The Accounting Podcast

Blake and David get brutally honest about why pricey accounting conferences are a no-go and how the industry sidelines neurodivergent professionals. You'll also get a rundown of the rebranded Intuit Connect event's new direction, the political firestorm around IRS Direct File, and a Google Sheets update that will blow your mind. From the mailbag, don't miss one reader's incredible story of passing the CPA exam in record time and our take on why firms need to rethink degree requirements. Plus, we offer real-talk advice for starting your own
bookkeeping biz and take shots at the infamous 150-hour rule.

Chapters
  • (01:02) - David Has FOMO
  • (03:50) - The Cost of AICPA Engage
  • (07:11) - ADHD and Conferences
  • (16:39) - Community Engagement and Comments
  • (21:23) - Intuit Connect Announcement & Going After the Mid-Market
  • (28:54) - Future of Accounting with AI
  • (32:59) - AI Agents Replacing Human Labor
  • (34:07) - Preparing for a Future in Accounting
  • (35:06) - The Value of Practical Experience
  • (36:52) - Listener Feedback and Community Engagement
  • (39:14) - Intuit and IRS Direct File Controversy
  • (48:20) - Google Sheets' New Conditional Notifications
  • (51:11) - Listener Mailbag: Unique Paths to CPA
  • (55:28) - Earning Your Accounting Degree Quick!
  • (59:13) - The Debate on College Degrees and Signaling
  • (01:04:29) - Closing Remarks and Thanks for Listening
 

Show Notes
House GOP proposes IRS funding cuts, defunding free tax filing ...

Intuit Connect 2024 - Formerly QuickBooks Connect

Google Sheets’ new ‘conditional notifications’ easily keep track of small changes - The Verge

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Get in Touch
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Transcripts
The full transcript for this episode is available by clicking on the Transcript tab at the top of this page

Creators & Guests

Host
Blake Oliver
Founder and CEO of Earmark CPE
Host
David Leary
President and Founder, Sombrero Apps Company

What is The Accounting Podcast?

The Accounting Podcast (formerly the Cloud Accounting Podcast) is the world's #1 accounting, bookkeeping, and tax podcast! Join us weekly for a roundup of accounting news, analysis, and interviews. Plus, earn free NASBA-approved CPE credits for listening with the Earmark app. Learn more at https://earmarkcpe.com.

Attention: This is a machine-generated transcript. As such, there may be spelling, grammar, and accuracy errors throughout. Thank you for your understanding!

David Leary: [00:00:04] On Thursday, the IRS outlined plans to continue direct file the free tax program the IRS rolled out or tested this year with 12 states. Now they want to implement it full like full boat permanent. They've invited all 50 states to join the program. And according to IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel, quote unquote, the IRS will make direct file a permanent option to file tax returns. Coming to you weekly from the OnPay Recording Studio.

Blake Oliver: [00:00:35] Hello and welcome back to the show. I'm Blake Oliver.

David Leary: [00:00:37] And I'm David Leary and Blake. I've been suffering from FOMO the last 2 or 3, four days. Why is that? I almost had to disconnect LinkedIn and Twitter because everybody was at AICPA engage, including you. I felt like it was the only person not there. I just really felt left out.

Blake Oliver: [00:00:53] I was there, I didn't have a ticket though. I was just in Las Vegas at the event, at the shadow conference, which seems to be a thing that started to happen. Now. I don't know if this happened.

David Leary: [00:01:04] It's actually called Shadow Conference now.

Blake Oliver: [00:01:06] No, that's just the name I've given to it. It's the the Shadow conference. Yes. Um, I just can't I can't do both the networking events after hours and wake up and go to a keynote at 830 or earlier in the morning. I can't do it. I don't know how people do it. You have to choose. Right? So in the interest of my well-being and health, I decided I'm going to sleep in the mornings and I'm going to talk to people during the day. And and that's why I go to these conferences. It's not for the sessions. Not that they aren't great. They they are great. And there's wonderful speakers. And I have friends who speak and I wish I could go see them speak. Well, sometimes.

David Leary: [00:01:49] You get to speak. Yes.

Blake Oliver: [00:01:50] And sometimes I speak not at this one, but at others. And so I feel bad about it because I just can't do both. I can't I can't be in sessions all day and then talk to people the rest of the day. It's just like sensory overload for me. And so I chose and I'm glad I did it. I it was still nonstop for me, like 48 hours straight of just talking to people in real life, which I think is really important to do. When you and I sit here talking to each other virtually all the time, we run a virtual company, you know, so I get my in-person fix, and then I come back here to my office in my home in Scottsdale, and I'm alone. So I'm still coming off of the high of that.

David Leary: [00:02:34] So what was your impression? What was the vibe since you didn't go to the event? Like, what was the vibe in the hallways of the hotel, etc.?

Blake Oliver: [00:02:40] Well, the the I didn't even go into the expo hall. I didn't go to the the lobby looked nice. The registration desk area looked looked nice, as it always does. But, you know, I also have sort of a political reason for not going to these AICPA events. Like I have a I have a argument as to why perhaps we should boycott them. It's that they're so expensive. Okay, now I can get a free ticket because if I beg for a media pass, I can get one, but most people can't. And do you know what it costs to go to AICPA? Engage, David.

David Leary: [00:03:19] It's enough where we. I chose not to go either, but I it's it's prohibitively expensive. Maybe people in the comments are guessing, I don't know, a.

Blake Oliver: [00:03:28] Ticket for a nonmember for the main conference, which includes about 18.5 CPE credits, is $1,995. Almost $2,000 to go to this conference. Now, this is the premier conference for CPAs. For accountants. That's what it's billed as. And what is the average CPA make? David, do you want to hazard a guess?

David Leary: [00:03:56] Well, I think starting salaries we've talked about this in the show are like it's 5670. You know somewhere in there.

Blake Oliver: [00:04:03] Yeah. Like 25th percentile is $75,000. So that means that about a quarter of CPAs make that or less. Right. Those are the newbies most likely. Um, your typical CPA, your average CPA is making around 90 to $120,000. Now, this is of course sourced from a variety of sites. Your experience may differ depending on your geography, but let's just say for sake of argument right now, that in the United States, your average CPA is making like six figures, right, $100,000 a year. So a ticket to this event, which is for CPAs, is $2,000. You're asking people to spend.

David Leary: [00:04:44] 2% of their salary on the ticket. Yeah. Hotel is going to be 300 bucks a night.

Blake Oliver: [00:04:49] 250, whatever. 400 at the Aria.

David Leary: [00:04:51] Okay, so now you're at 4% of your. And then if you add in your food and flight and all that, you might be spending 5 or 6% of your salary to attend this one event.

Blake Oliver: [00:05:00] Which is why who shows up at this event? It's the directors partners at public accounting firms or C-suite executives in industry. That's who this conference is for. It's not based on the pricing. You can't say that this is for your average CPA. And I like to consider myself a man of the people, David. And so I'm not buying a ticket is my way of supporting your average CPA, who also can't buy a ticket or go to Las Vegas and stay at the Aria, and they.

