt pricing.

Action Steps for Accounting Leadership
1. Implement Double Materiality Frameworks: Conduct comprehensive assessments to identify material financial and operational sustainability metrics.
2. Build Auditable Non-Financial Data Pipelines: Automate ESG data collection within core accounting software to ensure data integrity.
3. Align Sustainability with Annual Financial Filings: Prepare non-financial disclosures concurrently with financial statements to satisfy regulatory audit expectations.

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Accounting

Modernizing Internal Controls: Machine Learning and Continuous Monitoring in Auditing

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1 week ago

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August 5, 2026

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Internal audit departments and corporate risk managers are modernizing internal control frameworks by shifting from periodic sampling techniques to continuous monitoring and machine learning analytics. As operational data volumes increase across enterprise organizations, automated control testing ensures financial integrity, prevents corporate fraud, and streamlines annual audit engagements.

The Limitation of Periodic Audit Sampling
Historically, internal and external auditors evaluated internal controls by reviewing random samples of financial transactions—often analyzing less than five percent of total ledger entries. In complex enterprise environments, periodic sampling methods carry inherent risks of overlooking localized financial misstatements, unauthorized disbursements, or operational control breakdowns.

In 2026, progressive internal audit functions are utilizing automated continuous monitoring platforms that evaluate one hundred percent of financial transactions in real time. Continuous control auditing systems continuously monitor general ledger entries, procurement approvals, and expense reimbursements across all operating subsidiaries.

AI-Powered Fraud Detection and Anomaly Identification
Machine learning models trained on historical corporate financial data excel at identifying subtle transactional anomalies that indicate potential fraud or operational error. Automated systems instantly flag duplicate invoice payments, unapproved vendor creation, unusual journal entry timing, and unauthorized override of authority thresholds.

When an anomaly is detected, the automated auditing platform generates an instant risk alert, allowing internal audit teams to investigate root causes immediately. Early detection prevents minor operational errors from escalating into material weaknesses in financial reporting.

Streamlining External Audit Preparation
Continuous internal control monitoring delivers significant benefits during annual external financial audits. External audit firms can review continuous audit logs and automated control testing documentation, reducing the time required for manual field testing.

This integrated approach lowers overall audit compliance fees, reduces administrative burdens on corporate accounting staff, and provides senior management and audit committees with real-time visibility into the organization’s overall risk profile.

Core Implementation Guidelines
1. Transition to 100% Data Testing: Replace legacy sampling methods with automated continuous audit monitoring systems.
2. Deploy Anomaly Detection Algorithms: Implement machine learning models to identify unauthorized transactions and operational control overrides.
3. Align Internal and External Audit Workflows: Coordinate continuous control testing protocols with external auditors to optimize annual compliance cycles.

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Accounting

Automated Tax Compliance and Global Regulatory Harmonization in 2026

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1 week ago

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August 5, 2026

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Corporate tax accounting departments are navigating an era of unprecedented regulatory complexity as global tax harmonization frameworks take full effect alongside real-time digital tax reporting mandates. Tax directors and accounting teams are adopting cloud-based tax compliance automation tools to manage multi-jurisdictional tax liabilities and satisfy stringent reporting rules across international jurisdictions.

Implementation of Global Minimum Tax Provisions
The implementation of international tax reform agreements—notably the Pillar Two global minimum tax framework—has reshaped multinational corporate tax planning. Multinational enterprises with consolidated revenues exceeding established thresholds must ensure an effective tax rate of at least 15% across every jurisdiction in which they operate.

Accounting teams are implementing specialized tax calculation modules integrated directly into enterprise resource planning (ERP) platforms. These automated tools calculate effective tax rates per country, identify top-up tax liabilities, and generate standardized compliance documentation required by national tax authorities.

Real-Time Digital Invoicing and E-Reporting Mandates
Tax authorities across Europe, Latin America, and Asia-Pacific have enacted mandatory electronic invoicing (e-invoicing) and continuous transaction controls (CTC). Under these systems, corporate transaction data must be submitted electronically to government portals in real time at the point of sale or invoice issuance.

This shift toward continuous digital tax reporting eliminates traditional annual tax audits in favor of ongoing automated compliance monitoring. Accounting departments are upgrading invoicing software to ensure seamless XML data formatting, digital signature authentication, and real-time validation against tax authority databases.

Automation and Data Analytics in Corporate Tax Strategy
To keep pace with dynamic tax legislation, tax departments are transitioning from reactive compliance teams to proactive strategic advisors. Machine learning algorithms analyze corporate transactional data to identify tax credits, research and development (R&D) incentives, and cross-border transfer pricing adjustments.

By automating routine tax return filings and calculations, corporate tax directors can focus on long-term capital structuring, evaluating the tax implications of corporate mergers, and optimizing international supply chain networks.

Strategic Priorities for Tax Executives
1. ERP System Upgrades: Ensure enterprise software is capable of generating real-time, granular tax data required for global minimum tax compliance.
2. E-Invoicing Integration: Implement scalable e-invoicing platforms to satisfy regional continuous transaction control regulations.
3. Strategic Tax Analytics: Utilize predictive tax modeling tools to evaluate structural changes in corporate operations and cross-border trade.

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