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Blake: [00:00:32] I have a problem with this, David, actually. I'm happy to talk about. If you do this, and you bring in tax policy to the Financial Accounting Standards Board, it gets way more political than it already is. Because now what's going to happen? Companies are going to start lobbying to change accounting standards so they show less book income, so they pay less in taxes. And that's just going to make financial statements even more useless than they already are.
David: [00:01:00] Coming to you weekly from the OnPay Recording studio, this is the Cloud Accounting Podcast.
Blake: [00:01:09] Welcome to the Cloud Accounting Podcast. I'm Blake Oliver.
David: [00:01:12] I'm David Leary. Another week. This week went fast.
Blake: [00:01:16] Another week.
David: [00:01:17] Super fast. Well, school started this week, so, it's just like, extra chaos. I worked the election one day, so I completely lost a full day of this week.
Blake: [00:01:25] Yeah, and I think our listeners should know that you, David, are a dedicated advocate of democracy. You dedicate lots of time to go be a poll worker here in Arizona.
David: [00:01:36] As an independent, no-party affiliation. This way, I can give back. It's important to me. I think people should be allowed to vote. And so, I'm the guy who looks at your driver's license and your IDs, and make sure you're eligible to do it. Pima County apparently, is the last county in Arizona to adopt the- they're like little iPad terminals. So, instead of having to look up people in these books and cross books, and- but what it's really enabled. So, before, you have to go to your polling location only to vote. Because there's like 1800 different versions of the ballot, and not every location can have 1800 ballots. It'd be crazy chaos. But now, we print the ballots on demand. So, there’s, you do the iPad, I check your ID, it prints out, and now people can vote anywhere they want. It's beautiful.
Blake: [00:02:22] So, David, I got to ask, since you work at these polling places, do you think our elections are free and fair, and untainted by corruption and stealing? Do you think the election was stolen on Tuesday?
David: [00:02:37] There's so many checks and balances and reconciliation that has to happen. I mean, you're keeping scraps of paper, there's just- it's very hard. And there are so many people involved from all small parties, that it would be next to impossible, to be honest. It's a whole like, changing it up. If somebody follows you home from work every day and you're predictable, they can break into your house because they know how you're getting home. It just has enough variables in it where it's even- it would be very hard for somebody to pull off something because it's too unpredictable. I don't even know how to say that, but there's enough variance in the process. For example, each location has its- the head of that location. And that person at that location, the inspector, decides how the tables are set up, what the workflow is, who's working what positions? There's not like one person in charge of all of these locations.
Blake: [00:03:26] I'm hearing it's highly decentralized.
David: [00:03:28] It's highly decentralized, yes. Which makes it very hard to pull off a scam. Now, it doesn't mean one oddball location can, but each location is only pulling in 150, 200 votes. They're teeny because so many people vote by mail, etc., but.
Blake: [00:03:41] Makes sense. Well, thank you for your service. Protecting our democracy, David, here in Arizona, a battleground state, where our votes really matter. We don't need to talk about Arizona politics right now. We need to talk about cloud accounting, the intersection of accounting and technology, and the accounting profession, in general. And David, I feel like all the work we have done over the last four years with this podcast, in many ways, has been validated because NPR's Planet Money Podcast did an entire episode on the future of the accounting profession, and specifically, whether or not we are producing enough CPAs. The CPA shortage. I couldn't believe it when you sent this to me this morning. I couldn't believe it.
David: [00:04:20] Somebody tweeted at me this morning. It just came out.
Blake: [00:04:23] For our listeners who haven't yet heard this, Planet Money is an excellent podcast, by the way, and I suggest you all subscribe to it.
David: [00:04:30] And they have two podcasts, Save the Planet Money podcast, and then they have The Indicator. So, you have to listen to both. And this is actually, we're talking about the Planet Money Indicator Podcast.
Blake: [00:04:38] That's right. Planet Money Indicator.
David: [00:04:39] This is the podcast.
Indicator Podcast: [00:04:40] We have heard a lot about upheaval in labor markets lately. It's been hard to find enough truck drivers, nurses, teachers, restaurant workers, airline pilots, lifeguards. And I've got another one to put on the list, a profession that is probably less visible to the average person than, you know, a barista or a daycare worker, but is crucial for keeping the business world running smoothly. And that is certified public accountants, CPAs.
Yeah, CPAs may be behind the scenes of the economy, but the economy needs them. They are the ones who balance the books and make sure taxes get paid correctly. They can also investigate fraud or serve as chief financial officers for companies. And right now, there are not enough of them. That's right. There's a shortage of CPAs. And that is why on today's show, we're going to figure out where all the CPAs have gone, and what the industry is doing about it.
Blake: [00:05:35] So, that's it, David. The story is in The Zeitgeist. It made it mainstream. And we've been talking about this. And I, personally, am very passionate about this as a CPA. I don't want to see a shortage of CPAs because we already don't have enough of them. And if it gets worse, what are firms going to do? Especially small firms.
David: [00:05:56] And they go into a lot of the reasons, right? They even jump into the 150-hour rule. And all I can think is like, “Man, people are bagging on Blake about this all the time.”
Blake: [00:06:03] I know. Well, what's crazy about this is that it's very timely because I just published an article on the Minnesota CPA Society website. It actually went out in their August-September magazine issue, which is called Footnote.
David: [00:06:18] Like the physical magazine? Like, people can physically-
Blake: [00:06:19] And it's called- physical magazine. Yeah, I got actually printed in a physical magazine. Amazing. It's called “How to Fix the Leaky CPA Pipeline”. And I'm talking about how a few years ago, the AICPA forecasted that three out of four current CPAs are going to retire in 15 years. And now, that many people are eligible to retire. And accounting graduates are trending downward dramatically. Meanwhile, public accounting firms, in order to make up for it, are hiring non-CPAs. And I make an argument in this story that if you actually want to fix the shortage of CPAs, if we actually really want to do something about it, we can't do what we've been doing for years, which is try to increase recruitment in colleges and high schools.
And that is what you hear from the AICPA. That is what you hear from state boards, is that we need to do a better job of recruiting people. And then once they're in our firms, we need to do a better job of mentoring them and convincing them to stay, and enjoy this wonderful profession. But my argument is that salaries have not increased meaningfully in many decades. They're the same as they were back in 20 years ago, in a lot of cases. Meanwhile, cost of education has dramatically increased. Cost of living, rent, mortgages have increased. And so, these salaries are not competitive with other fields where they've had great increases. And at the same time, we require a fifth year of education for accounting. I don't think accounting education in universities has really kept up, and it's not producing accountants who know how to actually do the work that firms need. And so, firms then bring in these accountants, and have to train them for two or three years. So, it's not like you can pay them a lot when they don't really know how to do very much.
David: [00:07:59] It's funny that you say that because like the latest episode of The Accounting Twins that's sitting in- on my desk, I have to listen to, before we release it, basically, that's the big discovery both of them are having. They're like, “Oh, my God. College did not prepare us to do accounting work.”
Blake: [00:08:13] Really? That's amazing. And this, by the way, David, you should talk about this podcast because I don't know if our listeners know about it.
David: [00:08:19] So, I'm producing a podcast with my two interns who graduated with their accounting degrees at the end of May. So, they just graduated. They’re twins. Everything about their life is identical, but one's going into public accounting and one's going private. And so, they're just wrapping up their internship for the summer and they're starting now- one’s starting their real job and the other one is getting back into the classroom to go get the 150 hours. So, we're just documenting the whole process.
Blake: [00:08:43] I love that you're doing this because I think actually, one of the problems in our profession is that our leaders, who are generally, far along in their careers and probably boomers, don't talk to these Gen Z-ers or the millennials who are quitting the profession. They have no idea what's going on. So, when I talk about this, which seems very obvious to me, because I read it and I talk to some younger people every now and then, they don't get it. And I get blamed. Like, I'm the messenger who's bringing this bad news. But it's not me. We are not the ones who are spreading this message. This message is already out there. We're just surfacing it to the profession more broadly.
David: [00:09:18] And that's my fear, is that that we're going to have to one day rename the podcast to Former Accounting Twins podcast.
Blake: [00:09:24] If they don't stay with it, right?
David: [00:09:26] That's correct. So, and then from a numbers perspective, it's highly likely they won't.
Blake: [00:09:31] So, here's what's nuts about this article. It took months for me to get this published. I submitted it to a major CPA society that I've submitted articles to before. They regularly take my submissions and publish them.