David Leary: [00:05:30] Don't sell a ticket just for like the expo hall or any, any type of things like that where, hey, maybe I want to bring my team. They want to experience the event, you know, almost in a way, like, hey, that's a hey, pay a little bit to go to the expo hall, and then maybe next year, we hope you register for the full event to give somebody a taste.

Blake Oliver: [00:05:49] Not that I'm aware of.

David Leary: [00:05:50] Not that you're aware of.

Blake Oliver: [00:05:50] Yeah. And I've said this on past episodes, past years that I think actually one of the best things a CPA could do to encourage more young people to stay CPAs, to be accountants, is to come up with some sort of really affordable ticket for young people and even pay their way and say, if you pass the CPA exam, right, we're going to we're going to enter you in a lottery to go to a CPA, engage and show you a good time. Right. That could be a way to broaden the appeal. So that's that's my political reason for not perhaps getting a ticket. I also have a personal reason, David, which is that I really struggle to focus in sessions in in a traditional CPE seminar, even if it's somebody I love and I know personally and I care about, or it's somebody I really want to hear, I just have a really hard time focusing for an hour. And this is part of the reason why we created earmark so that people can earn CPE on demand. Because for me, I can do like 20 minutes and then I'm done, right. And then another 20 minutes and then I'm done. Like my attention span is very short.

David Leary: [00:06:57] And some of this is Vegas. You're in the casino. That's where the oxygen is. But then when you go to some breakout room in the conference center, like you're already coming down, like the oxygen levels aren't the same.

Blake Oliver: [00:07:06] It's really hard for me to switch to from the hallway conversations to just sitting in silence, listening to somebody and then having more hallway conversations. It feels almost it's like two different things completely happening. Um, but I actually have like, I figured this out, David, I had a realization as to why I struggle with this so much.

David Leary: [00:07:26] And I'm all ears, okay?

Blake Oliver: [00:07:28] It's going to just bear with me. It's going to take me a moment to explain it. So we started publishing on TikTok last year, the Accounting Podcast. So I don't know if any of our listeners listening to this on the podcast feed or on YouTube or on TikTok. Uh, if you watch YouTube, you've seen this on YouTube shorts, probably. We put 62nd clips of the show one a day onto TikTok and YouTube. And so, um, I had a theory that this would help improve our numbers on the podcast. So I started I downloaded TikTok, you know, at age 40, I downloaded TikTok and I started like, using it. I said, I got to know how this works if we're going to put stuff on it. And of course, like everybody else, I quickly became addicted to it. Right. That's what it does. Yes. And some people are particularly addicted to it. So like I said, I can't focus long term in a in a one hour session. Well, 32nd videos are great for me right? That's perfect. And I started getting these videos about ADHD into my feed influencers who have it talking about what it's like to have it and explaining this challenge.

Blake Oliver: [00:08:43] And I've always, you know, sort of known about ADHD, sort of just in the zeitgeist, right in the air. You hear people talk about it. We joke about having it just the same way people joke about, oh, I'm OCD, which is almost like, you shouldn't really do that because there are real people with real OCD and there's real people with real HD or ADHD, and it's this attention deficit hyperactivity disorder is that I think that's what it stands for. Anyway, I start getting these videos and last week before I go to AICPA engage, I'm sitting with my parents, um, at dinner. I grilled for them. We're having this wonderful dinner. We're having a great time chatting, and I'm telling them about these TikTok videos and how I'm like, thinking to myself, do I have ADHD? And my mom says, oh, you do. You do have ADHD. I agree, and I say, I say, how do you know that? You say, you say you'd agree. David.

David Leary: [00:09:37] Oh, 100%. So my mom, we both have it.

Blake Oliver: [00:09:40] I look at my dad and I'm like, is she is is she losing her mind? Like I don't remember this. And he's like, oh yeah. No. Remember when you were ten and we had you. Go to a child psychologist because you were struggling in school. And I said, yeah, I remember that doctor. And he said, yeah, she diagnosed you with ADHD. So you have an official diagnosis. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Like by a psych, like a medical professional. And I said, well, how do I, how am I just learning about this? You know, I'm not angry or anything. I'm just my mind is opening up, I told you.

David Leary: [00:10:13] But because you have ADHD, you completely forgot and didn't pay attention when they told.

Blake Oliver: [00:10:16] You. That was one possibility. And I asked them that and they said no, no, we decided not to tell you because we didn't want us to hold you back. And I'm thinking to myself now, I'm processing this right after dinner. And, you know, my parents are in their 70s. And also this was 30 years ago and at the time, 30 years ago, I think. People were a lot less accepting of anything mental illness related or. I agree right like in their their they told me a little bit more at dinner about why they did this. And there were no there were no accommodations the school was going to make. Right. I think at the time it was like Medicaid to make you normal. Yeah. And that has. Problems two. Maybe you overmedicate maybe somebody loses their creativity. And, you know, David, like I was a musician. I was very like, there are good things about this condition, right? Yes. And so they decided not to tell me. So I've gone for 30 years without knowing that I have this thing. And just like brute forcing my way through life. But it's really funny to think about, like how this all ties into what we talk about on our show and what we're doing with earmark. And this issue I have at conferences. Right. I can't sit in an hour long session because my brain won't focus for that long.

David Leary: [00:11:37] I have to you need 12 second videos and and I'm guilty of this too. I listen to, like, all podcasts at two x speed. Right?

Blake Oliver: [00:11:45] Because otherwise you go off on tangents in your mind.

David Leary: [00:11:48] And you know, if it's because I go off on tangents, it's just I don't have the patience. Like, it's like I want to consume more, faster, right.

Blake Oliver: [00:11:55] And that's what I love about On demand learning is that it works at my pace so I can turn it on, turn it off. If I have an idea, I can press pause and I can go make a voice memo because I don't want to forget the idea. That's always a problem I have when I'm sitting in sessions is I have great ideas and then I'm I can't do anything about it, and then I lose them. And I feel like this constant pressure. But I think it so that is, that's that's the background. Basically the two reasons why I struggle at conferences is that and. I don't know, maybe. Maybe I'll get some medication. Or maybe. Maybe, you know, just designing my life around it is the way to go, which is kind of what we've done right with our I mean.

David Leary: [00:12:35] Coffee is definitely more caffeine. Well, you know.

Blake Oliver: [00:12:40] Me, I exercise.

David Leary: [00:12:41] Bodes well.

Blake Oliver: [00:12:42] I drink a lot of coffee.

David Leary: [00:12:43] Me too.

Blake Oliver: [00:12:44] And since I've exercised my mental since I started exercising like an hour and a half, two hours a day, my my mental state has been a lot better.

