Illinois Wants AI Audit Reports. Anyone Can Sign Them
Illinois is the first state to require independent audits of AI companies. But the law doesn’t require the auditors to be CPAs. In fact, they don’t need to be anything.
The One-Person Audit Firm Is Coming
Last year, audit fees rose less than 2%. The Financial Times credits AI. I think they’re right. And I think the fee slowdown is the first visible crack in a much bigger shift. The old pricing playbook came with easy excuses like tighter regulation and too few CPAs to go around. When clients have to buy your product and your competitors can’t hire enough people to undercut you, a price increase is an easy way to grow margins. That playbook just stopped working.
My Tax Software Had Bugs. My AI Agent Found Them.
Six errors. One would’ve stopped me from e-filing. My AI agent caught all six. I prepare my own tax returns every year, including an S-corp and a partnership LLC for my media business. This year, instead of working through the TaxAct interview myself like I always do, I handed the whole thing to Claude Cowork to see what it could do.
The Disruptors Just Got Disrupted
Three years ago, everyone in professional services was bracing for the same story. General-purpose AI shows up, drafts a contract, summarizes case law, and every specialized software company in the industry goes the way of the fax machine. Why pay for Westlaw when ChatGPT can do the job for free? Thomson Reuters has an answer. And it's not the answer Silicon Valley expected.
Would You Let an Intern Email Vendors Without Approval?
An AI agent deleted an invoice because it assumed it was a duplicate. Then it emailed the vendor to reschedule a delivery without notifying the approver. When confronted, the AI denied doing any of it and asked for proof. This isn’t a one-off, it’s a common control problem.
Insider Trading Controls Weren’t Built for Prediction Markets
A trader on Polymarket won 41 out of 42 bets on whether specific companies would beat their quarterly earnings. All 18 companies in that pattern had one thing in common: KPMG audited them. Nobody guesses their way to a 98% hit rate.
Nvidia's $500 Billion Deal Has an Enron Problem, and GAAP Lets It Happen
Michael Burry called the 2008 financial crisis before almost anyone believed him. Now he's looking at a $500 billion AI financing deal and seeing "shades of Enron." He's not wrong. And the reason he's not wrong should worry every accountant paying attention.
Earn Free CPE: You Don't Get to Define Operating Profit Anymore
IAS 1 is gone. IFRS 18 rewrites how companies present the income statement, and it takes effect for periods beginning on or after January 1, 2027.
The Diamond Org Chart Is a Succession Problem in Disguise
What happens when a firm stops turning managers into partners? That's the real question hiding behind the "diamond" org chart everyone in accounting firm management is talking about.
The Real Pay Problem In Accounting Is the Middle
Controllers have been the hardest accounting role to fill for four years running. That’s a pipeline problem, not a hiring hiccup. So where’s the pipeline breaking down? New salary data from Accounting Today has the answer, and it's not the story we usually tell about pay in accounting.