December 2000

The Road Ahead: Eddy’s Vision for the AICPA

By the time she leaves office, Kathy G. Eddy, newly elected chair of the American Institute of CPAs, hopes that all CPAs, especially those who belong to small firms, will look to the Institute as their professional home.

To anyone who knows Eddy, this emphasis on the small practitioner should hardly be surprising—both she and her husband, Ed, belong to a small West Virginia CPA firm, McDonough, Eddy, Parsons and Baylous, A.C.

“A lot of our small practitioners think that the AICPA does not represent them. I am living and breathing proof that, in fact, it does. [The AICPA] has been good for me, and it has been good for my firm. We believe about as strongly as you can believe in professional service,” said Eddy, who succeeded Robert K. Elliott on Oct. 24.

To ensure that the Institute’s 350,000 plus members receive equal representation, Eddy said she plans to travel around the country attending as many speaking engagements, conferences, and state society meetings as she can.

A former president of the West Virginia Society of CPAs, Eddy believes state societies are crucial to the AICPA because only through them do members develop a thorough understanding of the Institute’s objectives and initiatives.

“I am committed to cooperation, coordination, and communication with the state societies so that they understand what is going on at the AICPA,” she said.

For Eddy, what is going on at the AICPA is extensive and challenging but completely attainable.

Just a few of the key issues that will be addressed during Eddy’s one-year term as chair include helping CPAs adjust to the new economy, realizing the Vision Project, growing the CPA profession, and continuing to uphold the highest ethical standards.

“The offering of services is becoming more complicated, and we have to help members develop ways to meet the challenges of the new economy,” Eddy said.

One of the ways in which the AICPA is assisting its members is through a task force that was created to focus on the rapidly evolving technology of the fast-paced, global marketplace. The task force was created to help members become as technologically adept as they need to be, both now and in the future, Eddy said.

The AICPA also wants to make sure its members stay abreast of the state and federal regulations governing the accounting profession. With that in mind, Eddy said she is committed to fighting government intervention that needlessly restricts the profession, such as market barriers that prevent CPAs from crossing state lines.

“My goal is to help members achieve the Vision we developed a couple of years ago,” Eddy said. “The Vision, in a nutshell, was to help members move up the value chain in the services they perform.”

Two Vision Project initiatives Eddy believes will make manifest the importance and, most significantly, the contributions of the CPA include completion of the cpa2biz.com portal and development of the global credential.

The vertical portal, which is expected to be completed by winter 2001, is a web-based resource created solely for CPAs and their clients. The portal will be of particular benefit to small firms and companies.

Among its many services and functions, the portal will provide members with a national database for online dues payments and continuing professional education, e-enablement between client and firm, 401(k) administrative and payroll services, and research capabilities and other resources, Eddy said.

Much like the portal, which Eddy believes is necessary to help members keep in step with the changing economy, so too is the global credential, previously referred to as XYZ and Cognitor.

The global designation, the AICPA has stated in the past, would reinforce rather than replace the CPA credential, better addressing the services already provided by many CPAs but not normally associated with the CPA. (See the November Trusted Professional for coverage of both sides of the issue.)

Though a top priority for Eddy, the credential clearly is a point of contention as some members believe the need for a global designation has yet to be established.

“There are too many unanswered questions to make a definite judgment on it [the credential],” said P. Gerard Sokolski, president of the NYSSCPA. “They have to educate. They have to provide enough information to membership to be able to show that what they are saying [about the credential] is true.”

Of course, Eddy recognizes that there is concern about the global credential, but, like Sokolski, she believes member education holds the keys to its future.

“We would not be putting this forward if we did not think this was a viable idea as well as something to enhance the CPA designation,” she said. “Now we are back to calling it a global credential. Nobody seems to like the name [Cognitor] so I would hope people would focus more on the concept and not the name.”

Though he has some reservations about the cpa2biz portal and the credential, Sokolski said he is completely behind two of Eddy’s most central objectives for the AICPA—recruiting more young people into the profession and advocating for the highest ethical standards.

Eddy said that, acting on information provided by recent studies, the AICPA will try to get more high school and college students interested in the accounting profession this year. Though it views the career path as too “stove-piped,” the Institute hopes it can demonstrate the broad-based appeal of the profession. The AICPA also hopes to help educators develop stronger accounting courses, Eddy said.

In addition to helping students cultivate the attributes that employers look for, it also is imperative that they, as well as all individuals working in the accounting field, have an appreciation for the profession’s high ethical standards. Though this has always been a primary concern of the AICPA, Eddy believes this added emphasis on ethics is especially relevant given that the profession is “repositioning” itself, offering a wider array of services. Therefore, the AICPA needs to study its conceptual framework for ethics, making sure that the guidelines can adequately handle all the issues currently facing the profession, she said.

“I think she [Eddy] believes she has the best interests of the members in mind in terms of her goal setting,” said Nancy Newman-Limata, president-elect of the NYSSCPA. “How is she going to make sure the AICPA, as a whole, is keeping in tune with the membership?”

The answer to the question remains to be seen, but Eddy appears to have it: leading by example.