David Leary: [00:12:50] Yeah, coffee, exercise and protein. That's kind of the the formula to.

Blake Oliver: [00:12:55] But you know what is not compatible with this ADHD or any really any mental um, differences. What's the term people use now. It's, there's a specific term that I keep hearing for people who have like Neurodivergence. That's what it is. Yeah. Yes. Right. Neurodivergence is this like now? It's now accepted that you think differently, that your brain operates differently than other people. And I'm thinking to myself. Accounting firms are not very open to or set up for people who are neurodivergent like me. And maybe this is part of why I struggled in public accounting, because I cannot work for eight hours a day, much less 10 or 12 hours a day filling out timesheets. It's simply incompatible with my my brain. I cannot do it. I am deeply unhappy doing it now. I know there are people who can do it right, who can focus like that and and grind as we say. They grind through it. And and maybe that has something to do with their brain chemistry.

David Leary: [00:14:01] Well, it's a different type of neurodivergence, right? Where they're, they're a little bit more, um, hyper focused. They almost it's the opposite. The opposite, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Blake Oliver: [00:14:10] And I don't have that. So maybe that's part of it. And so, you know, maybe one of the solutions to the accounting talent crisis is for firms to figure out how to work with people like me, where the timesheets don't work. Where we can't grind and we need to be working on more creative stuff. And. Accounting firms need that. They really needed my help. I actually felt really bad when I left because I could have done so much good if the system had been set up right to support.

David Leary: [00:14:41] Yeah. You're to support thought process. My happiness and ideas. Yeah.

Blake Oliver: [00:14:46] We've got some comments in the live stream, and I want to make sure that we address these because we love when people join us live. If you are listening on the podcast and you have not joined us live, subscribe on YouTube, search for the accounting podcast, hit subscribe and notify and you'll get notified when we go live. And you can join us and tell us what you think. Heather Smith has joined us today. Great to have you. Heather, either up early or late in Brisbane. Hello from Brisbane or Brisbane. Arctica is as it is freezing at the moment. Um, that's so funny. It is 100 and it's going to be 108°F here today. We are having we're having heat advisories in Phoenix and in Las Vegas and power outages.

David Leary: [00:15:31] So hopefully we don't have a power outage.

Blake Oliver: [00:15:33] You had Heather says my daughter just paid $4,000 and had to do ten hours of assessment to get her ADHD assessment. If she wants the medication, she has to be monitored constantly, blood checks, weight checks, etc.. Is that like an Australia thing? Because I feel like here, if you pay the $4,000, they'll just give you the drugs. But that might.

David Leary: [00:15:51] Just be you could just get an app these days and talk to somebody for five minutes and they'll sell you the drugs.

Blake Oliver: [00:15:55] Oh yeah, that's right.

David Leary: [00:15:56] I'm the world we live in now. Yes, I'm going.

Blake Oliver: [00:15:58] To do that. I'm going to do a virtual appointment for mine. David Bergstein. Welcome. Hey. David says I attended some excellent presentations. One, for instance, was John Higgins Practical Examples of Copilot. And there were a number of small firms that brought young staff. I also enjoyed earmark. Hey, that's great. It's great when firms bring their staff. In my experience, not enough staff get to go to places like engage. It's like the the high level people get to go and then they leave all their staff back at the firm to do the work. Because the problem is if staff go, then they have to make up the hours, right? They don't want to.

David Leary: [00:16:33] You still have to do the cases.

Blake Oliver: [00:16:35] Yeah. Um, David says play pickleball. That will settle you down. I don't know if you have seen the pickleball courts in my neighborhood. It is, uh, quite competitive, David. It might.

David Leary: [00:16:48] Not. I have no doubt that the typical Scottsdale. I'm sure it's over the top. Scottsdale.

Blake Oliver: [00:16:53] Oh, yeah.

David Leary: [00:16:54] We can just imagine.

Blake Oliver: [00:16:55] They bring in, like, pickleball pros to the pickleball club in my neighborhood, and they have a bus, and they go on the road and they compete against other clubs, so I'm not sure. Uh, the swimming helps a lot. Yeah. Heather says it's 4 a.m. in Brisbane, up bright and early. Jan. Hey, Blake and David, love seeing you here. Heather and David B. Hey, Jan. Welcome. Light Em up. Says I made it to a live episode. Yes. Welcome. You made it. Uh, we are all over the place with our recording schedule, so you never know when it's going to happen. It could be 4 a.m. your time. It could be.

David Leary: [00:17:33] Hit that subscribe button. And that's right. You'll at least you'll get a notification on your phone. At least if you do that.

Blake Oliver: [00:17:38] And you can always tune in midway and catch up. So, um, out of Balance says, I find it crazy that ADHD is a common condition for accountants. Also, I just got my CPA looking to use earmark for CPE. Awesome. Thank you so much. I, I look forward to your thoughts. Uh, let us know what you think. You can always email support at earmark Cpcomm or just email me Blake at earmark Cpcomm. Let me know what you think about the app. I'm always looking for suggestions. Oh, and by the way, we are launching a community this summer. It is happening. And so there will be a forum where you can join us and let us know. Not just sending emails, right? You can actually let us know what you think about the app and how we can improve it.

David Leary: [00:18:23] And it just won't be about earmark itself. It's just it's a community of accountants, bookkeepers, tax professionals, auditors and all kinds of stuff will be in there. Not just it's not about earmark specifically. No. It's just that will be a.

Blake Oliver: [00:18:34] Space that'll be one of the one of the spaces will be the earmark app and another space will be the accounting podcast. So if you're a listener, stay tuned. We will have an invite link for you eventually to join the earmark community. And we'll probably do some like live streams in there, some, you know, members only kind of content.

David Leary: [00:18:52] We'll see organically where it heads. Yeah.

Blake Oliver: [00:18:54] And we're you know, we're debating whether or not this is something that's open to everybody or just earmark subscribers. We haven't decided yet. I kind of like the idea of making it open to everyone because, you know, our one of our mottos is like, CPE should be free, right?

David Leary: [00:19:08] So it's $2,000 to to to attend the earmark community. It's going to be $2,000.

Blake Oliver: [00:19:14] $2,000.

David Leary: [00:19:15] 2% of your salary. You have to commit to join our community.

Blake Oliver: [00:19:19] No, no, we uh we're the anti anti expensive conference app. That's us.

David Leary: [00:19:25] I don't know if I have good news for you or bad news, but guess what? We're going back to Vegas.

Blake Oliver: [00:19:31] Okay, well, luckily it's only a five hour drive for me, and I drove, so, uh, you know, that's that's okay. So. So what am I going back to Vegas for?

David Leary: [00:19:40] And when QuickBooks connect is back. But it's different. So QuickBooks connects can be rebranded to Intuit Connect. Right. Um, it's going to take place. Mark your calendar Blake October 28th through October 30th. It's in Las Vegas at the Aria Hotel. So you're going to have that deja vu feeling you were just there. Um, the ticket is about half the price, so a one single all access passes $1,195. If you bring your team, you get 30% off a team pass.

