Clarification of the standard for financial statement preparation engagements helps define the future of CAS practices

NEW YORK (April 1, 2025) – The CAS Advisory Council applauds the American Institute of CPAs’ (AICPA) Accounting and Review Services Committee’s (ARSC) clarification of the applicability of the standard related to financial statement preparation as part of a client advisory services (CAS) engagement. The modernization of the standards reflects the evolution of CAS and will better enable firms to further the shift into higher value advisory services.

"This change represents a new era for CAS practices,” said Becky Munson, partner at Eisner Advisory Group LLC and member of the CAS Advisory Council. “The standards now align more closely with the evolving needs of businesses and the services provided by CAS teams. This will now allow them to truly serve clients while continuing to fulfill their professional obligations. It’s a win for everyone, and we can’t thank the committee enough for their diligence in making these changes."

CPA.com and the Digital CPA community have long focused on driving the CAS opportunity for the accounting profession. In 2023, the CAS Advisory Council formed, composed of CAS practice leaders from firms of all sizes. The Council is focused on creating a framework of best practices for the category and helps enable practitioners in the shift toward higher value advisory services.

“The financial reporting standard clarification is a sea change for how client advisory services will be managed going forward,” said Erik Asgeirsson, president and CEO, CPA.com. “Outsourced accounting services have evolved considerably beyond the preparation of a financial statement—today’s modern CAS practice delivers state of the art cloud accounting capabilities with dashboards and business insights which appropriately will now fall under the consulting service and advisory area of firms.”

While CAS remains one of the fastest growing practice areas in the profession, there’s potential for firms to deliver deeper business insights. This relies on a combination of financial and non-financial inputs to allow firms to provide strategic support around business transformation, industry-specific problems and high-level strategic financial planning and analysis.

According to the recent CPA.com and AICPA PCPS CAS Benchmark Survey report, close to one-third of firms reported growth of their CAS revenues from business insights or bundles containing business insights services. And all respondents project a decrease over the next three years in services that do not qualify as CAS, such as single-service financial statement preparation. This move is fueled by client demand for deeper insights, and CPAs are well positioned to fill this need.

“The modernization of standards reflects the reality of what is already happening within CAS practices today,” said Bill Reeb, CEO of Succession Institute and past chair of the Consulting Services Executive Committee.

Sharon Berman, principal at Rehmann, agreed: “This change will streamline CAS practices and allow them to more efficiently serve the evolving needs of clients."

Firms are already looking forward to the next phase of implementation. From the DCPA Conference keynote stage last December, Angie MacPhee, managing principal of consulting and advisory services at Baker Tilly, noted how her firm will be approaching the delivery of financial statements under CAS: “We are putting it under the consulting standards. While we’ll maintain very high quality, we’re excited to organize this way.”

In the coming weeks, CPA.com will release additional resources to help firms determine how this clarification and modernization of standards helps them move forward into business insights CAS, including an FAQ, video discussions, engagement letter templates, and more. In the meantime, access the following for more information:

• AICPA press release: AICPA Committee Approves Clarification to Standard Related to Financial Statement Preparation as Part of a CAS Engagement
• Blog: Financial reporting standards and the future of Client Advisory Services
• CPA.com and AICPA PCPS CAS Benchmark Survey report
• Listen to an update on the April 3, 2025 AICPA Town Hall
• Video: Practitioner discussion
• AICPA Statement on Standards for Accounting and Review Services No. 27
• SSARS No. 27 At a Glance

 
About CPA.com

CPA.com brings innovative solutions to the accounting profession, either in partnership with leading providers or directly through its own development. The company has established itself as a thought leader on emerging technologies and as the trusted business advisor to practitioners in the United States, with a growing global focus.

Our company’s core mission is to drive the transformation of practice areas, advance the technology ecosystem for the profession, and lead technology research and innovation efforts for practitioners.

A subsidiary of the American Institute of CPAs, the company is also part of the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants, the world’s most influential organization representing the profession. For more information, visit CPA.com.

