The Association of International Certified Professional Accountants and CPA.com, the American Institute of CPAs’ technology subsidiary, announced Tuesday that they are launching an initiative to provide funding and support to early-stage companies developing innovative technologies for the accounting profession.

The Association and CPA.com Startup Accelerator will seek to support as many as five early-stage companies during the next year. The focus will be on startups in two key areas:

• Technology and financial information, which could include advances in artificial intelligence, automation of routine tasks, and the application of blockchain/digital ledgers; and
• Professional competency innovation, which could encompass machine learning to personalize professional education, collaboration tools for mentors and experts, and improvements in measuring professional competency, among other categories.

“The Association and CPA.com have a deep base of knowledge and resources to offer entrepreneurs looking to find a foothold in the accounting ecosystem,” Lawson Carmichael, the Association’s executive vice president for strategy, people, and innovation, said in a news release. “And for us, the startup accelerator offers a chance to ‘see around corners’ and take a more long-range view of opportunities in business transformation and innovation. There’s a compelling business case for collaboration.”

The startup accelerator will provide as many as five companies with up to $20,000 in funding and access to subject-matter experts, including an advisory panel of thought leaders in the accounting technology field available to provide coaching and mentoring on issues and opportunities unique to the profession. The funding will be subject to a commercial agreement that could take any number of forms, including using the funding to purchase equity in the startup or to assist with development of a product in which CPA.com and/or the Association would own part of the product’s intellectual property. Another possibility would be a channel agreement to provide access to the market.

Firms chosen for the accelerator initiative also would have the opportunity to showcase their product or service next June at AICPA ENGAGE 2018, one of the largest accounting-related events in the United States, and—with continued, successful development—the potential for longer-term, strategic relationships within the profession.

The main goals for the Association and CPA.com in launching the accelerator are to promote innovation and to give the accounting profession early insight into disruptive technologies and services in finance and business.

Applicants from all global markets are eligible to apply for one of the five accelerator spots. To qualify:

• Startups should be at a pre-Series A stage of financing, with some exceptions.
• The company must have a functioning product or service.
• Pre-revenue companies will be considered based on their development progress and business plan.
• Candidate companies must agree to pitch their product or service to Association and CPA.com executives this fall, after which up to five finalists will be selected.

“At CPA.com, we have been driving innovation for the past decade through our technology services, strategic partnerships, and training and education programs,” said Erik Asgeirsson, CPA.com’s president and CEO. “We’ve also been convening leading technology companies at our executive roundtables and other collaborative events, so the next logical step for us is to support earlier-stage activity with this Startup Accelerator. It’s like ‘Shark Tank’ for companies serving the accounting profession.”

Submissions by startups are due by Oct. 5. Interested companies that want more information can contact Greg LaFollette, a strategic adviser with CPA.com, at Greg.Lafollette@hq.cpa.com, or Mark Brooks, senior manager of innovation at the Association, at Mark.Brooks@aicpa-cima.com. To apply for consideration or learn more details about the Startup Accelerator, visit aicpaglobal.com/accelerator.

Time was when cybersecurity, efficiency, and even ability to adopt technology were top of mind for practitioners, but the situation with finding and retaining talent has reached a boiling point.

During a morning keynote address at the AICPA Engage conference this week, AICPA President Barry Melancon called out the serious issue for firms of all sizes, which also happened to be supported by one of their own recent surveys.

Each year the AICPA’s CPA Firm Top Issues Survey highlights, as advertised, what the top-of-mind issues are for all practices, from sole practitioners to the largest firms. For the first time ever, they were all in agreement that the flow of talent coming into the profession, and keeping what talent there is, is cause for concern.

“Accounting isn’t the problem, it’s attracting [students] to different pathways that stay connected to the profession,” said Melancon. “So we need to reach Gen Z at the high school level, as with high school honors courses in accounting. The pipeline is healthy ... your toughest competitor isn’t another CPA firm, it’s other industries with eyes on your clients.”

He went on to reiterate that competition for accounting talent may also stem from businesses that don’t yet exist.

Outside of that, Melancon and his co-presenter, AICPA Board Chairman Kimberly Ellison-Taylor, remained positive about the direction that the profession is moving and the talent pool that is already here.

“I will say this, we are each individually needed so that collectively we have a hugely significant impact on the shape of our profession and the future,” said Ellison-Taylor. Adding to that, Melancon stated, “We can really position our profession to be incredibly successful in this fast-paced, uncertain, complex, changing world.”

While Ellison-Taylor and Melancon did not cover every point in the survey, it was clear that many of the same concerns that have plagued practitioners for years continue to do so. For example, succession planning (or lack of one), busy season becoming increasingly, well, busy, and keeping pace with the complexity of the tax code were all top of mind.