Blake Oliver: [00:20:10] So you can basically bring your team for less than $1,000 a person, correct? That's great. See that? That to me seems a lot more accessible.

David Leary: [00:20:19] And based on the new website, it's pretty clear it's a QuickBooks and MailChimp conference. Right. And they're going to be pushing really all of Intuit's connected services, which is interesting because before Intuit, the connect part of QuickBooks connect were the individuals in the collisions, right? Right. And now it feels like the connect is our connected services. It kind of that's the vibe I'm getting from the website. The one good thing that's not changing is the focus is still going to be accountants and accounting firms, right? They're not opening this up to small businesses or anything like that. But the vibe I get from the announcement and the email that I announcement I got from it, it does feel a little like Intuit might be starting to push or position itself as an ERP play right there. Sentence one of the verbiage. The sentence is said accountants focused on mid-market companies. I just thought that was interesting. The announcement about this thing, you're talking about, that specific segment of the accounting population.

Blake Oliver: [00:21:19] I saw that multiple times mid-market, mid-market, mid-market. It shows up in the speaker submissions page. It shows up on the main page. They definitely want to be focusing on mid-market, which for Intuit is a slightly different definition than for other apps in the mid-market space. They mean, as I understand it, ten employees or more. So businesses with ten employees or more are considered mid-market by Intuit. And that's because so many of their customers are micro businesses. Right. Less than ten. Yeah. What they call small businesses. So it's almost sort of like the sizing on, you know, how sizing on like t shirts can be very different depending on the brand. Yes, right. Intuit skews small. So for them mid-market is actually what many would say is just small business, but it indicates they want to move. Upmarket with the content of this show.

David Leary: [00:22:21] Yeah, because I think there's still this like and it's been there a very long time. And Intuit's always tried to crack, crack that nut, you know, you, you kind of outgrow QuickBooks. Maybe one day, but then maybe let's just say Intuit was selling you everything they could ever sell you. Maybe they were getting $6,000 a year from you as a small business. But to take the next jump to like, uh Sage Intacct. Right. You might be spending 50, 60, 70 grand, another 50 grand to bring in an implementer, right? It's a big jump. So there's there's obviously revenue in there between $10,000 a year and $70,000 a year. And so if Intuit can move a percentage of customers into a 20 grand a year subscription, right, like it's massive. Um, and.

Blake Oliver: [00:23:06] That sort of I guess that's the explanation for why this is now Intuit Connect instead of QuickBooks connect. How do you feel about the name change? David. My initial reaction was. Well, people don't know into it the brand. I mean, we know it, right? But like the public this this they know QuickBooks.

David Leary: [00:23:27] About every 4 or 5 years, the pendulum swings like, oh, we gotta like, brand everything into it because nobody knows anything about Intuit. And then they, they do this and then they discover it doesn't work. Remember they had those commercials a few years ago about the Intuit robot and all that type of stuff. They pulled way back on that Intuit branding, and now the commercials are TurboTax and QuickBooks, TurboTax, QuickBooks, MailChimp. Those brands are so strong that it's stupid to try to rebrand it. Other stuff. It just really, really, really hard. So.

Blake Oliver: [00:23:59] So you think your your your hot take is mistake?

David Leary: [00:24:04] Well, not so much. It's mistake. It's just they're going to switch it back. It'll go back. I actually made a note in my notes. I said um I predict a year from now it'll be switched back.

Blake Oliver: [00:24:13] Yeah. Regarding this mid-market label, Brian says small businesses don't really consider themselves small, especially at the ten employee model. It's similar to how everyone thinks they are middle class, regardless of their income level. That's right. That's true. So if you could, you could say that Intuit is actually aligning better with how people think or how business owners think. Once you have ten people, yeah, you don't think of yourself as small anymore. That's fair. Yeah. Um, and to put this in perspective, like when I worked at Floqast, we considered mid-market to be, gosh, it was more of a revenue thing. But like mid-market is like $10 million in revenue and up. For a lot of like analysts like Gartner, I think, and even the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Right. Uh, mid-market doesn't start until you're a much bigger company, which for many businesses might be like 50 employees. Anyway, I think I do like, uh, Intuit's definition, though. We got some more commentary here in the chat. It's a lively group today. We might have to consider Thursdays as our normal day. David, um, Luffy says, hey, I'm new to the podcast and I'm a huge fan. I just got my A's in accounting and I'm on my way to finish my BS by December of 2026. How different do you think the industry will look when I graduate? First, I want to say congratulations Luffy on getting the associates and good luck on the the bachelors. How will the industry look when you graduate in 2026? Well, that is a great question. On my way back from AICPA engage, I was driving five hours. I listened to a Lex Fridman podcast. David, do you ever listen to Lex Fridman?

David Leary: [00:25:55] I know of it, but here and there I listen, you know, depending on the guest occasionally, I know, I know of it. Yeah.

Blake Oliver: [00:25:59] So I don't listen to it a lot because it's these two three hour interviews I know. Right. And like I said, I you.

David Leary: [00:26:05] Can't pay attention.

Blake Oliver: [00:26:06] That long. I struggle to and I lose and I so I listen to 20 minutes and then I'm on to the next thing. Right. But um, this time I just listened. And it was fascinating because Lex Fridman is an AI researcher, and, um, at least that's how he I think he describes himself. I don't know much about his background, but he was talking to another, uh, AI guy, and basically the entire episode was about when will I destroy the human race? Uh, because this guy who was the guest, uh, Yampolsky is his last name. Um, and I have to look up his his first name, uh, Roman Yampolsky. He's a AI expert who believes he's one of the doomsdayers. He believes that we will end up destroying ourselves with super intelligent artificial intelligence. So it was a bit of a scary kind of thing to listen to. Um, I don't think I'm on that end of the spectrum, but one thing that really stuck out to me from the episode was that the prediction markets, and both Roman Yampolskiy and Lex Fridman agreed on this, that like the prediction markets, these these markets where you can make bets on what's going to happen in the world, uh, are saying that we will have general artificial intelligence within two years. So an artificial intelligence that is, for all intents and purposes, like effectively a human conversation you can have.

David Leary: [00:27:32] Assuming there's enough electricity.

Blake Oliver: [00:27:34] And actually, David.

David Leary: [00:27:36] Phoenix does not have air conditioning that turns off all the air conditioners. Maybe this is.

Blake Oliver: [00:27:39] Something they didn't address, but this is actually what I understand is the number one reason why we might not have a superintelligence anytime soon is that it is so energy intensive that the cost of running a mind that works through these llms will be prohibitive.

David Leary: [00:27:57] It's like peak oil. They won't. They won't drill that last strip of oil like eventually. Right? It's it's too much costs too much to drill the last. You'll never run out of oil. Right. It's kind of that same thing. It'll never reach because there's never going to be enough power, right? It'll never.