Profession leaders and innovators convene to examine the AI landscape, practical use cases and considerations for responsible AI adoption.

NEW YORK (March 26, 2025) – Leaders across accounting, finance and technology gathered today at the 2^nd annual AICPA and CPA.com AI Symposium to explore the evolving role of artificial intelligence in the accounting profession. The event serves as a platform to deepen knowledge into AI’s real and potential impact and share strategies to maximize its potential to transform practice areas.

Hosted by the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) and its business and technology subsidiary, CPA.com, the event brought together more than 70 firm and finance leaders, standard setters, thought leaders, AI solution providers and technologists to examine the current AI landscape, opportunities for the profession, and risks and considerations for effective implementation.

"AI is a catalyst that provides unprecedented opportunity for firms and finance teams to enhance their role as trusted advisors," said Erik Asgeirsson, CPA.com president and CEO. “The symposium is unique because it brings together so many diverse perspectives within the accounting and finance ecosystem to help paint a complete picture on the potential impact of AI and status of adoption.”

The AI Symposium explores key areas of leadership and focus, from the current AI landscape and political climate to practical applications within tax, audit, finance and advisory. CPA.com will release an update highlighting key themes and takeaways from the event sessions, which include:

• Review of 2025 CPA.com State of AI in Accounting Research Report with Erik Asgeirsson, president and CEO, CPA.com.
• Current AI Political Climate with Mark Peterson, EVP of Advocacy, AICPA, and Curtis Philp, Senior Vice President, Alpine Group.
• AI Regulation is Coming, What Will It Look Like? with Bill Whyman, Founder & Principal, Tech Dynamics LLC.
• The AI Landscape with Matthew Kiel, Managing Vice President, Gartner.
• AI Considerations for Audit & Assurance with Carrie Kostelec, Lead Manager, SOC and Related Services, AICPA, and Samantha Demty, Audit Partner, KPMG US.
• Unpacking Agentic AI with Heather Unruh, Senior Vice President of Solution Engineering, Salesforce.
• Data-Centric AI: Unlocking Value Across the Ecosystem with Jeff Seibert, CEO, Digits, Robert Pacifico, SVP, Open Banking at Mastercard, and Charles Groome, Vice President of Growth Strategy, Biz2Credit.
• AI Innovations in Accounting and Finance with Aaron Harris, CTO of Sage; Dom Megna, Principal at PwC US Tax LLP; Ryan Daley, GetAI Tax Director at PWC; and Avani Desai, CEO of Schellman.

Resources to support accounting and finance professionals

The AI Symposium is part of the AICPA and CPA.com’s ongoing efforts to deliver education, tools and resources to help accounting and finance professionals build their understanding of AI and the potential impact on their practices during this time of rapid change, including:

• CPA.com’s AI initiative, which includes a toolkit featuring use cases and a security checklist to help firms build smart, safe AI strategies.
• AICPA Artificial Intelligence Resource Center
• AICPA and CPA.com Startup Accelerator

About CPA.com

CPA.com brings innovative solutions to the accounting profession, either in partnership with leading providers or directly through its own development. The company has established itself as a thought leader on emerging technologies and as the trusted business advisor to practitioners in the United States, with a growing global focus.

Our company’s core mission is to drive the transformation of practice areas, advance the technology ecosystem for the profession, and lead technology research and innovation efforts for practitioners.

A subsidiary of the American Institute of CPAs, the company is also part of the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants, the world’s most influential organization representing the profession. For more information, visit CPA.com.

About AICPA & CIMA, together as the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants

AICPA & CIMA, together as the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants (the Association), advance the global accounting and finance profession through our work on behalf of 597,000 AICPA and CIMA members, candidates and registrants in 188 countries and territories. Together, we are the worldwide leader on public and management accounting issues through advocacy, support for the CPA license, the CGMA designation and specialized credentials, professional education and thought leadership. We build trust by empowering our members, candidates and registrants with the knowledge and opportunities to be leaders in broadening prosperity for a more inclusive, sustainable and resilient future.