David: [00:09:44] Like a previous relationship you're in good standing with, if you want to call it that.
Blake: [00:09:47] Yeah. Yeah. So, I submit it to the editor, and I hear back and basically, the answer is, “We all agree with you. We all like what you said, but we can't publish this because it will ruffle too many feathers,” essentially. He said it more words, but that's what I got back. And so then, I had to go find another home for this story. So, I wrote this months ago, closer to the beginning of the year, and it's finally just out there. This is not a new thing. It just shocks me that my recommendation, which in the article, which I hope you go read, is really just, “Remove the 150-hour requirement and make accounting firms- reduce the hours so that your staff aren't overworked,” essentially. That's like my two recommendations, which I feel like are actually pretty minor.
I think we could go way further, actually, given the problem in the profession with the talent shortage. In order to solve this, we don't just eliminate the 150-hour requirement. I think we need to eliminate all of the specific educational requirements. So, there's all these requirements that you take specific accounting classes. You got to take this class, you got to take this class, you got to take this many of this subject. And that was a big challenge for me as a career changer, going back inside to take all these classes. Even if I knew the material, I still had to take the class. What if we just required a bachelor's and then the exam tested for the knowledge? Like, if the CPA exam is so great and really is so difficult and tests your knowledge like everybody says it does, then why do we need to require people to go spend a lot of money at universities that aren't doing a great job of training accountants, on the whole? Now, I'm not saying there aren't programs that do, and I know we have educators who listen to us, who are at the top of their game, who are doing a great job. And that's not what I'm criticizing. What I’m criticizing is-
David: [00:11:31] So, your argument is the 150 hours of classes is not actually going to help you pass the CPA exam, and maybe there’s- Norma, the accounting twin who's going back to school to do her CPA, right, and do 150 hours, she's already going to start studying and preparing to start taking the tests before she's done with 150 hours. So then, why go get the 150 hours? Because you have to. She has no choice.
Blake: [00:11:51] If the accounting education prepared you to pass the CPA exam, why do we need companies like Becker and Caplan to take classes for, like, a whole year to pass the exam? So, I think that we make the exam rigorous, maybe even increase the difficulty level of the exam if you want, but eliminate this requirement that we pay all this money to universities. They're getting more and more expensive. They have a monopoly. It's kind of crazy that as a profession, we've given a monopoly to accredited universities in terms of like, the CPA pathway. You have to take these classes, you got to pay this money to these institutions. And yet, we don't even have a monopoly on being accountants as CPAs.
And I don't think it will hurt the good educators. And the programs are adding value because people will take those accounting degrees. They'll get the accounting degree at a good school so that they are ready to pass the CPA exam. But hey, if you're a genius and you already know this stuff, and you can pass the exam, why not? It's actually very similar to, like, this whole mentality of inputs and outputs in the profession, when it comes to like hours. We track the hours that you bill on your timesheet, but not what you actually achieve for the client. That's backwards. That's, you know-
David: [00:13:05] It doesn't matter, yes.
Blake: [00:13:05] It shouldn't matter how- right, it shouldn't matter how many hours of education you got. You could go get 150 hours of terrible education that do nothing to prepare you. I guarantee, you can find those schools. They exist. There's lots of them. Right? But that's valued the same?
David: [00:13:19] And ultimately, the clients don't even care where you go to school at, if you- once you have that CPA letter. They couldn’t care less. You don't even need your degree. I mean, not that you don't need it, but you could throw it in the trash can and they're never going to ask for your degree was, or where you went to school. Because you have those three magical three letters. What I found was interesting about the NPR article, they do get into the workweeks and the working environments at firms and all of that type of thing, and the salaries. They touch on all of it. It's a good bell curve of what they touch on, what I thought was really interesting-
Blake: [00:13:46] Article, you mean- you're talking about the same podcast episode, right?
David: [00:13:49] The podcast article. Did I say article? Oh, sorry, we're so used to that. So, the podcast, the NPR Indicator Podcast.
Blake: [00:13:54] Planet Money episode.
David: [00:13:55] About the lack of accountants. What I found interesting about it is, so, they spoke with Adrian Gonzalez who's at Going Concern. So, our friends at Going Concern who ruffle feathers as much as you, possibly, sometimes.
Blake: [00:14:07] More. More, arguably.
David: [00:14:09] And then Instagram, TikToker, The Accounting Betch- I don't follow her. I don't really know who she is. Her name is Kristen Geosso. I'm not familiar. I don't think I've ever met her before, but they didn't go and talk to the AICPA. So, it almost shows you like, the media darling of our country, our national treasure, National Public Radio does something about accountants and doesn't even include the AICPA.
Blake: [00:14:37] Or maybe they did, and the AICPA didn't get back to them, I don't know. Who knows, right?
David: [00:14:40] Or maybe they declined to participate, right? Who knows? Yes, that's true. We do not know this. But I just thought it was interesting that there's nobody from the AICPA being interviewed in this article. Or podcast.
Blake: [00:14:49] Well, so the AICPA hasn't been left out of this conversation entirely. Casey Johnson reached out on Twitter, commented on the thread about all of this, and said, “This is something we're going to talk about at a Town Hall.”
David: [00:14:59] The thread about your article or the thread about the NPR Podcast?
Blake: [00:15:02] I don't remember which one, but she said, “We're going to talk about this. This is going to be a topic of discussion on our town hall. AICPA does these live town halls now.” And I said in response, I said, “I would be more than happy to come on and talk about my experience as a career changer, and the barriers to entry, and how we can reduce those, and how we can increase the number of CPAs by reducing the red tape. I will let you know if I hear anything back on that.”
David: [00:15:24] Just make sure you wear a Cloud Accounting Podcast shirt.
Blake: [00:15:25] But if it's just a bunch of-
David: [00:15:26] If you go on that, just make sure you’re branded up properly.
Blake: [00:15:30] But if it's just a bunch of people at the top of the profession who, you know, running firm associations and haven't worked in public accounting for 30 years, and don't- haven't talked to young people, like, it's not going to be a very good town hall. So, I hope that they listen.
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Blake: [00:17:04] So anyway, I think I have something to transition into, from this, David. This talent shortage in the accounting profession. Because we have data on job growth in the United States. And the question as to whether or not we are in a recession is something that's been talked about a lot.
David: [00:17:21] Well, we cannot- we can't touch on this. Two months, three months to change the Wikipedia page, like, that'll be tons of listener mail if we start just arguing, what is a recession? How is it defined? Well, you're not going anywhere.
Blake: [00:17:32] Well, I don't want to define a recession because it's not really well defined. But what I do want to point out is a couple of numbers, right? So, the technical definition or one definition of a recession is two quarters of- two consecutive quarters of negative growth, which we have had. Right? But I think that if that's your only definition of a recession, then that's kind of silly because recessions affect different groups of people in different ways. This is a big country.
And a recession can affect wealthier people and it can affect workers in different ways. And some people might not even perceive it as being a recession. And I would argue that in terms of the labor market, you can't call it a recession when it comes to the labor market, because even though job growth slowed in July, according to the latest numbers, there are still 1.8 openings for every unemployed person. So, nearly two jobs for every person who's looking for work. And here's how I tie this back to the accounting-
David: [00:18:26] Which I think I heard this morning. Like, we're right back to where we were, pre-pandemic levels. We're like at the exact same spot.
Blake: [00:18:33] And that's in general. If you look specifically at white collar jobs, Wall Street Journal had a story back in middle of July, and they broke out the data. It's always important to break out the data. You can't just use an average for the entire country. This is a big country. White-collar employees in the professional and business services sector had 880,000 more jobs on their payrolls in June 2022, than February 2020. Accountants, management consultants, and scientists logged among the strongest job growth over this period. Labor shortages for office jobs have become acute.
84% of employers hiring professional and office workers found it difficult to find talent in March 2022, up from 60% in April 2021. These worker shortages are driving up wages. Pay for professional and business service workers rose 5.8% in June from a year earlier, above the 5.1% average wage bump for private sector workers. So, I want to combat something that has- an argument that has been made or something people have been saying that I've heard said, which is that, “Oh, the accounting talent shortage will resolve itself in public accounting when we have a recession, and all of these people who quit public accounting come back because it's the safe thing to do.” And that's what we saw in the Great Recession, which I remember very well, because I was unemployed in the Great Recession. And I chose accounting specifically because of the job security it provided.
