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What tech vendors can learn from CPAs and their practices

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In the first two parts of this series (here and here), we explored what accounting firms can learn from accounting technology vendors. The first article discussed how vendor business models can inspire accountants to rethink their approaches to innovation and client experience, and the second article highlighted approaches tech companies use in talent management to attract and retain top talent. Now, in a reverse Uno move, let’s explore three ways vendors can learn from CPAs.

1. Camaraderie and Knowledge Sharing in Competition

Technology has introduced a wide array of tools and efficiencies to the accounting field, helping firms tackle capacity challenges and enabling accountants to work faster and more efficiently. The rapid pace of tech innovation has opened doors for transformative solutions—but also brought an overwhelming influx of vendors competing for attention. Given the overlapping nature of solutions, some vendors’ inclination is to take a zero-sum competition mode.

This doesn’t have to be the norm for competitors. Anyone attending events from major alliances and associations, such as the ITA Collective in Palm Springs last week, would quickly notice a striking phenomenon: leaders of competing CPA firms exchanging insights, strategies, and best practices. This openness exists because CPAs understand a fundamental truth—a rising tide lifts all boats. In a field with abundant work and too few qualified professionals, it’s in everyone’s interest to support one another, to collectively advance the profession.

Technology vendors could benefit from adopting this mindset. Tech companies, coming from varied backgrounds—some deeply rooted in the accounting profession, others arriving from different industries—are sometimes accustomed to protecting their innovations tightly. But accounting tech is different. Here, many vendors have simultaneously overlapping, complementary, and competitive features in their products. Acknowledging this dynamic and committing to a connected technology ecosystem can foster a more robust, sustainable market with greater revenue potential and deeper client trust. Adopting a collaborative approach will ultimately prove more valuable than a closed, competitive stance in our profession.

2. Integration with Local Communities

CPA firms have a special bond with the communities they serve. As trusted advisors, CPAs become pillars of their communities, guiding local businesses and individuals through complex financial landscapes. Their relationships with clients are often both professional and personal, rooted in a strong commitment to nurturing the community relationship as a whole.

Let’s compare this with the tech startups that are rooted in the city that I call home today: San Francisco. A city at the heart of the generative AI boom in Silicon Valley, San Francisco is a global epicenter of tech innovation. Yet it also highlights the disconnect between technology-driven wealth and broader community wellbeing. The waves of technology workers and hackers who are furiously working to build the future yet have little community involvement have led to uneven benefits (and also inspired the term “tech bros”).

Local community integration isn’t just about fostering goodwill; it’s a solid business strategy. 

Rooting a business in its community can lead to more empathetic product design and better team cohesion, and an edge in recruiting for the office hubs.

When naming my consulting firm, I chose the name Edgefield Group, inspired by the street I grew up on—Edgefield Street—to reflect the foundational sense of place and rootedness that CPAs embody in their work. Vendors could adopt this principle, fostering meaningful relationships within communities and embracing a relational approach that considers the broader impacts of their technology.

3. Slowing Down to Speed Up: Responsible Innovation

CPAs are known for their conservatism and for their role as stewards of financial data—a role that often requires a level of caution and accountability. This is in stark contrast to tech’s rapid development culture, famously epitomized by Meta CEO’s Mark Zuckerberg’s “move fast and break things” philosophy. While speed and disruption can yield breakthroughs, this approach doesn’t translate well to fields like finance and accounting, where trust and reliability are paramount.

The accounting profession’s cautious, deliberate nature offers a valuable counterpoint to the fast-paced culture of tech, especially regarding emerging technologies like AI and fintech. Take, for example, the recent AICPA Executive Roundtable, which focused on the theme of Responsible AI. This forum allowed vendors and CPA leaders to thoughtfully discuss the responsible use of AI in the profession, emphasizing the importance of anticipating potential risks and considering the long-term implications of technology.

Slowing down may seem counterintuitive, but it creates space for meaningful dialogue, ethical reflection, and deliberate innovation that will advance the technology realm faster. By embracing the “slow down to speed up” principle, tech vendors can craft solutions with a long-term view, protecting and upholding the profession’s values while still meeting the demand for efficiency and innovation. There is a growing need for companies to adopt this mindset, recognizing that sometimes the most responsible—and ultimately most profitable—way forward is to ensure every step is taken with care and consideration.

Conclusion

As the tech and accounting worlds continue to converge, it’s clear that each has much to learn from the other. While accounting firms can gain agility and fresh ideas from tech companies, vendors would do well to emulate CPAs’ collaborative spirit, commitment to community, and cautious approach to innovation.

Ultimately, by embracing these values, tech vendors have an opportunity to create greater value for the industry and the world. Whether through collaborative knowledge-sharing, local community involvement, or thoughtful, responsible development, these lessons from CPAs offer a pathway for vendors to foster sustainable growth and contribute meaningfully to the profession they serve.

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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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