Program Fosters Emerging Technology Innovation in Accounting and Finance

NEW YORK (March 11, 2025) – Today the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) and CPA.com announced the latest participants of its annual Startup Accelerator program, which supports the growth of early-stage technology companies benefiting the accounting and finance ecosystem. The 2025 cohort, which kicks off this week at the companies’ headquarters in New York, includes six startup companies leveraging advanced technologies to drive efficiencies and enhance value across accounting, tax and finance.

Selected companies receive focused insights from subject matter experts and firm and finance leaders who are shaping the profession. Additionally, they benefit from strategic intelligence and coaching from AICPA and CPA.com senior leaders and the program’s advisory board to help their company refine its value proposition, scale and grow. Participants also receive a grant and have an opportunity to showcase their solutions at key profession events throughout the year, including AICPA & CIMA ENGAGE and Digital CPA, the premier conferences for the CPA community.

“Emerging technologies are a key enabler for firms and finance teams looking to evolve practice areas,” said Erik Asgeirsson, president and CEO, CPA.com. “The Startup Accelerator program is pivotal in helping us stay ahead of the fast-evolving technology landscape. Artificial intelligence is proving to be a catalyst for change, representing one of the most significant shifts the profession has seen in years. This program, and the companies it supports, plays a crucial role in connecting CPAs with cutting-edge, tailored solutions that empower firms to meet growing client needs and further expand into higher-value advisory services.”

The following technology providers were selected for the 2025 program:

• Avise – Transforms accounting workflows by incorporating AI and automation to streamline the month-end close process.
• Filed. (formerly Numiro) – Provides the most secure AI solutions for tax preparation, designed to operate both on the cloud, and even on-premise.
• Keeper – A practice management solution that differentiates itself through deep integration to the client’s core accounting system.
• Remitian – A platform that automates the payment of tax remittances for clients, ensuring compliance, saving accountants’ and administrative teams’ time, and eliminating costly late fees.
• Tabs – An AI-native revenue automation platform reducing manual workflows and streamlining revenue operations from contract to cash for finance and accounting firms.
• Truewind – An agentic AI solution that assists accountants in executing the month-end close tasks, including automating data categorization, collecting supporting documentation and reconciling accrual workpapers.

For more information about the Startup Accelerator, please visit cpa.com/accelerator.

About CPA.com

CPA.com brings innovative solutions to the accounting profession, either in partnership with leading providers or directly through its own development. The company has established itself as a thought leader on emerging technologies and as the trusted business advisor to practitioners in the United States, with a growing global focus.

Our company’s core mission is to drive the transformation of practice areas, advance the technology ecosystem for the profession, and lead technology research and innovation efforts for practitioners. A subsidiary of the American Institute of CPAs, the company is also part of the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants, the world’s most influential organization representing the profession. For more information, visit CPA.com.

About the American Institute of CPAs

The American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) is the world’s largest member association representing the CPA profession, with 400,000 members in the United States and worldwide, and a history of serving the public interest since 1887. AICPA members represent many areas of practice, including business and industry, public practice, government, education and consulting. AICPA sets ethical standards for its members and U.S. auditing standards for private companies, not-for-profit organizations, and federal, state and local governments. It develops and grades the Uniform CPA Examination, offers specialized credentials, builds the pipeline of future talent and drives continuing education to advance the vitality, relevance and quality of the profession.

Generative AI-based solution helps firms increase efficiency and provide enhanced client value and insights

NEW YORK, NY (Jan. 16, 2025) – CPA.com announced today that it has formed a partnership with Blue J to connect firms of all sizes to Blue J’s best-in-class generative AI-powered tax research solution that’s designed to streamline a firm’s research processes and support them in delivering deeper, more actionable insights to clients.