Blake Oliver: [00:28:10] Well, I mean, I don't know, like, maybe they'll figure it out, right? Or we'll all just have blackouts here in Phoenix, and it'll be powering the superintelligent AI in San Francisco or something to send.

David Leary: [00:28:21] You a notification on your phone telling you there's a blackout happening.

Blake Oliver: [00:28:24] Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Um, so to answer your question, Luffy, uh, how will the industry look when you graduate? Okay, so. Uh, we probably won't have. I mean, my guess is, like, if I had to if I had to place a bet, I would not say we will have, um. You know, I eyes that are like humans doing our jobs in two years. But what we will have is we will have these very specific AI agents that can do a lot of the work that accountants and bookkeepers are doing in a specific domain. So accounts payable, for example, or reconciling a bank account, for example, a very specific task that is repeatable and trainable. And you're going.

David Leary: [00:29:08] To have some some extra tools. But the industry itself is not. Now that I'm getting older, but I'm having historical perspective of this industry the last 25, 30 years, it doesn't change very much. So. So from today, in 2024 to 2026, the change is not going to be that much. But I do think, yes, we're going to start getting more useful tools. Tools that are your teammate or assistant. Yes. You know like yeah.

Blake Oliver: [00:29:31] So like an earmark instead of hiring people. And as I say this, I feel like this is not like a cool thing to say, but I'm going to say it right. This is what we're doing. Instead of hiring people to do work, we are training AI agents to do the work, and that is what businesses will do, because it's way more profitable to pay OpenAI to access their API to automate something than to hire a human to do it. But the reality is.

David Leary: [00:29:58] The bodies don't exist. There's not enough labor force to hire, and.

Blake Oliver: [00:30:02] We can't afford to pay people to do it in the US anyway. It just doesn't make sense. If we were going to hire people, it would be people in the Philippines. And so that's basically what we have created at earmark is we have an offshore workforce of really smart CPAs who we can afford right at our at their rates that are great for them and they're in their country. And then they are leveraging AI agents that we are helping to train with them. And I think a lot of accounting firms who want to be profitable will end up following that kind of model. And it doesn't mean there won't be people here in the US. Those people will be client facing. And so. Luffy's follow up question is I plan on getting my CPA after graduation, but are there any technologies that you think I should learn to prepare myself? Start playing around with these AI tools immediately. Um, regardless of what you do, you will be using them eventually. And if you don't know what to do, if you if you open up Claude or and buy a subscription, or you open up ChatGPT and you buy a subscription and you don't know what to do with it, ask. That's the thing that's hard for people to get their mind around, is that you don't need somebody to teach you how to use these AI tools, necessarily. The way I learned was by asking the AI itself, how can I use you? It becomes the teacher. The AI is your teacher, and then you learn what you can do with the AI. That's kind of a trippy thing.

David Leary: [00:31:34] And then I would suggest get like, they're not going to teach you QuickBooks or Xero or accounting. They're not going to teach you accounting in college. So go get a job like Blake did, like being a bookkeeper for a small business.

Blake Oliver: [00:31:46] They teach you the theory. Oh, yeah. Yeah, they teach you the theory, but they don't teach you the practical application of that theory. Which is why accountants are paid so poorly after college. Because they don't have any practical experience in the firm. Basically has to train you. How to do all that for 2 or 3 years, and they're not going to pay you. So if you want to make the good money, you need to get the practical experience and then you can demonstrate, look, you're not going to have to teach me all this stuff. I already know how to use QuickBooks.

David Leary: [00:32:12] Because that's expensive. When somebody's senior at the firm has to go and help you do a bank reconciliation because you can't do it.

Blake Oliver: [00:32:17] So that's what I tell people. I tell accounting students is like, uh, you know, as much as everybody likes to rag on QuickBooks, go learn QuickBooks, right? That's probably the most valuable skill you can have right out of school is like knowing how to use a GL. And even if you end up working for a company where you're using like a NetSuite or an SAP or whatever, you will have the fundamentals down of how an app works.

David Leary: [00:32:39] I have a really good friend that, um, met way back in tech support days in 1996. He was doing QuickBooks tech support as well, got his, uh, accounting degree. He got his mis degree or two degrees, double degrees, right. Every job he's ever gotten is because he knows QuickBooks and his whole career. That's how he's got. Isn't that great? Yeah.

Blake Oliver: [00:32:57] And there's so many people that just, like, don't know how to do it, have it's.

David Leary: [00:33:02] Controller jobs, etc. because he knows QuickBooks.

Blake Oliver: [00:33:05] And of all the apps that you can learn on your own without having to pay a lot of money, QuickBooks is the one, right? Like there's there's free certification, right?

David Leary: [00:33:15] Or it's very easy to train you now right to do it.

Blake Oliver: [00:33:18] Yeah, you could go sign up to be a QuickBooks Live bookkeeper, get all the training and then quit. You know they don't care. More listener chat in the live stream, Heather says. Heather Smith says I hosted my first earmark CPE this week and the AI automation and platform was sensational. You are the gold standard. I feel very spoiled now. Wow. Thank you Heather. We really appreciate that. Uh, we do our best to make it as easy as possible for instructors. David says. Do you allow old people in your community? Yes. The older the better. David, did you are.

David Leary: [00:33:51] We have a space called The Villages and you can go in there.

Blake Oliver: [00:33:55] What was the one I used to live near in Florida? It was called King's Point. It was like a retirement community of like 50,000 people. Yeah. So we'll build that. David, will you be our ambassador to the crowd? The older crowd? We would love to. We can create a pickleball space for you. I'm absolutely serious. I'm very open to it. We want your wisdom. David, we got some more listener comments, but I feel like we need to get to some news you have prepared.

David Leary: [00:34:23] I have Intuit news I think we can talk about. Let's talk about.

Blake Oliver: [00:34:26] More Intuit news.

David Leary: [00:34:27] So to kill IRS direct file. I'm wondering, will Intuit need to get in bed with the Republicans in the 2024 election? So so this week two articles came out. One is about on Thursday, the IRS outlined plans to continue direct file free the free tax program the IRS rolled out or tested this year with 12 states. Now they want to implement it full, like full boat permanent. They've invited all 50 states to join the program. And according to IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel, quote unquote, the IRS will make direct file a permanent option to file tax returns. But meanwhile, House Republicans have already proposed to eliminate the direct file program as part of their budget plan. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith, Republican of Missouri. Quote, unquote. Congress did not authorize the IRS to create a direct file program because the American people neither want nor asked for it. So.

Blake Oliver: [00:35:25] Yeah, I can't believe that direct file is becoming a political election issue. Like the next administration could determine whether or not we have this option available to Americans.