But I don't think that's going to happen again. And the reason is that even a pretty big recession isn't going to cut enough jobs to reduce- or to increase unemployment above the number of jobs available. Right? We'd have to lose a lot of jobs with 1.8 jobs per worker on average. And it's probably way more than that available in accounting and finance. Companies would have to be crazy to fire people right now, especially in accounting and finance, because they work so hard to get them. And we've been talking about how they've had to, like, recruit like crazy to get them. So, you're not going to see- even if we have a recession, we're not going to see accountants getting hurt. Staff accountants anyway. Wages aren't going to go down. They're going to continue to rise. And the labor shortage is just going to get worse because of the lack of CPAs, the difficulty that it- to get into the profession. Anyway, that's my take on the economy broader. I do have something if you want to stay on- if you want to stay on economic news.
David: [00:20:58] Yeah, 100%.
Blake: [00:20:59] I got something about the Inflation Reduction Act.
David: [00:21:01] All right.
Blake: [00:21:02] So, there was big news recently about how suddenly- and I don't still understand why Joe Manchin is now on board with the Democratic proposal. This bill, the Inflation Reduction Act, which includes climate change stuff and economic stuff. I mean, actually, it's hard to know what's in it because I've forgotten. But it's all this stuff that got stalled. Right? And now, Joe Manchin is on board.
David: [00:21:25] I think as of last night, midnight, Kyrsten Sinema is on board, too. I think it's going to happen now.
Blake: [00:21:30] Yes. So, it looks like it might happen and there's a tie-along-
David: [00:21:33] Now, it’s taken so long. Can I just- can you maybe rewind for a second? Is this the original like, 1.7 trillion-dollar thing that is now a 700 billion-dollar thing and the IRS money is wrapped up in this? It's taken so long, I don't even know what they're passing. And has it been renamed to the Fight Inflation Bill or- like, something's very crazy about this. It makes no sense. Like, what is the Fight Inflation Bill?
Blake: [00:21:50] It’s been renamed to the Inflation Redu- it's been renamed to the Inflation Reduction Act because that's the- how you do a bill. You always name it like what it's going to fix, which is the problem that everyone's having right now.
David: [00:21:58] But wasn't it a Pandemic Bill originally?
Blake: [00:22:00] Right. It used to be, but now, it's been so long and the pandemic is over. Now, it's an inflation reduction.
David: [00:22:04] Okay, now it makes sense.
Blake: [00:22:05] Right. Yeah. Marketing. So, here's the tie-in to accounting and I got this from DealBook, which is an excellent newsletter that The New York Times puts out every- I think it's every day. And this was at the head, the top of their newsletter. Okay. I mean, accounting is just having a moment this week. The headline is “The Bean Counters Who May Get Superpowers.” The Senate could vote as soon as this week on a climate and tax bill that, if passed, would hand a good deal of power to an obscure group of accountants in Norwalk, Connecticut. That obscure group of accountants is the Financial Accounting Standards Board, FASB. Which the article had to explain how to pronounce because most people have never heard of FASB.
Our listeners, I am sure, are well aware that FASB is the board that determines GAAP, generally accepted accounting principles. And so, every public company, every company that uses GAAP has to abide by these standards. And that's what we study when we take the CPA exam. So, what does this have to do with the Inflation Reduction Act? Well, the bill- much of the bill is going to be funded by a 15% minimum tax on corporate profits. Now, how is that tax calculated? Well, according to the current wording of the bill, which looks like it might be the final wording of the bill, it's that companies over 1 billion in profit will pay no less than 15% of their book income in tax. So, we have this concept of the IRS definition of taxable income and all that, right? And then we have the financial income, and those are different.
And that's why companies like Amazon- is the one that always gets brought up- can figure out how to pay no tax. Because they figure out how to- even though they're showing massive profits, they have no taxable income, according to the tax law. Well, this bill would tax book income. And the reason that is controversial- and I'm not sure actually- I have a problem with this, David, actually, I'm happy to talk about, is that if you do this and you bring in tax policy to the Financial Accounting Standards Board, it gets way more political than it already is. Because now, what's going to happen? Companies are going to start lobbying to change accounting standards so they show less book income, so they pay less in taxes. And that's just going to make financial statements even more useless than they already are.
And that's not something I came up with. That is according to Richard Jones, a former top executive at EY, who left to be the chair of the FASB. He said in his speech that he's against basing a minimum corporate tax on book income because the group's role is to set accounting rules that best convey the health of a company. And if you use book income to determine tax payments, that injects public policy into financial accounting. So, there it is. This could really change up GAAP. I mean, it could make GAAP political, not something that, you know, only accountants care about.
David: [00:25:02] This is what I love about our show, Blake, is because I have an article that was from kind of last week-ish, a little bit, July 29th or so. Really, the fundamental part of this, it's about the whole SEC and ESG stuff. But the fundamental argument of this article, and this is what ties to yours, is if they start going down this march, all of a sudden, accounting is going to get very political. The article is on sec.gov. This is a comment on the Financial Accounting Foundation Draft Strategic Plan, and these are the two SEC commissioners that are responding. It's Hester N. Peirce and Mark T. Uyeda, U-Y-E-D-A. Hopefully, I've said that correctly.
And they're talking basically how accounting and sustainability standards are fundamentally different. The argument they make is, financial standards have one singular focus, painting an accurate financial picture of a company for investors. And that lends itself to being objective, auditable, quantifiable, and comparable metrics, versus the ESG stuff, which is imprecise, inconsistent and unfocused. And because of that, the inability to define, let alone produce accurate consistency standards, it basically invites subjectivity and political influence.
Blake: [00:26:21] Accounting is about to get a whole lot more political, whether you like it or not, it sounds like.
David: [00:26:25] Yeah. And essentially, they also go into redefining. Right? The vision of the Financial Accounting Foundation is that the organization, including the boards, will be recognized, entrusted at the leader in Financial Accounting Reporting Standard setting in the United States as a prominent leader and collaborator globally. That's the vision that's laid out in the strategic plan. And then they go on to say, “A decision to step into the fraught sustainability standards setting fray, tempting as it may be, would impede the achievement of that vision. And for that reason, please consider removing goal number six from the draft plan.” So, they're really against the accounting standards boards and people getting involved in this, the ESG stuff. And these are two commissioners at the SEC.
Blake: [00:27:05] It's too subjective. I'm not opposed to it, if you can make it objective. But a lot of this is really, really subjective. And I would argue that the reason financial statement reporting has decreased in usefulness over the past few decades is because more and more of what we do as accountants is estimates. And estimates are subjective and can be manipulated, and that's what management does when there's incentive to do so. And so, we want to get away from this. We cannot be brought into all of this wishy-washy stuff. And that's what a lot of ESG is. It's a lot of ambiguity. So, thank you for bringing that, David.
David: [00:27:44] The taxes are already- the taxes are already debatable and very political. But if we start-
Blake: [00:27:50] And we see how that- the tax system is great, right? Do we want that for accounting, financial accounting?
David: [00:27:55] Do we want this divide? Yes. This big argument constantly over debits and credits and like 200 years of accounting, just being argued out.
Blake: [00:28:03] Can you imagine how complicated GAAP could be if it was as complicated as the tax code? It could be worse, believe it or not. Far worse.
David: [00:28:08] Could be good for ratings, though. This could be good for ratings. We'll just stoke the fire.
Blake: [00:28:13] We don't do it for the- we don't do it for the ratings, David. Yeah.
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Blake: [00:29:50] So, where do we go from here?
David: [00:29:51] I have a little bitcoin stuff. There's a lot of- been some lot of crypto frauds that have happened. And that kind of leads up to a big number I can give you.
Blake: [00:30:01] Yeah. That's fun. Okay, let's- tell me about your crypto fraud of the week.
David: [00:30:05] Well, I have a couple that have happened over the last week. So, the SEC, the Feds, for lack of a better term, let's say the Feds, right, across the board, they're really starting to go after cryptocurrency frauds. And these are more of the scammy type stuff, like they went after this company. The coin was called My Big Coin. And the founder basically cheated people out of $6 million because they basically sold a phony virtual currency. It didn't even exist. So, there's that.
There was a blockchain, Titanium blockchain CEO pled guilty for a crypto fraud scheme. And that's $21 million. Right? Another one there. The other one- oh, the insider trading case. So, the SEC took down two insider traders that were at Coinbase. So, an employee at Coinbase, he was a product manager, last name W-A-H-I. He had insider information of what tokens were going to be listed on the Coinbase exchange. And then he would tell his brother and his friend, and then the three of them would buy tokens ahead of time to take advantage of the listing, because usually, when a token would list on Coinbase, it gave it a little bit of a bump. And so, the SEC is- those guys will have files charged.