Tax practitioners today face significant challenges with tax research, including navigating complex regulations, ensuring accuracy and managing time-consuming processes. Blue J, which was built by tax experts for tax experts, leverages an extensive U.S. tax content library and advanced large language models to instantly deliver firms with trusted, verifiable tax answers and draft high-quality client communications.

"This partnership with CPA.com marks a significant milestone in our mission of making tax law more understandable for all practitioners, so they can deliver exceptional outcomes for clients,” said Benjamin Alarie, CEO, Blue J. By combining our AI-driven solution with CPA.com's expertise around the accounting and finance professions, we are making accurate, efficient tax research more accessible than ever before."

“GenAI has more potential than perhaps any technology since the cloud to transform and enhance firm productivity and client service value,” said Erik Asgeirsson, president and CEO, CPA.com. “However, AI is still a nascent category and accounting professionals are focused on identifying viable use cases and building trust in the technology. We believe leveraging Blue J’s tax research capabilities for compliance work can help free up time that will enable practitioners to further shift toward deepening their trusted advisor relationships and unlocking new opportunities for firm evolution and growth.”

Firm adoption
More than 1,000 firms have adopted Blue J to support their tax research efforts and usage continues to grow in tandem—by the end of Nov. 2024, Blue J was answering more than 100,000 tax research questions from users in the previous 30 days.

Michael Radtke, a partner at Chortek, a mid-size firm in Wisconsin with a staff of 75, said his firm shifted from traditional research tools to Blue J because the solution offers a higher-value, more user-friendly experience that enabled his staff to serve their clients at an even higher standard. “In today’s competitive landscape, it’s important to stay up to date on the latest technologies as they develop. With Blue J, we can now enable our staff to deliver better results, faster, for our clients,” said Radtke.

Leslie Hatridge of Hatridge Tax & Accounting, a boutique tax prep firm based in Colorado, said that Blue J is one of the best investments she’s made in her business. As a one-person company, she feels the biggest thing she's lacking is a team to bounce things off. "Research takes a lot of time, and I'm obsessive about making sure things are done right,” noted Hatridge. “Now I feel like I have the ‘team’ backup I have been missing and can't believe the excellent quality of the research responses Blue J provides me.”

Key features and benefits of the Blue J platform include:

• Research expertly. Accomplish hours of research in seconds and arrive at meaningful insights faster than ever before. Blue J accelerates your research, so you can quickly deliver the right answers to clients.
• Grow your expertise. Practitioners can deepen their tax expertise by leveraging a curated database of trusted tax content, accessible directly through the application. A comprehensive list of sources, highlighting relevant passages, is provided at every stage of research.
• Draft instantly. With the touch of a button, high-quality emails and memos can be created in seconds for faster client communications.

Blue J will be offered to firms through CPA.com’s Preferred Partner Program, which supports CPA firms in expanding and elevating their advisory services through best-in-class technology solutions. Through this program, CPA.com will also provide practice development and training to help firms optimize the use of this technology.

To learn about how tax practitioners can harness Blue J’s advanced tax research capabilities to create efficiencies and deliver more client value, register for CPA.com’s upcoming product webinar, “Tax season prep: Get better tax answers with AI tax research tools,” Jan. 23 at 2 p.m. ET.

To learn more about Blue J, visit cpa.com/TaxAI.

About CPA.com
CPA.com brings innovative solutions to the accounting profession, either in partnership with leading providers or directly through its own development. The company has established itself as a thought leader on emerging technologies and as the trusted business advisor to practitioners in the United States, with a growing global focus. The company’s core mission is to drive the transformation of practice areas, advance the technology ecosystem for the profession, and lead technology research and innovation efforts for practitioners. A subsidiary of the American Institute of CPAs, the company is also part of the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants, the world’s most influential organization representing the profession. For more information, visit CPA.com.