See the breakdown of top issues by firm size here:

In addition, the AICPA and CPA.com took the time to let attendees know about yet another initiative to help support the profession and the changes they are dealing with in the current business environment. The latest effort comes in the form of the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants and CPA.com Startup Accelerator.

What this is, in essence, is funding to help support entrepreneurism and, in their words, “to accelerate the growth of early-stage companies that could have significant impact on the accounting profession. The goal is to promote innovation and give the profession early insight into disruptive technologies and services in finance and business.”

The startup accelerator will offer benefits to entrepreneurs in three ways:

• Provide up to $20,000 in funding per finalist.
• Access to subject-matter experts, including an advisory panel of thought leaders in the accounting technology field, who can provide coaching and mentoring on issues and opportunities unique to the profession.
• An opportunity to showcase their product or service next June at AICPA ENGAGE 2018, which will again be in Vegas.

An “almost incomprehensible” increase in the pace of change and technological development is going to require the accounting profession to make significant changes to survive and thrive, according to American Institute of CPAs president and CEO Barry Melancon.

Speaking in an update on the profession with institute chair Kimberly Ellison-Taylor at the 2017 AICPA Engage conference, Melancon said, “We live in extraordinary times, and we need to evolve as a profession. Futurists say that the rate of change will be almost incomprehensible, and the implications are incredible as well. This comes home to roost in our profession.”

Almost half of current work activities can be automated with technology right now, Melancon noted, and then cited a Wired Magazine article that focused on accountants and long-haul truckers as two groups that are likely to be negatively affected by changes in technology, with as many as 4.5 million jobs impacted.

“Robotics will automate or eliminate up to 40 percent of accounting work,” he warned.

And technologies like blockchain, artificial intelligence, and data analytics have the potential to completely reshape the landscape in all of the profession’s core service areas, and create new challenges and new competitors. “Most of you think your competition is the firm down the street,” Melancon said, “but it may well be a company that doesn’t exist yet.”

“We will not recognize our profession in the next 10 years – but it will still be critical,” he continued. “And honestly, I said 10 years so it wouldn’t scare you so much. It will probably be unrecognizable in five.”

Don’t react – initiate

The profession needs to get out ahead of all the threats and challenges that are coming down the pike, Ellison-Taylor and Melancon told attendees.

“Who are we to think we won’t be impacted by change?” asked Ellison-Taylor. “We need to initiate that change ourselves.”

For instance, she noted that the growing importance of technology may actually create new roles and opportunities for accountants. “I’m convinced that technology needs someone at the helm to provide strategy and guidance,” she said. “Those are our unique strengths.”

Taking advantage of those opportunities will require a proactive approach, Ellison-Taylor explained: “Our profession must make investments in transforming our services. What’s our competitive advantage? What are we doing to maintain our trusted advisor role?”

One key area that the pair focused on was the audit, a core service of the profession that is poised to be completely reshaped. As an example, Melancon described the traditional model for auditing leases, which was to send a team of (mostly young) accountants to read through a sample of a client’s leases looking for accounting-related information, and to create an exception report. In the near future, however, software will read all the leases that young accountants used to have to sample, learning what’s material as it goes.

“How do we drive large-scale change in the audit? The market won’t create the audit of the future,” Melancon said, which leaves it up to firms. Already, he noted that the very biggest firms have invested hundreds of millions in new technologies in these and other areas.

(Ellison-Taylor raised a corrollary issue – that of a potential gap between firms that can invest large sums and those that can’t: “We don’t want to divide our profession between those who have modern audit tools, and those who don’t,” she said. “How do we make sure the small practitioner can compete with the biggest firms?”)

Being ready to develop new services, both in audit and beyond, will be critical. Melanson cited the recent rise of cloud-enabled client accounting services as an example. “The growth rate on modern CAS is 10 percent -- and it didn’t exist 10 years ago,” he said, adding cybersecurity services and integrated reporting as areas that are ripe for similar development.

Personnel issues

It’s not just firm services that will be changing. With staffing the top challenge for every firm size except sole practitioners, according to new AICPA research, how the profession recruits and retains employees must change, too.

“How do we develop the cultures that will keep top talent in our firms?” Ellison-Taylor asked. Personal engagement by CPAs will play a major part, she suggested – recalling how a visit by an accountant to her third grade class led directly to her being chair of the AICPA.

Melancon seconded that idea on two fronts. First, he explained that the profession will need to reach out to the next generations of accountants even earlier than usual. “While Millennials majored in ‘Undecided,’” he quipped, “Generation Z will go to college knowing what they want to do after they graduate. So we need to reach Generation Z at the high school level.”