David Leary: [00:35:38] And because obviously, if the Democrats win, they're going to keep IRS budgets the way they are. Yeah, right. The way they and they're going to not attack direct file. And on top of that, they hate Intuit and big tax. Big corporate tax. Right. They're going to go after they're going to double down on direct file probably. But if the Republicans win they hate the IRS. They're going to kill direct file.

Blake Oliver: [00:35:59] And by the way, for those who don't know what direct file is, it's basically the IRS created its own tax software. And if you are a very simple filer. W-2. That's all you got? Kind of thing. You can file with direct file for free. So it's what the free file used to be. They've just cut out the middleman and now it's no longer Intuit doing it. It's IRS doing it itself.

David Leary: [00:36:22] But this creates a dilemma for Intuit because historically speaking, Intuit leans left and they're in Democrat leaning. They socially, culturally intuit. Is more aligned with Democrats. But I think from the business shareholder Intuit on this issue, they got to be aligned with Republicans. So what are they going to do this year in the election? Right. Well, who are they going to support?

Blake Oliver: [00:36:46] Yeah, it's a good question. And we've seen, uh, recent stories. There was one in the Wall Street Journal, uh, one in the New York Times about how there are more VCs now who are reconsidering, or at least before the Trump fraud conviction, were talking about supporting Trump in this election and going against the Bay area, you know, liberal leaning bias. And I just I wonder what's going to happen, though now because that that all was happening right before the fraud conviction, which I think a lot of people thought wasn't going to happen. So like it was very interesting driving up to Las Vegas because on my drive, I listened to the latest All In podcast featuring four prominent venture capitalists, and David Sachs and Chamath Palihapitiya were talking in the episode about how they were hosting a Trump fundraiser. And then literally right as the episode was dropping, the fraud conviction happened and they had to come back on for a segment that they recorded after the main episode talking about it. And, you know, now they with the and you could just hear it, you could hear the awkwardness in their voices of, oh, now we are hosting a fundraiser for a convicted felon. Right? The yeah, the calculus is different may have changed. So we'll see what happens if that turns off the venture capital folks in the Bay area people.

David Leary: [00:38:08] And I still feel like maybe Intuit doesn't care because their live offerings are doing so well. Like like it's fine. Irs you take the the free chum down here. We're making tons on the live offerings, right? Um, but.

Blake Oliver: [00:38:21] David, like you said, the street is punishing Intuit. I saw a headline into its stock slumps after warning TurboTax could lose 1 million free users. Into its stock price fell nearly.

David Leary: [00:38:34] Were sexy headlines. But every time in Intuit and I've seen this for 20 years, every single time they announce earnings, the stock goes down the next day. It always does because Intuit tends to conservatively by 8%.

Blake Oliver: [00:38:46] By 8%.

David Leary: [00:38:47] Maybe even more. Yeah. Because like it's either that or I sell. When I had Intuit stock when I worked there, I would sell it and then it would go down. It's one of those two factors usually. Well, I.

Blake Oliver: [00:38:55] Really hope that, you know, I know Intuit's a big company and there's probably a lot of different opinions at the executive level in that company, but I really hope that they choose to take the higher path. They recognize that having a simple filing option for low income Americans, for middle class Americans, is the right thing to do. And people who are making two times the poverty level, which is $60,000 for a family of four, should not be paying to file their taxes. And that's like a lot of Americans, right? Like most Americans do not make six figures. And so asking them to pay hundreds of dollars to file their taxes is just kind of crazy. Yeah. When it's not complicated, I.

David Leary: [00:39:40] Suspect it's going to stay in my suggestion for ferm owners. Like if you do tax services, you price against this. Like here's what you get from the IRS for free. Here's what we do for you. That's beyond. And you and you build your packages and on your website you even include the IRS website. Look, zero $0. Go here, right. And steer off people that are never going to pay you anyways, right?

Blake Oliver: [00:40:04] Eclis says TurboTax alone accounted for approximately 41 million tax returns. And apologies if I did not get your name correct. That's a really big number. And. I think the, uh, software assisted tax filing industry is over half of all returns these days. Yeah. Uh, Edgar says Intuit can just compete and do better. The IRS can have the free option, but private companies will most likely do it better. And I agree with that philosophy. Just in general, I feel like in so many areas, we would be better served by having a government run free option and a private marketplace of options. And people can choose what they want based on their income and. That way you don't just have a government run option. That sucks for everybody, right? Like, I don't know, I feel like having a free option and private competition is what gets you the best results in the end.

David Leary: [00:41:11] Yeah, I think the big issue, if they said, well, we're only going to everybody has to use our one system.

Blake Oliver: [00:41:16] Oh that would be.

David Leary: [00:41:16] I think is a system the country would not be okay with. Yeah.

Blake Oliver: [00:41:18] No I would, I would basically be like abolish the IRS if they made me use their software. But I think there should be an option that they run, you know, and you know what, if they do a great job, it'll force the private markets and those private companies to do better, which maybe they need a little competition from the from the government. Yeah. Right. Um, Edgar said we used to have a free option by getting the forms from the library. I actually have a friend who's an engineer who still fills out his tax return by hand on the forms, because he can do it because he's, like, got that brain to read the instructions and stuff. I don't I won't do that. I can't do that. Um. Some more commentary from our listeners here. Brian, regarding QuickBooks says you're right about learning QuickBooks. My first job out of Big Four was a small firm where I had to learn Cube-e, and I learned more about overall accounting than five years at B4. Yeah, there's something there's something about actually making the entries in the system that solidifies the theory in your brain.

David Leary: [00:42:23] Well, you can't become a great painter just looking at paintings, right? You got to paint something.

Blake Oliver: [00:42:28] You can't become a great musician by just listening to music. Yeah. Fair enough. That's I like that. Um, Luffy says, thank you so much for the advice. I do have an audit internship plan for January for a firm called for this major Mazars. Mazars I. I'll definitely make sure to take those steps. So great. Glad you have the internship.

David Leary: [00:42:49] And they just announced I think they're like the eighth biggest firm now. They merged together and they're they build out a new affiliation. They're massive. Now.

Blake Oliver: [00:42:56] We like to make fun of the new name for this, but they are doing great, great stuff. Remember what I said about Forbes, David? It kind of sounds like like Jarvis the robot butler.

David Leary: [00:43:07] But you know.

Blake Oliver: [00:43:08] Where I with the way everything's going with AI, maybe a lot of the firms will be kind of like robot butlers, right? Like, I wouldn't mind having one if my accountant was like a, you know, had the had if I interacted with my robot accountant and there were like humans behind the scene making sure it all worked, I might be okay with that. Oh, come at me. Sorry. Go ahead David.

David Leary: [00:43:29] You price out Google and a lot of the headlines. They have all these AI mishaps like put, uh, two, uh, glue on your pizza cheese so it doesn't slide off. But Google is still doing good stuff, believe it or not. So I saw this great announcement for all of us. So Google Sheets is basically going to kill email notifications by adding conditional notifications to Google Sheets.