There's another one that just happened this week. Well, there's a Solana wallet hack, I don’t know if you saw that, where they’re basically, people are just getting in other people's wallets and just taking the money right out of their wallet. And so, there's another two of 11 defendants, and this is a $300 million cryptocurrency scheme for a cryptocurrency company called Forsage. Two of the defense have now settled, so they're going to go after the other people, and it’s probably harder. But like, tying this back into- you had another article about crypto scam and I'll give the summary totals. I have the direction to go here.
Blake: [00:31:44] Okay. Well, so, the one I've got this week is Helium. I love this story. I mean, I don't love it because I think people are getting scammed. But what's amazing about it is that what they're doing appears to be legal, and people are completely falling for it, although there's some deceptive marketing going on, actually. So, that may not be totally kosher. Here's the deal. So, Helium is a Web3 startup darling. And what they do or what they claim to do is create a distributed wireless network that anyone can use if they pay in crypto. It's like a crypto-funded public Wi-Fi network. And you want to connect to the network, you log in, and it charges you fees using their crypto token also called Helium.
David: [00:32:33] I love this because I remember products like this popped up with Web 1.0. This like, “Oh, you'll just-” you had to do something and you could just get on people's internets and you'd share a portion of your internet, and then somebody else would share a portion. There was no tokens or Bitcoin involved, but it's the same concept. It's like, “We're going to share this big network and you can use my internet when you're close to my house, and I can use yours,” and like, yeah. It's the same scheme.
Blake: [00:32:55] Right. So, it's a crypto-powered Wi-Fi network that's going to span the globe. And so, you might wonder, well, how are they going to build this network? It's very expensive. Like cell phone companies spend billions and trillions of dollars building networks. Well, Helium, because of the nature of their business, doesn't have to. They get investors in the form of people who buy $500 Wi-Fi routers that operate the Helium network. And so, you want to make money, you buy one of these routers, you plug it in in your home. And then people walking by who are on the Helium Wi-Fi network will connect to your router while they're in range, and they'll pay a fee that's automatically routed to you through blockchain. It sounds pretty cool, right?
And you can automate all of this through blockchain. And the idea is like you actually earn money. The more people use it, the more money you make. And so, people were buying into this, and have been continuing to buy into this. The idea that my $500 is going to turn into hundreds of dollars a month. Well, that hasn't exactly worked out. And Helium actually appears to have very few customers. So, according to The Generalist, the publication, The Generalist, reported that Helium is only making $6,500 a month from data use on its decentralized wireless network. Meanwhile, it's making $2 million a month from onboarding fees from people buying helium routers. Yeah. So, that's- I think that is what got people to think, “Wait, what's going on here?” By the way, Helium has raised more than $364 million to date from VC giants such as Andreessen Horowitz and Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX Ventures. They are valued at over $1,000,000,000.
David: [00:34:40] And is it real VC money, or is it more like we had a token offering and people bought that, and that's the game?
Blake: [00:34:46] That, I don't know. But what I do know is they're only- it's reported that they're only making $6,500 a month in fees from people actually using the network. And so then, folks started to dig in to like, well, Helium has all these logos on their website, including Lime and Salesforce. And Lime is a pretty big company, the Electric Scooter Company. And they have been a case study for Helium. Helium says Lime is going to use Helium’s network to locate their scooters. Right? Well, it turns out that even though Lime's logo is on the website, they were never a customer. Beyond an initial test of their product in 2019, Lime never had, does not currently have a relationship with Helium and that's according to Lime senior director for Corporate Communications, Russell Murphy, to Mashable. So, basically, I think Helium has been- well, Helium has been inflating their customers on their website. And yeah, it looks like to me, I can't believe people are buying into this. It's just crazy to me. What a great scam, right? What a great scheme.
David: [00:35:56] And I think they’re just starting to-
Blake: [00:35:57] It’s almost beautiful.
David: [00:35:58] -pry this open. So, this is an article on Defi Crypto Crystal, which is like a, you know, Defi crypto site. And the title of the article says, “Hackers force a $4 billion question, can Defi ever be safe?” So, apparently, another- this is last week- another stablecoin decentralized lending platform had 3.5 million stolen from its treasury in an exploit. But this continues to happen. And so, what's happening now, like start doing some math. Defi hacks, which basically, this is like getting into a computer system that's servicing Bitcoin users, buyers, sellers, right? $4 billion has just been- through hacks- just stolen, removed from those systems. Exchanges, they've had $3.2 billion just stolen. Right? General- the Ponzi scheme part, just the general Ponzi schemes like you just talked about, the general Ponzi schemes that are happening, the pull the rug under-type stuff, like buy a coin and then the founder’s just gone, right? That's $7.3 billion. So, let's put this in perspective. That's $14.5 billion. And they haven't even uncovered stuff, but they're just starting to go after the lowest, easiest fruits right now to- from a prosecution standpoint. How big was the biggest Ponzi scheme ever of Bernie Madoff's? How big was it?
Blake: [00:37:16] Well, it was less than PPP, and so, less than 80 billion, right? It was-
David: [00:37:19] It was 3.7 billion. Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme. Currently-
Blake: [00:37:25] Rounding it up.
David: [00:37:25] Bitcoin, between stolen coins and Ponzi schemes is $14.5 billion. And people just have their wallets- the wallet itself, they're just taking money out of people's wallets, not even exchanges now. Like, it is-
Blake: [00:37:35] And that's just what we know about. There could be- there's other ones out there like Helium, right?
David: [00:37:39] Oh, they've barely started. Like, they're the first pitch of the first inning from an investigation standpoint. The FBI, the Feds, for lack of a better term, investigating this.
Blake: [00:37:48] Amazing.
David: [00:37:48] They're just getting the low- picking dumb guys who did the worst, which is I have a token. They raised $2 million, buy a house and they don't do anything. They barely started the investigations of these scams.
Blake: [00:37:59] Incredible. Incredible. I've got some follow up to our abortion episode, David. So, proof that this abortion issue is going to impact accountants and tax professionals. Georgia residents can now claim an embryo as a dependent on their tax returns. Yes, that is right. If you are living in Georgia, according to the Georgia Department of Revenue, in-state residents can claim embryos with a “detectable human heartbeat” as dependents on their tax return. That's reported in The Hill. And I guess that means that as early as six weeks, you could claim it. It's an exemption of the amount of $3,000 per embryo.
David: [00:38:40] So, if you're doing infertility treatments, and you go through- if anybody's done that process, you might have six, eight, ten embryos sitting out there in a freezer. Can you deduct those?
Blake: [00:38:51] Well, they have to be- they have to be- have a heartbeat.
David: [00:37:53] In a womb.
Blake: [00:38:54] Yeah. Yeah.
David: [00:38:56] Interesting.
Blake: [00:38:56] So, I mean, if you grew them in a- that's- this is horrific, but yeah. Like what would- I'm just, you know?
David: [00:39:04] Here's what it literally is. My oldest daughter was inseminated in a petri dish. She- like, so, I could not have claimed her when she was still in the petri dish. Right?
Blake: [00:39:14] No, no. You have to wait until there's a heartbeat.
David: [00:39:15] There is a heartbeat in the petri dish. You could see in the microscope, if you want to go down that technicality. It's crazy.
Blake: [00:39:20] Oh really?
David: [00:39:20] Yeah, it's crazy.
Blake: [00:39:21] Then maybe this is a tax- this might be a tax court argument.
David: [00:39:23] When it's like 16 cells. You can see a little flicker.
Blake: [00:39:26] 16 cells? Okay.
David: [00:39:27] Is that where we're going at? Because if that's the case, like people just have a bunch of petri dishes laying around, and get a lot of tax deductions.
Blake: [00:39:34] I don't know. It's just- it's going to get a little more complicated to do tax in Georgia now. Tesla's Bitcoin dump, follow up on that, remember we talked about how Tesla sold like $1,000,000,000 of Bitcoin to raise cash because it's having some supply chain issues in China and all that? Interestingly, I was right that I didn't know how much they actually lost because they didn't really disclose it. There was a story in Accounting Today and the headline is “Tesla's Bitcoin Dump Leaves Accounting Mystery in its Wake”. And the takeaway is that FASB has no disclosure rule zero about Bitcoin. The only thing they have to tell us is the cost of whatever Bitcoin holding they have, and if there is an impairment, they have to recognize the impairment charge.