At the same time, the profession needs to do more to put graduating accounting students on the path to their CPA license. While the number of first-time CPA Exam candidates jumped 33 percent in the first quarter of 2017, more needs to be done to build that pipeline – and it needs to be done at the individual level.

“The No. 1 factor in getting people to take the exam is encouragement,” Melancon said. “You need to put your arm around them and tell them it’s important.”

A quick poll of the audience reported that over half of attendees’ firms encourage staff to take the CPA Exam, but in the profession as a whole, AICPA research finds that many small firms aren’t doing enough to push staff toward the test.

Melancon also noted that not all staff development should be focused on future accountants. “The vast majority of current CPAs still have 10, 15, 20, 25 and even 30 years left in their careers – we have to help them adapt” to the changes that are coming as well.

Ellison-Taylor and Melancon at Engage 2017
AICPA

Not all gloom

For all the predictions of challenges, the pair did note that accounting has some natural advantages.

“We are the No. 1 preferred credential in financial services,” Ellison-Taylor said. “To maintain that, we need to be more assertive.”

Fortunately, accountants have already begun to prepare themselves: “I think we are positioning ourselves for the future better than any other profession,” Melancon said.

Over the course of their address, the two highlighted a number of initiatives that the institute has undertaken to help:

• A new project to provide financing to startup and micro-startup companies that are working on technologies that could benefit the accounting profession.
• The creation of a cybersecurity assurance service. (Ellison-Taylor noted predictions that, by 2020, up to $170 billion will be spent on cybersecurity: “This is an opportunity for the profession.”)
• Ongoing efforts to get states to allow CPA firms to operate across state borders on their firm licenses (all the states currently allow individual CPAs to mobility on their personal licenses).
• Creating an honors course in accounting for high school students.
• An earlier initiative to develop more accounting Ph.Ds with practical firm experience to move into academia.

The Association of International Certified Professional Accountants and CPA.com are jointly sponsoring an initiative to accelerate the growth of early-stage companies that could have significant impact on the accounting profession. The goal is to promote innovation and give the profession early insight into disruptive technologies and services in finance and business.

The Association of International Certified Professional Accountants and CPA.com Startup Accelerator will look to support up to five early-stage companies over the next year. It will focus on startups in two key areas: 1) Technology and Financial Information, which could include advances in artificial intelligence, automation of routine tasks, and the application of blockchain/digital ledgers, and 2) Professional Competency Innovation, which can encompass machine learning to personalize professional education, collaboration tools for mentors and experts, and improvements in measuring professional competency, among other categories.

“The Association and CPA.com have a deep base of knowledge and resources to offer entrepreneurs looking to find a foothold in the accounting ecosystem,” said Lawson Carmichael, the Association’s executive vice president for strategy, people and innovation. “And for us, the startup accelerator offers a chance to ‘see around corners’ and take a more long-range view of opportunities in business transformation and innovation. There’s a compelling business case for collaboration.”

The startup accelerator will offer benefits to entrepreneurs in three ways:

• Provide up to $20,000 in funding per finalist
• Access to subject matter experts, including an advisory panel of thought leaders in the accounting technology field, who can provide coaching and mentoring on issues and opportunities unique to the profession
• An opportunity to showcase their product or service next June at AICPA ENGAGE 2018, one of the largest accounting-related events in the United States, and – with continued, successful development – the potential for longer-term, strategic relationships within the profession.

Applicants from all global markets are eligible. To qualify:

• Startups should be at a pre-Series A stage of financing, with some exceptions
• The company must have a functioning product or service
• Pre-revenue companies will be considered based on their development progress and business plan
• Candidate companies must agree to pitch their product or service to Association and CPA.com executives this fall, after which up to five finalists will be selected

“At CPA.com, we have been driving innovation for the past decade through our technology services, strategic partnerships, and training and education programs,” said Erik Asgeirsson, president and CEO of CPA.com, the technology subsidiary of the American Institute of CPAs “We’ve also been convening leading technology companies at our Executive Roundtables and other collaborative events, so the next logical step for us is to support earlier stage activity with this startup accelerator. It’s like ‘Shark Tank’ for companies serving the accounting profession,”

The startup accelerator was announced at AICPA ENGAGE, a premier event for the profession that incorporates five AICPA conferences devoted to public accounting, plus the Association for Accounting Marketing summit.

Submissions by startups are due by Oct. 5. Interested companies who want more information can contact Greg Lafollette, a strategic advisor with, CPA.com greg.lafollette@hq.cpa.com, or Mark Brooks, a member of the AICPA’s innovation team, mark.brooks@aicpa-cima.com. To apply for consideration or learn more details about the startup accelerator, visit aicpaglobal.com/accelerator.