Blake Oliver: [00:43:49] Tell me what this would give me an example. Yeah.

David Leary: [00:43:53] So so I mean, the thing I hate about Google Docs, we're a Google shop is you correct the spelling on a word and I get an email and then you put a comment on a doc, I get an email like, I don't want all those emails, right, right. And what Google Sheets is going to solve this problem. So we've all done this. You've set up a conditional format in Excel. Hey if this cell turns $100 change it green conditional formatting. And you can do that in Google Sheets as well. So basically they took that conditional formatting and they've added a notification feature. So now you can create a conditional rule that sends an email to ten people. So imagine setting up a spreadsheet for your client where maybe they're doing data entry or they're manipulating who knows what you could. You don't want to know all the touching they're doing. You just have a checksum field. And once that changes to 1 or 0, whatever your notification is, yeah, yeah, you get the email then, you know, to go do something. It's, it's it's one of those like super unsung features they're going to add. But I think it's mind blowing. That could be really powerful.

Blake Oliver: [00:44:48] I'm just thinking of all of the firms that we know that use a tool like Live Flow, and they sync financials into a Google Sheet for their client, and then the client can go make comments on the Google Sheet. But but now with that new feature, if I'm the advisor to that client, I could set up like a conditional format on, say, a particular. Uh, column, let's say it's the variance column. And so if the variance blows out from one month to another and it's more than, say, 10%, send me an email as soon as that sheet gets updated.

David Leary: [00:45:20] Exactly.

Blake Oliver: [00:45:21] So now I can be more proactive. That's really neat.

David Leary: [00:45:24] And apparently I was reading the article. You can't do this with Excel, but you got to do Visual Basic scripts and all this stuff. So I'm sure Excel will just knock off and copy this feature. But this is huge. Like it's really a like because email kills all of us. So if you can only get an email when you need an email, I think that's monstrous.

Blake Oliver: [00:45:40] I'm wondering if, uh, Excel might get dethroned someday by Google Sheets. I know saying that in the past just gets you attacked by all the Excel people who love Excel. But I've started to see threads on Twitter now where you have these finance bros who are saying, like, you know what, I actually like Google Sheets for the collaboration features and this is another one of them. So if you it's great to have all the power tools in Excel, but if you can't collaborate with people, it's really hard to be effective. It doesn't matter how good the tech is if you can't collaborate.

David Leary: [00:46:13] Yeah, collaboration is probably more important these days. Yeah yeah.

Blake Oliver: [00:46:16] Yeah. Well. Where do we go from here? I have listener mail. We haven't. Yeah.

David Leary: [00:46:22] Let's jump into that and we'll see if it triggers any of my stories.

Blake Oliver: [00:46:25] Okay. Cool. So I'm just going to go to the bottom of the mailbag because we got stuff back.

David Leary: [00:46:30] Bottom is oldest.

Blake Oliver: [00:46:32] Oldest. Yeah. We're gonna go uh, LIFO today on our wait. Is that right? Last in no Fifo. We're gonna go Fifo today. First in first out on the mailbag. I'm going to cut a hole in the bottom. And, uh, here is a message from Ken called Unique Path to CPA. Now this sometimes I get long emails from our listeners, and I like to summarize them just to make it a little more condensed. So, Ken, I hope you don't mind. I have condensed your email, but I've done it in a hopefully unbiased way by asking AI to to trim the word count. So. So this is the 15 second version. Hey Blake. Ken here I discovered your podcast through your interview with Pete and Roger from Uworld, which I used during my CPA studies. I had a successful ten year career in the mortgage business, but when the fed raised rates, the industry took a hit and I realized I needed a backup plan. The challenge? I never finished college, so I found Wga's competency based education model and earned my bachelor's in three months while working full time. Wgu is Western Governors University. After a short break, I went back for my master's and completed it in just 36 days. So he did his bachelor's in three months, and he did his master's in 36 days. Now, how is this possible? Let's let's finish the email first. In November 2023, I landed an accounting job starting in June 2024. I quit my old career in January to study full time for the CPA exams as of April 22nd. I've taken all my exams and I am cautiously optimistic about passing them all. Congratulations, Ken. That's an amazing story, and I'm sure many of our listeners will be interested to know what this whole WGU thing is and how you did it so quickly. So, David, do you know how this works?

David Leary: [00:48:27] Is it part of like that? Like, is there like something called like CPA credits. Com and it's using WGU. I know there's these these alternative paths that are out there, but I don't have the details. Catching me off guard here. Yeah.

Blake Oliver: [00:48:39] So so that site that you mentioned, um CPA credits. Um they. Have. I think WGU is one of the options. Um, the way you can get through a degree so quickly is because WGU go to wgu.edu. It allows you to test out of courses, so you challenge a specific course and you take the final exam. And if you pass the exam, you don't have to sit through the lectures and you don't have to do the homework. Right. Makes sense. Why should you have to take a class if you already have the knowledge?

David Leary: [00:49:17] This might be my way to get my bachelor's. Yeah, maybe I should. We should do this as an experiment. You could.

Blake Oliver: [00:49:22] You could do it. Do it in like you could do it in.

David Leary: [00:49:25] 37 days is a little extreme, but maybe. Yeah.

Blake Oliver: [00:49:28] So the way it works is that you? I think you pay per semester and it's unlimited, so it's like a subscription model for. Education for college education. Uh, and this is, uh, by the way, it's not a for profit organization. It's a nonprofit. And it was set up by the reason it's called Western Governors University is because it was set up by. The different states, I believe originally, I don't know all the details and I don't have it in front of me. So anyway, that's an option. Check it out. If you are trying to get your credits and you don't want to take a long time to do it.

David Leary: [00:50:08] So what is the the. Impact then to sit for the CPA exam. Are they going to be like, well, that's not. Like your are you getting the actual the credit hours on a transcript to sit for the exam? If you do yes. Or are they going to play some game with you?

Blake Oliver: [00:50:22] No. I believe you're getting the credit hours on the on the transcript. Okay. Yeah. So this is sort of a hack. Right. You you challenge, you take the exam, you get the hours. Even if you didn't have to sit in the in the classroom. So I like this a lot. Um, here's a message from Andy. Andy says, hi, Blake and David, thanks so much for your content. Over the last few years I've been a big fan. I am currently a controller at a private company, but for the last year or so, I've been mulling over potentially starting my own bookkeeping business on the side and growing it up. Although I have been a controller or assistant controller for the better part of the last decade and would feel confident booking entries and creating financials, I have been hesitant to go out on my own, mainly because of the processes of bookkeeping for a small business that I may be missing. I recently loved the podcast where you and your guest outlined fractional CFO and controller work. Would you have any advice for a place I could turn to to find a full scope of work I'd be expected to perform for potential clients, outside of just creating financial statements. That way, I'd be able to outline, learn, and prepare before trying to find clients and be fully confident. Sorry for the long email, but thanks so David, I. Would you like to.