But the way that Tesla actually disclosed it in their financial reports was such that nobody actually knows. We don't really know how much money they lost. We can guess, but we don't know because they don't have to. And that's because FASB has not issued any standards on this. I wonder what they're so busy doing over at FASB. They make a lot of money, too. You know, they make- like, the chair makes like $1,000,000 a year. Do you think they just, like, sit around and talk and, like, chit chat? What are they so busy doing?
David: [00:40:46] Maybe they listen to the podcast. Maybe they're listening to The Cloud Accounting Podcast.
Blake: [00:40:50] If you're listening now, get to work, FASB. Ernst and Young, they were planning to split. They still are planning to split, apparently according to The Wall Street Journal. But the plan has been held up by a question of debt. So now, they're going to vote on this as a partnership by mid-August, at the earliest. Actually, it's a- it's not the full partnership vote. It's just the senior executives are going to vote in mid-August, according to people familiar with the matter. And I guess the sticking point is- the thorniest issue, according to The Wall Street Journal- is that the partners who stay with the audit business want to know how they're going to get paid. They are expecting- the audit partners are expecting multimillion-dollar average payouts for agreeing to let the more lucrative consulting business go off on its own.
But those payouts will be affected by how much cash is used to reduce the firm's debt. The debt is around 10 billion in promised payouts to retired partners, which is effectively an unfunded pension plan, according to people familiar with the matter. U.S. audit partners are concerned that the obligations on the 7 billion in the U.S. would mostly fall on their firm, which would be much smaller after the split. So, this goes to the accounting talent shortage. It all ties together because-
David: [00:42:03] ‘Cause why do I want to go to work for a firm to help somebody who's not even at the firm anymore? Retiring.
Blake: [00:42:09] It’s their retirement, right? Right. So, in a way, a lot of firms are saddled with giant unfunded pension liabilities in the form of partner retirement plans, buyouts. And if you can't get new people to buy in to pay for those retirements, you can't pay the retirements. And this could be the sticking point for a lot of these private equity deals. And it's actually, I think, the reason that a lot of firms are looking to do private equity deals because they are realizing, “Oh, crap, we're not going to be able to get our managers and directors to become partners. They are leaving. They're not going to buy into this model because they see that nobody's going to pay for them to retire.” So, they're trying to get private equity to take on the risk. And there's enough money floating around still, because of the inflationary environment we're in, and all the financial stimulus. The money is looking for a home, so maybe some of that, I think, dumb money will find a home buying out its firms.
David: [00:43:08] So, this is kind of an exit strategy for partners, really, more than anything else. It sounds like.
Blake: [00:43:13] Oh, and it screws over- it totally screws over all of the people who've been putting in their time, waiting to make partner. Because now, they're not going to have- the partners have taken the cash off the table. Right? Like, they're not going to have the same opportunity. Like, this is all symptomatic of the entire accounting talent crisis. It's all related. And it's proof that it's happening, in my opinion.
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Blake: [00:44:50] So, David, shall we get to listener mail?
David: [00:44:51] Yes.
Blake: [00:44:52] Or do we have any app news today?
David: [00:44:54] We have app news. We can jump through that fast if you want, and then we'll do mail. We have Sage earnings. Sage released their earnings and this is a good month because I think we'll see Intuit earnings this month. And I think- I'm always confused because Xero doesn't do them quarterly. It's that twice-a-year release. What do they call that down under?
Blake: [00:45:17] Yeah. Because internationally, they do it biannually.
David: [00:45:20] Biannually.
Blake: [00:45:21] Not quarterly.
David: [00:45:22] And- but they don't even call it biannually. There's a word they use.
Blake: [00:45:25] Semiannual.
David: [00:45:27] I don't even- it's more specific.
Blake: [00:45:28] The one that always got- the one that always got me was superannuation. That’s such a funny- I find that such a funny term.
David: [00:45:35] So, we'll get- we should get a lot of numbers this month. So, Sage's revenues have climbed because of its cloud products, says the article. The big number here is Sage Intacct. So, North America grew 13% to £557 million, thanks to Sage Intacct, essentially. And then what they did see falling, but it's in line with their plan, is revenue from software and software-related services such as licenses and training. So, as they're shifting more into the cloud, obviously, desktop software licenses are falling and that fell 25%. And it's- and they go on to say it's in line with their strategy. Which is, they're moving away from license sales into subscriptions.
Blake: [00:46:15] Yeah. So, you're saying all of Sage North America's profit or revenue grew. Revenue, right, grew 13%? The whole-
David: [00:46:21] The specifically, Sage Intacct portion grew 13%.
Blake: [00:46:25] Oh, got it.
David: [00:46:26] All while in Northern Europe, the revenue grew 7% because they have a bunch of products there already. So, it’s Sage Accounting-
Blake: [00:46:32] How about the whole company? Like all of Sage, like, how are they -how did they do? I'm always curious because you see the cloud-
David: [00:46:38] Internationally, recurring revenue grew 5%, total organic revenue increase of 6% to £1.4 billion.
Blake: [00:46:46] Okay. Not bad, right?
David: [00:46:47] And reoccurring revenue grew 9% because of 20% growth in Sage Business Cloud. So, there, just, it took Sage a long time to get here, but now, they're starting to see the results of their march towards the cloud. Took a very long time.
Blake: [00:47:02] Well, I got some IRS-related app news. So, the Taxpayer Advocate is appealing the IRS decision to delay scanning technology. We've talked about the scanning technology that they want to do at the IRS. The current situation is they have lots and lots of people typing in tax returns into a system. They key them in manually.
David: [00:47:22] Everybody was shocked that they’re still doing that.
Blake: [00:47:25] Yeah. Transcription.
David: [00:47:26] And I even think members of Congress were alerted to this fact, like about 12 weeks ago or so, right? Yeah.
Blake: [00:47:33] So, the IRS is planning to actually postpone the implementation of scanning technology by next tax season because they still- they say they need to still deal with the backlog of millions of paper tax returns. And the Taxpayer Advocate, Erin Collins, is saying- she's protesting that. She's saying that's a really bad idea. So, I don't know how I feel about this because I do feel the IRS is like understaffed. And I think that even though they've been given money now to do this, to give them the money and then say, “Okay, now you have eight months or less to implement scanning technology,” is kind of like absurd, right? I think they need a little more lead time, and they got to clear the backlog.
So, I was actually thinking about like, what would be a radical solution to solve this? And I had a thought, and I'm curious what our listeners think of this. So, you know how like, when a software company becomes old and bloate,d and it's impossible for them to create new, exciting features? One of the best strategies recently has been to create a new company, owned by the old one, and build a new app. So, rather than try to fix something that's already like tangled up, you just start something new. And all the innovative people, you put them into that startup, and you let them go, and you don't hold them back. Well, what if we created that version of the IRS? So, instead of trying to modernize this system that has been in place since like the 1960s, create a new entity, a new agency that can also handle tax returns, and start shifting the work over to them. And they can have the systems in place from the beginning.
David: [00:49:12] For about a couple of seconds, Blake, you had me convinced. I was agreeing with you. I was like, “This is really a smart idea.” And then I started thinking about, like, the reality of this. It will never get off the ground. They will be funded. We will be funding that $80 billion, and it'll be a decade, and it will never due process one return. It'll never get out the door. So, it's like the bullet train.
Blake: [00:49:33] Well, how about this?
David: [00:49:34] It's like the bullet train. It's like the payroll system that California's been building. Like, it will never get out the door.
Blake: [00:49:40] Okay. Make it a private company. Contract with a private company to do what the IRS does, and pay them based on performance.
David: [00:49:48] It worked for prisons. We got lots of people in prison because of this.
Blake: [00:49:53] You know, this is just off the top of my head. So, thought out there. I'm looking for creative solutions to this problem. What do you think we should do?
David: [00:49:58] Here’s my creative solution. How about just everybody, one year of no taxes? That way, they can catch up. Like, no, really, like, we just have a tax-free year.
Blake: [00:50:09] Don’t file.
David: [00:50:10] And then you basically file an extra big return, that's a two-year return.
Blake: [00:50:14] Oh, interesting.
David: [00:50:15] No returns for 2023, instead, 2024, you file a double return.
Blake: [00:50:22] And then all of the tax pros get a break.
David: [00:50:25] Everybody gets to catch up and gets a nice reset.