About Blue J
Founded in 2015, Blue J is the leading generative AI solution for tax research. Trusted by firms of all sizes, Blue J delivers fast, verifiable answers to complex tax questions, empowering professionals to provide exceptional client service. With its conversational interface and curated library of authoritative sources, Blue J is transforming how tax experts work.

Newly appointed Caseware CEO ranks audit transformation as a top priority.

New York, NY (Jan. 13, 2025) - CPA.com, the business and technology subsidiary of the AICPA, announced today the latest updates to its Dynamic Audit Solution (DAS) initiative, including enhanced capabilities, expanded industry content and the appointment of a new chief executive officer at its technology partner Caseware.

DAS, which is powered by a transformative methodology developed by the AICPA in partnership with audit professionals from leading firms, reimagines the audit process with a data-driven, iterative, tailored-in approach that enhances efficiency and promotes a higher quality audit. DAS is built on the Caseware Cloud platform and is the profession’s most advanced and only fully integrated, end-to-end, cloud-based audit solution on the market.

Caseware appoints new CEO with strong technology and accounting industry background 

Caseware, a global leader in cloud audit, assurance and financial reporting and data analytics, is committed to driving audit transformation and today announced the appointment of David Marquis as its new CEO. David joins Caseware after five years at Intuit, where he led the international division including Canada, Australia, the UK and other non-U.S. markets. In their statement, Caseware highlighted the DAS initiative and audit transformation as a top focus area where they continue to demonstrate deep innovation and investment. They also recognized the contributions of their departing CEO David Osborne.

Erik Asgeirsson, CEO of CPA.com, commented on the transition: “David Osborne was a key partner to us in getting DAS launched, and he leaves things well positioned at Caseware for its continued success. I am very much looking forward to advancing the next phase with David Marquis who has a great understanding of the accounting profession along with a deep background in emerging technologies and product strategies. I’m also thrilled with David Marquis’ overall excitement related to the transformative DAS initiative which he shared with me in a recent discussion.”

DAS capability enhancements

As firm adoption of DAS continues to accelerate, the latest updates further support auditors in enhancing the efficiency, quality and client value of financial statement audits.

Recent DAS releases have expanded capabilities to address current auditor needs within the platform and build out key foundational elements to allow for even more enhanced technologies in the coming months, including:

• Newly supported industries. Industries added at the end of 2024 include technology, real estate, dealerships, depository and lending institutions, investment companies and insurance. Additional industry content for state and local governments will be released in the coming months. DAS’s tailored content by industry eliminates irrelevant procedures and supports auditors with tools aligned to unique industry requirements.
• Central Planning. Central planning eliminates redundancy and optimizes workflows for audits that involve multiple engagements by allowing risk assessments and responses to risks to be managed from a central entity. This feature also provides auditors the flexibility to modify elements of the individual entities to further streamline workflows.
• Testing. This release also upgrades the journal entry testing tool, making it simpler to work with existing tests, create new custom tests for specific needs, and link tests to specific risks.

In addition to DAS’s robust capabilities, CPA.com effectively supports firm adoption readiness, providing comprehensive implementation consulting, training and migration services to support firms through the entire audit transformation journey.

Firm adoption

Adoption of DAS continues to accelerate, with many T100 firms now on a path to full migration. Feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, with firms highlighting enhanced efficiency and quality, staff engagement and upskilling, implementation training and the flexibility to use “out of the box” or as a customized solution as key benefits.

For more information on the Dynamic Audit Solution and recent updates, visit cpa.com/DAS.

About CPA.com

CPA.com brings innovative solutions to the accounting profession, either in partnership with leading providers or directly through its own development. The company has established itself as a thought leader on emerging technologies and as the trusted business advisor to practitioners in the United States, with a growing global focus. The company’s core mission is to drive the transformation of practice areas, advance the technology ecosystem for the profession, and lead technology research and innovation efforts for practitioners. A subsidiary of the American Institute of CPAs, the company is also part of the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants, the world’s most influential organization representing the profession. For more information, visit CPA.com.