February 2001

Young CPAs: Witnessing Change

Our industry is at a critical crossroads. Looking back on my short nine-year career, I have witnessed amazing changes in an industry that has existed for a very long time. When I started in public accounting in 1991, most of the audits I worked on were manual audits using 4-column and 13-column worksheets. Trial balance software was used sparingly on larger audits. The audit course in school taught me the manual way of performing audits. Tax returns were prepared on a DOS-based computer system, with Windows being something you looked out of to check the weather.

Today, we are talking about paperless audits, we’ve eliminated “footing the phonebook” as one of our new recruit training exercises, and tax returns are virtually prepared during the audit with trial balance software and downloaded directly into the tax program. I would say things have changed.

Technology has not been the only change within our industry. In prior years, our industry had an up-or-out mentality. You were either going to make partner, or you were going to be worked out of a job and moved into industry. Many firms that I work with today would “kill” to have some of those non-partner-type professionals back in their workforce. In fact, firms are hearing their professionals say they don’t want to be a partner because they want life balance.

The new generation of professionals has seen their parents and grandparents work hard to climb the corporate ladder to middle management only to work themselves out of jobs after 20 years of loyal service. The new generation of professionals is not going to let that happen to them. Rather than the employer saying what have you done for me lately, it is the employee saying it.

The biggest change in the industry has been the attraction and retention of quality staff. Studies have shown that training and empowerment are critical to help retain quality staff. However, due to budget constraints and an all out lack of time, training is becoming more difficult. As the question is asked about the new skill set needed by today’s accountant, the answers have changed dramatically from years prior. The “technician” is not the perceived success in this industry. The “salesperson” becomes the key employee. While this may not be true 100 percent of the time, I think you would agree that the skill set has still dramatically changed. Newer accountants are not afforded the luxury of mirroring their mentor as in years past. So the question arises as to where the nontraditional skills can be learned.

That is why we’ve developed the First Annual Young CPAs Forum. This two-day conference will provide 16 hours of valuable CPE to assist in developing the nontraditional aspects of the job. Sending your young CPAs to this event will help strengthen your relationship with them, because as a young CPA, I can tell you that I invest my time and energy in those that invest in me, and that doesn’t have to mean compensation.

Now is the time to sign up for this forum. For more details and a registration form, contact the Buffalo Young CPAs Committee. Contact information can be found at the NYSSCPA website at www.nysscpa.org.