Blake: [00:50:29] Hey, you know, that’s a thought. If our listeners have creative solutions to this problem, we’d love to hear them. And actually, speaking of that, David, we should get to our listener mail, because we got some voice messages, and we love getting voice messages. And if you send me a voice message as opposed to an email, I’m going to play it first. So, here are the two voice messages we got. We’re going to start with drum roll, please. Alison Reiff-Martin.
Alison Reiff-Martin: [00:50:59] Hey there, Blake and David. My name is Alison Reiff-Martin, and I wanted to respond to your commentary in Episode 289, and it was the commentary after the listeners who were upset about the direction they believe your podcast is going. You two don’t need to sound so defensive to justify why your podcast is what it is. The fact that you’re getting so many comments regarding the abortion episode means that people are listening and reacting to your episode, and those people who are listening reacting are on both sides of the political aisle, and are really reacting accordingly.
To the listener who suggested that only forward-thinking accountants are listening to your episode isn’t true. And even if it were true, how am I supposed to become a forward-thinking accountant if I don’t open my mind and listen to ideas that I might not always like or agree with? I appreciate that you both are open-minded enough to discuss all sides of accounting and our impact on the economy and our society. I am a solo practitioner who continually worries about staying relevant and how to keep up with even the smaller-sized firms.
Listening to your podcast has given me ideas on how to better incorporate technology into my practice, how to better articulate my ideas, and honestly, I have been able to be more proactive with my current and future clients because you have given me things to consider so that I can better serve my clients.
And I close with this thought for you and for everyone else who is listening to this podcast. Life and podcasts are all about choice. You have a choice in what you listen to, read, watch, etc. If listeners don’t want to listen or don’t like the podcast after they’re listening, they don’t have to continue. I know what choices I make when I listen to your podcast and I’m all the better for it. Thanks again and have a great day.
David: [00:52:59] Wow, it’s like a little pick-me-up. I feel really good now. We should just stop recording.
Blake: [00:53:05] Thank you so much, Alison.
David: [00:53:06] It’s special, and I always love people that I don’t know who we hear feedback from. It’s always the best.
Blake: [00:53:12] Alison had a follow-up in her email and said, Here are some topics that you could also consider. The AICPA and CPA societies cater to bigger CPA firms. All the technology companies will also say that solo practitioners aren’t a big focus for them because we don’t generate the revenue for them. So, how does a solo practitioner compete? Your commentary regarding the carbon survey suggesting that unless we want to grow to a bigger firm with 10-plus employees, left me wondering, what the heck am I supposed to do now? And feeling a bit deflated. I would like to hear what we can do to compete.”
And I want to respond to that, Alison, and say I’m sorry. I did not mean to be a downer with my takeaways from the Carbon Report. Maybe I should clarify and say that I think what the report indicated was that it is very challenging to be in the small firm space as you’re experiencing, which I define is under 10 employees. So, it’s pretty easy to be a solo practitioner compared to owning a firm, right? You don’t have all the management responsibilities you’ve got to do. You don’t have to deal with employees, you’re just billing your own time, right? It’s a lot simpler. I think anybody who’s been solo and then had a firm knows the difference.
And then when you’re a small firm, now you have all those responsibilities that a bigger firm does, but you don’t have the depth of the bench, right? You’re a small team and that’s where the challenge comes from. And I think that it doesn’t mean that we can’t be profitable. What the report showed was that once you go from solo to like having a few employees, the profit per person falls a lot, like almost half, right? And what that shows is just that we have to figure out how to use technology to be as good as the bigger firms with the smaller team. And I think there are plenty of firms that do that.
David: [00:55:06] The takeaway, right, is that that’s a phase you’re going through. And I can tell you, Blake and I, we’re going through that right now. It used to just be me and you to get our podcast out the door, and now we have an editor, and a transcriber, and I got people on my side, and there’s somebody doing social media, and artwork, and like and there’s, you know- we’re pushing 5 to 10 employees, arguably, how you count heads and bodies between the two of us. And it’s just makes things slower, it’s more complicated, and we have to push through this. Like, it was definitely easier when it was just me and you. But that’s kind of how growth happens, it gets difficult for a while.
Blake: [00:55:38] Yeah. I think I would also say it could be helpful to think about like, what do you want to achieve? To know ahead of time before you start hiring people. Or even just resetting now, do I want to grow to be a 10-plus person firm, or do I want to stay smaller than 10 and have employees? And that will really change how you set things up, right? You can set things up in a totally different way being sub-10 people than being 10-plus. And David and I want to make an accounting podcast media empire, right? So, we’re setting everything up to scale and that is really challenging. It’s a lot of work to do that.
So, I think maybe that’s part of the challenge that small firm owners have is like, you got to think about what are your goals, and then do what gets you to that, and be happy with that, and then you won’t struggle. And I know there’s plenty of firms that are like small, they’re doing just great, right? Just doing fantastic. So, the average is not necessarily like what you are stuck at, I guess.
David: [00:56:34] Makes sense.
Blake: [00:56:36] Okay, voicemail number two.
Kenji Kawamoto: [00:56:39] David and Blake. Long-time devoted listener Kenji Kawamoto with Acuity here. And I just listened to your most recent episode, the Join Us in Italy episode, and I just have to say, I was so incredibly entertained. Fantastic episode, it’s going to be a ton of- listen to that one. But also, I found it incredibly helpful.
Our firm at Acuity, we do a decent amount of promotional marketing and email marketing. So, there were some really great tips that Billy shared on the episode about things we should do and probably not do as we consider the way that we do some outbound email marketing. So, just a great episode.
And I also wanted to call out a pattern I’ve noticed on the Cloud Accounting podcast, and that is whether episodes like this one around ExpensiCon, or even the other topic that comes to mind is the one with Lorilyn Wilson talking about the numbers around abortion. And, I guess that pattern I’ve noticed is bringing in things that are happening in the real world onto the podcast that maybe don’t necessarily seem accounting-oriented, but actually there are interesting underlying accounting issues involved with those. I think it’s just great to see that, kind of, that you’re bringing that to the show, because I think all of us in the profession need some reminders of that what we’re doing is more than debits and credits.
And so, I love hearing you bring in these topics that are, again, not necessarily intuitive that they would affect our space, but have some real-world implications into how we practice in the profession or how we’re running our firms. So, I love that. Just keep up the great work and ciao, I hope to see you both in Italy.
Blake: [00:58:32] We’ll see you in Italy, too, Kenji. Thank you for that. Accounting is life, and it’s not just a meme, it’s not just a joke. I really do believe that accountants can make the world a better place because we can quantify. And you can’t- I really believe that to improve something, one of the best ways to do it is to quantify the problem and figure out how to get there. That’s business. Like, that’s how you succeed in business. And that’s what we do as CFOs, is quantify the business and then help show people the path.
Actually, there was a really great episode of the Teampay podcast, which we are producing an Earmark. The podcast is called Awkward Conversations. It’s episode number three, featuring an interview with John Danowski.
Now, he is an electrical engineer who became a CFO for startups. And he talks in that episode about how the way he added value to organizations was to do weekly accounting. And accounting wasn’t just about financial numbers, it was about marketing numbers, it was about production targets, it was about operational data, anything that people needed in the business to move the business forward.
And he would figure out what metrics were important to the different leaders, and then he would produce the reports every week, and sit with them, and answer their questions. And he says in the episode, I’m paraphrasing, but he says that once you put weekly numbers in front of people, they do the right thing. They want to succeed. And that’s what we can do as accountants. So, if there’s a big problem in the world, we can put numbers in front of it.
Now, you might argue ESG is one of those things and that’s where ESG could actually work. But you look at how it’s going right now, and I think it’s been co-opted, really, by people who are trying to make a lot of money from it in a lot of cases. And so, we’ve got to be really careful about what numbers we put in front of people. Because if you put the wrong numbers in front of them, you get the wrong outcome.
David: [01:00:34] So, accountants could report on, and help compile, and provide framing around those numbers, but it doesn’t that seem that those numbers have to be accounting numbers? Like, they don’t have to be the balance sheet, and the profit loss, these fictitious numbers that don’t really exist.
So, yeah, that’s where that- just because an accountant is going to help contribute to this, it doesn’t mean it should be recorded that way. But it’s always great to hear from Kenji. I feel like that’s the first time Kenji has ever called in, maybe, or sent an email.
Blake: [01:01:00] It might. You know, it’s- thank you. Thank you. Let’s see, we got some listener emails. I’m afraid we are actually not going to be able to get to all of them. Maybe, I don’t know. We’ll see.
David: [01:01:12] Can you touch on the story about the car giveaway?
Blake: [01:01:17] The car giveaway? Which one’s that?
David: [01:01:20] The Jacksonville Jaguars on the email we opened when we opened up.
Blake: [01:01:23] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
David: [01:01:24] ‘Cause that ties, really, back to the last episode. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s the one.
Blake: [01:01:27] So, this is related. So, Kathryn Bishop, we got an email from Katherine. She said, “I have Carolina Panthers tickets. We had a superfan called Catman who everyone just loved. If you Google Carolina Panthers Catman, you’ll see why.
David: [01:01:42] All right, hold on. Let me Google this.
Blake: [01:01:43] He was a big man and dressed up over the top. He would pose for selfies, I have one with him, everyone does, and David is looking it up right now.
David: [01:01:51] I have to be very careful not to just search only for Catman. Catman Carolina Panthers, ‘cause I just don’t want surprises. Oh, yeah, I’ve seen him. He’s one of those super fans on the NFL. Being an NFL fan, I’ve seen him, recognize him, know of him.
Blake: [01:02:03] He’s always on TV when they play, right?
David: [01:02:05] Yeah, yeah.
Blake: [01:02:06] Super fan. Okay. “So, at a preseason game several years ago, the Panthers were getting blown away. And to keep viewers from turning the channel, Fox Sports announced that they were going to give away a car. What they did was pull a prank on Catman by giving him a toy car. He thought it was a model of the car he’d won and was super excited. He was crushed when it turned out to be a joke. The entire fan base of the Panthers were pissed. People were booing and throwing things on the field. Online, it was even worse.
Then The Charlotte Observer did a bio on him and it turned out that he worked with at-risk kids; that was throwing gasoline on the fire. Fox Sports caved and gave him a van to use with the kids he works with and had to issue this apology. At first, they tried to play it off like everyone should have known it was a joke, like the old Toyota prank. That obviously did nothing to calm things down. It was an awesome lesson in what not to do for public relations. Anyway, love the show. Keep up the good work. Kathryn”
David: [01:03:01] Yeah, it ties back into, you have to be careful what you’re giving away, or saying you’re giving away, or awarding, which goes back our last episode.
Blake: [01:03:08] Here’s a quick one, or maybe not. Depends on how passionate you are about this, David. Sandy wrote and said, “Hi, Blake. Was that you or David who went to the dark side and bought a Mac? I need a faster processor for all these online accounting apps I’m running at once. I’m torn between upgrading from core i5 to core i7 processor, or biting the transition bullet and moving to Mac.”
“I’m concerned about my external monitors and continuing to work, and about file storage. I don’t want a million files on my desktop, I like the Windows tree. How has your Mac experience been? Love the podcast. Thanks for keeping me up to date in my own solo cloud accounting practice. Sandi.”
So, David, one of the reasons I love this show is because you and I come from different worlds. You come from the QuickBooks world, I come from the Xero world.
David: [01:03:52] You’re an accountant.
Blake: [01:03:53] From the PC world, I come from the Mac world. You come from the tech world, I come from the accounting world. So, I’ll let you answer this one first. Even though the question was directed at me. How do you feel about accountants switching to Mac, and what would you recommend Sandy do?
David: [01:04:08] I get why it happens. I’m not going to deny that MacBook Airs, MacBook Pros are very nice machines. They are very nice pieces of hardware, they’re sexy-looking, that aluminum, except for the fact that it’s Mac OS and there’s no right-mouse click button, and all this other stuff that makes me- so, I can never use those products.
Blake: [01:04:27] They fixed the right-mouse click. They got that now.
David: [01:04:29] But I recently bought a new computer this year. I bought- it’s called Frame.Work, that’s the website, Frame.Work. It is a PC that I think all of you accountants will love because it’s a PC, it’s Windows. But here’s the best part, you can upgrade it. so, there’s no glued-together parts. So, if you need 64 gigabytes of RAM, you can put 64 gigabytes of RAM. And if you want a faster processor, you, can do that. If you wear out the keys on the keyboard because you’re doing too much Ctrl C, Ctrl V, you can put a new keyboard and nothing is glued together. They ship it to you with a screwdriver. I mean, how incredible is that to have a laptop that’s fully serviceable?
Blake: [01:05:05] So, that’s the important thing, David. I think you may have forgotten to mention the most important part, which is this is an upgradeable laptop that runs Windows, right. So, you know, laptops are not easy to upgrade other than the RAM, right, most of the time, and Macs are impossible once you buy them. So, that’s what you get. You get the ability to swap out ports and change whatever you want in this thing. Isn’t that cool?
David: [01:05:25] And it’s former Apple engineers. It’s beautiful, trust me. It’s the way to go.
Blake: [01:05:30] What’s the website?
David: [01:05:31] Frame.Work.
Blake: [01:05:33] Okay, so that’s David’s recommendation for a laptop. I am the Mac fanboy. You know, I made the switch many years ago and I haven’t looked back. The M1 processors on the Macs are just incredible now. They have built their own silicon, so they actually solved a long-term problem that we’ve had in chip technology and the way computers have put together, where the bottleneck is actually not the processor speed, it’s the access to memory. And Apple engineers spent years and years figuring out how to re-engineer things so that this bottleneck is eliminated.
And the speed increases are incredible, but what’s just as incredible and just as important is that the power requirements decreased dramatically, because now you don’t have to run at high speeds, which creates a lot of heat, because you’ve got more lanes on the freeway, right? So, it used to be like you had a two-lane road and everybody’s going 200 miles an hour. Now, you’ve got a super highway with 10 lanes in either direction and the traffic can move a lot slower, but you get more data across.
David: [01:06:40] And to put the- for the lay man description of this, do they even ship with a fan or just the fan never comes on, because it never overheats?
Blake: [01:06:47] So, my MacBook Pro, I’ve got the upgraded Pro which has a fan in it. I’ve never heard the fan come on. It does run, but it runs very quietly. And the Airs, MacBook Airs, which actually should be plenty powerful for what we do as accountants, don’t even have fans. So, if you like a quiet machine, which I love, because I’m an audio person, I’m a musician, I don’t want to hear that fan, the Mac is great.
David: [01:07:11] Yeah. And I think the Intel don’t [INAUDIBLE 1:07:15] computer processor, but the Intel 11th gen core processor, I think now they have the 12th gen; the 12th gen’s the much lower power, it’s more comparable to the M1. It’s not the M1, but it stars- if you think about the Intel processors, I think you want to go with the 12th gen. Which maybe I might do. Maybe I’ll buy it the upgraded processor and swap it on my laptop. I can do that, I have the option now.
Blake: [01:07:38] Now, I want to bring one more factor into this decision. So, a lot of times when we’re deciding on tech, we look at the features, the functionality, and that’s what makes us decide. But there’s one other thing you should consider, and this goes back to my experience working at a tech company, at FloQast, where we sold software to accountants, and that is, the technology you use has a big impact on the customers that you acquire and their perception of you.
So, if your customers are the kind of people who use Macs, you as an accountant will be well-served if you also use a Mac, because you will be very different when you do your screen shares, when you meet up with them in person if you’ve got the Mac and they have the Mac. And Mac people appreciate that. And it’s the same thing on the Windows side.
So, the story from FloQast is that we had this whole sales team, and the sales team was required to use Windows PCs, they were not allowed to use Macs. And the reasoning was that accountants in corporate America use Windows PCs. So, when you’re doing a sales demo and you’re showing somebody software, you don’t want it to look unfamiliar, you want it to look exactly like their machine and what they’re experiencing.
David: [01:08:47] This might be the smartest thing you’ve ever done, Blake, in your whole career. I think being somebody that’s worked for software companies and understand software companies and the demos they do for accountants, like this is the most genius thing you’ve ever done in your career.
Blake: [01:08:59] It wasn’t my- I didn’t do it, I didn’t make it happen. I was just there.
David: [01:09:02] Take credit, I’m giving you the credit. I don’t know who this is from, but it’s so obviously smart of an idea that I’d never thought about it. Like, duh, of course- maybe it’s because I’m using Windows and I assume I’m doing it, but it never really occurred to me, like, “Yeah, duh. Why are you going to show accountants on a Mac?” It just doesn’t make sense. It’s like demoing QuickBooks using Xero, it makes no sense.
Blake: [01:09:20] And it’s about looking at your firm from the experience of the client and the customer experience. It’s really hard to do this. Step out of your own shoes and try to look at your firm like from the outside, and that’s one of the things that you’ll notice. So, it’s a small way that you can make a difference.
So, if your clients are like graphic designers, artists, musicians, heck yeah, Mac, absolutely, right? Like whatever they’re using. Okay. You know what? We’re just going to keep going with the listener mail because this is the end of the show, and we’ll just finish them out, and maybe you can stop listening.
David: [01:09:51] We’re direct, we’re going to catch up. It’s like the returns are stacking up, we kind of just get them all done. If somebody wants to listen, they can stay to the end and keep listening. We can hammer through it.
Blake: [01:10:00] Tom Cook wrote in a while ago and he said, “Hi guys, I’m listening to this week’s podcast. Good work, I enjoy my time with you. A couple of comments on this podcast.” I’m not sure which episode he was referring to. He said, “Number one, downloading data from IRS to complete your tax return. Currently, that information is not available on the wage and income transcript until about August. Not sure why. Well, we all know why. Very manual processes at IRS. So, some modernization would have to happen first.”
“So, that ties into what we just talked about, which is, because the IRS has to enter everything manually that they receive, it doesn’t make it into their system until August, at which point you can access it. So, if we wanted to create a system where the IRS just like pre-populated tax returns for simple returns, we’d have to fix that first. So, without the scanning, we can’t have the free file.”
David: [01:10:50] That’s a good point.
Blake: [01:10:51] The real free file, right? Okay. Second point is on the 150-hour rule, Tom says two things. “I agree, but I thought part of going to 150 in California was for portability of the license. Or was it when they allowed people to become a CPA lite? That is a CPA who is not allowed to do the one thing that only CPAs can do, which, by the way, is me. I’m a CPA lite, right? I can’t sign a test.”
And then he says, “Cal Poly does generate students who can prepare tax returns, at least they use to back when I graduated in, gulp, 1991. And good point, right? There are some many, not just some, excellent programs in this country, and excellent instructors who actually teach their students how to do stuff. Unfortunately, I think that’s like not the majority of programs, unfortunately, right? And a lot of folks graduate like I did and don’t know how to do anything.” All right. Thank you, Tom, for that. Sorry it took us so long to get to you. We had a lot to talk about in the meantime.
Here’s an email from Julie. Julie said, “Hello, Blake and David. I’m a big fan of your podcast and Blake’s expanding Earmark network, especially, Oh My Fraud. I am an auditor at a small- to medium-sized public accounting firm. In recent years I have seen the transition from desktop to cloud-based products in the companies I audit. I have seen the most adoption over the last few years because of the pandemic and recent pricing changes of desktop software.”
“As the reliance on cloud technology is becoming more and more material with each passing engagement, I wanted to reach out to you and get your advice. One of the areas I assess for the audit is backups of financial data and disaster recovery plans. For example, when a client is in a QBO environment, I am under the impression that QBO does not provide assurances on maintaining client financial backups, and most clients do not know what to do if their QBO data is ever compromised.”
“One, are there products or tools inside of QBO that I can recommend to back up their data? Two, what are your thoughts on backups in a cloud environment, particularly for small entities such as NFPs; not-for-profits? Three, what are your takes on being audited in a cloud environment? Thank you so much and I look forward to hearing from you, Julie.”
David: [01:12:56] So, regarding the backups of online software. So, QuickBooks will back up your software, but it’s backing it up like the whole entire server. So, if something goes down, they have redundancy, they’ll spin it back up, and hopefully, you’ll be right where you were before. But if you have data entry errors, and the app puts data in your product incorrectly, you delete transactions on accident, those, QuickBooks does not offer a backup solution for.
But now, they kind of do because they purchased a backup app and they make it part of QuickBooks Online Advanced, or you can use a third-party app like Rewind. And so, Rewind can connect to your QuickBooks online and back up these transactions. You can rewind the data and restore transactions, right? Which is kind of the dream, which, in theory, should just be out of the box on all cloud accounting software; you should be able to roll back changes.
I think more and more apps are having a lot better functionality to undo and go back. I’m seeing it across the board in lots of apps now, so hopefully, we’ll see this more in cloud accounting; that ability to rewind and go back. I don’t know as far as like what the best cloud backup strategy is, I kind of work under this assumption. Like, I was using auto entry and I’m using text, and my documents are in there, but I didn’t take time to get all my documents out of auto entry and store them somewhere, because I have it send the documents to QuickBooks. So, now QuickBooks is kind of my point of truth.
So, maybe one day if I ever stop using QuickBooks, then I’ve got to figure out how to get all the documents out of QuickBooks. But I just constantly put all attachments, and I just send everything to QuickBooks, and make that the source of truth.
Blake: [01:14:28] On point number three, I could speak to that because I was audited, and I was at in-house at a small not-for-profit when we were audited in a cloud environment. And the auditor loved it, it works great. I just gave him read-only logins to all the system so he could go and pull the GL data, pull the transactions. I do recommend if your GL doesn’t have an easy way to book export documents or give access to those documents to an auditor, it’s going to be a huge pain to have to go pull them manually. So, it’s always best to collect everything in a collections place, a system, and then send it into your different apps.
So, that way, like David said, for instance, the example that I use is Hubdoc; so, Hubdoc and Xero. All the documents go into Hubdoc, and then they go out to Xero, or to other places. And so, if Xero goes down or I can’t pull my documents from Xero, I can always go search for them in Hubdoc, right? Two places. So, that’s a good reason to use a document processing tool.
David: [01:15:24] The other thing too, I think, specifically with nonprofits or just auditors in general, and this goes, really, for our app-developer listeners that are out there, you have got to build a view-only permission in your app. Because yes, for auditors, but nonprofits really need it because they have a board of directors. They need access to the books, they need to have some visibility. But generally, you don't want them changing data. And a lot of apps don't have a view-only permission and they really need it. And it's probably as soon as they create users, if you're an app developer and you make users- because they will. They'll have an admin user, like a manager user, and like a data entry clerk user, those making up rules. Just create one more called view-only. That's all. People need it.
Blake: [01:16:01] While you're building- while you're building these user types, also build out, like detailed, fine-grained user permissions controls. Now, you don't have to expose this to your users to start when you're building your app. But like, build the underlying architecture so that someday, you can. Because if you want to go upmarket, if you want to work with bigger companies, they are going to want to choose specific user permissions for their users. Like, I don't want my AP clerk being able to see AR. That's something they do not need to see, and I cannot use your app if you don't let me do that, right? Like, these are problems, and then going back and re-architecting all of that later is impossible. Very difficult, not impossible. But anyway, we got two more emails, but I'm going to save those for the next episode. So, we got some listener mail already in the bag.
David: [01:16:48] Little tease. A little tease.
Blake: [01:16:50] If you want to get to the front of the line, send me a voicemail. That's the trick. So, Blake@blakeoliver.com, take a voice memo with your phone. Email it over to me, I will take a listen. I share it with David. We almost always- I think we've played every one of them on the air. So, you've got a high likelihood of getting on the air. And we love those. Love hearing from our listeners. David, if listeners want to get in touch with you directly online, where's the best place?
David: [01:17:16] I'm just on all the socials, @DavidLeary, very easy to find.
Blake: [01:17:20] And I am @BlakeTOliver. David, as always, it's a pleasure to talk to you. I have so much fun. And I'll see you here next week.
David: [01:17:27] Next week.
David: [01:17:31] Time for the classifieds.
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Blake: [01:17:58] Hey, podcast listeners, it's Blake, and I wanted to let you know about a new show I'm working on with CPA/comedian, Greg Kyte, and blogger/former CPA, Caleb Newquist. It's called Oh My Fraud, and it's a podcast all about financial crimes. That's right, a true crime podcast for accountants, by accountants. Caleb and Greg are going to come together every couple of weeks to unpack their favorite frauds and explore the circumstances, psychology and interpersonal dynamics involved. They also fully indulge in victim blaming the defrauded widows, orphans, infirm and feeble minded – because who can resist? If you fancy yourself a trusted advisor, or prefer your true crime with spreadsheets instead of corpses, listen to this show to learn what to watch out for, and to keep your clients, your firm, and even yourself, safe. To subscribe, go to ohmyfraud.com or search Oh My Fraud on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
David: [01:18:55] Want to get the word out about your newsletter, webinar, party, Facebook group, podcast, e-book, job posting, or that fancy Excel Macro you just created? Why not let the listeners of The Cloud Accounting Podcast know by running a classified ad? Hit the show notes for the link to get more info.