David Leary: [00:51:32] Talk about earlier in the show? Go. Go do the QuickBooks training. Become a certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor like that. That gives you that full end to end the how to type an invoice, how to pay a bill, like how to do payroll. You get the a full blown training of QuickBooks and then focus. Don't try to serve a bunch of different kind of bike shop and a dental shop and a restaurant. And this pick one thing. Maybe it's dog walkers and just learn what they need to do. Because if you try to learn about six businesses at the same time, you're just going to struggle.

Blake Oliver: [00:52:00] Yeah, I think that's the way to go is just like, I mean, ideally you're a controller at a company where you've developed some sort of industry expertise and I would say go try to find other companies like that. Maybe they're smaller than your current company and they can't afford a controller and offer your services on a fractional basis. And you might even be able to get your current employer to let you do it, because the other option is that you leave. Yeah.

David Leary: [00:52:28] So do the, uh, not volunteer do books at the nonprofit. You know, there's other ways to get that experience. But my guess is if you're a controller at a company, you get the exact same problems. It's just higher volume. It's the exact same workflow scenarios. It's just you have to wear more hats the smaller you get. Yeah. And the volume is a lot less.

Blake Oliver: [00:52:47] Yeah. And and if you, if you keep the services you offer like narrow, then you won't have to get all this expertise. Like for instance, if you don't know how to do sales tax. Now I would say getting into sales tax is not really where you want to be, right? Like just outsource that to a firm that just does sales tax for your clients. So I guess the question is like without more information, we can't really advise you, uh, in this, but I would say try to do what you're already doing just for more clients. And this is what I did when I started my practice, is I actually was working, uh, part time, but a lot of hours for one client in particular. And I, it was a nonprofit. And I asked the, uh, executive director if she'd be okay if I started my own firm becoming my first client. And that's how I seeded my firm, because I already had a big client, and she was open to me serving other nonprofits and other clients, and was happy to be a part of my success as long as I continued to deliver the same quality. Yeah. You know, I got the flexibility to do the work when I wanted not to come into the office. Right. So not every employer is open to that, but I think a lot of them are, because what's their other option these days? It's you quit and then they're really in trouble. Yeah. So you might be able to work your way into a firm by bringing your current employer on as a client. Shall I keep going, David?

David Leary: [00:54:14] Keep going. The keep keep digging out that all right.

Blake Oliver: [00:54:17] What are we. We got we got time for at least one more. Um, this is from gauge. Listening to your episode about Google laying off accountants for AI development. I am about 13 minutes in, and you're talking about the college degree and the benefits of hiring someone without a degree. You failed to mention the concept of signaling. I am not an expert on it, but my understanding of why silly requirements are required to do certain things is due to signaling any thoughts. I would think firms would have a harder time to narrow down candidates. If they dropped the degree requirement. They would then have to do other things to see if someone is qualified, which I am all for. I feel like my degree was worthless, and I learned 99.8% of my skills on the job. No need to respond. Thanks for reading. Well, we are going to respond to you on the show. We read and I like to respond to every listener message. So do send us your mail. The accounting podcast at earmarked me and gauge. I am aware of the concept of signaling. Uh, it is basically a shortcut for weeding out candidates, right? The college degree indicates that you have achieved some place in society. So it's a it's a it's a it's a it's the perfect example. The bachelor's degree is probably the perfect example in our society of of that.

David Leary: [00:55:31] It's a way to it means you you, you complied to a four year college and you did what you were told and you were a rule follower.

Blake Oliver: [00:55:37] Yeah, exactly. And it doesn't mean you necessarily have the skills, but it means that culturally, right, you should be able to fit in. Um. And so. That's why it's required. My thoughts on how firms could narrow down candidates is use skill based competency tests. An example would be our friends at account tests. They have developed skill based competency tests that you can give to prospective bookkeepers and accountants in your firm. And you proctor the test online and they have to take it, and you get a score, and you can see if they know what they're doing or not. And I bet you if firms started giving those scores to people coming out of traditional accounting programs and to people who have been working for a long time that don't have a degree, they would actually find that the people who don't have the degree know what they're doing because, like you said, most of what you learn is learned on the job in accounting.

David Leary: [00:56:30] So and firms should look at other certifications, right. Like, oh, they have their uh, certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor, they're certified and zero, they're certified and some payroll product from ADP or whatever it might be. Right on pay. Now, I.

Blake Oliver: [00:56:43] Think the hesitation, like the legitimate the most legitimate concern is like, will these people without college degrees be able to talk on the level with my clients? This is a social thing. This is a cultural thing, right? That that if somebody doesn't have a college degree, they're going to come across as not cultured. And maybe people don't say that, but that's definitely part of it. And firms might have to teach that, right? That is something that you learn in college and you learn in classrooms, and you learn that kind of like socialization aspect. That's like what a lot of school is, right? It's just socializing you into a particular culture. But firms could provide that. They can teach that those are soft skills. There's lots of ways to learn that. There's probably online courses for people how to learn that. And it's a lot cheaper than going to four years of traditional education. So maybe that's an option for firms. It would certainly help, I think, to even out the inequity in our society if we stopped putting bachelor's degree as the minimum requirement for every job, every good job. It doesn't make any sense at all.

David Leary: [00:57:51] And we've seen that slowly start to dial back, because I think we've talked about in the past episodes where there's jobs at, you know, municipalities right in like working for the treasury of a city or a county. And they've removed the CPA requirement. Mhm. Right. They've made it optional. And so maybe the next step is degree is optional. Right. They're just going to look for experience. And you know I.

Blake Oliver: [00:58:15] Got to pull the one 50 hour rule into this because that to me is the worst example of this kind of like inflation of educational requirements as a non-value adding social um, barrier. A barrier that has no value, that is really just designed to restrict supply, and it does it in the worst way by increasing cost and time, which affects the people with the least resources the most. So the poorest people who it excludes them from the opportunity of becoming accountants, which is such a great job for people who want to make that leap into the middle class. Because accounting pays well in the broad spectrum of jobs you can have in America with just four years of education, and by excluding the CPA by adding that fifth year, we are almost like deliberately saying, nope, sorry, you can't have this. You can't be at the top of this accounting profession unless you spent the extra money to get this. You don't get.

David Leary: [00:59:19] To be in this community unless.

Blake Oliver: [00:59:20] Yeah, you don't get to go to AICPA engage. You don't get to work at the top firms in a director role or a partner role. Right. It is. Um, that's the thing I don't like about it the most. It is exclusive in the worst way. So we end the episode on that.

David Leary: [00:59:38] Note, I say on that note.

Blake Oliver: [00:59:40] Thank you everyone who tuned in live, subscribe, get the notifications on YouTube, send us emails The Accounting Podcast at earmarked me. Stay tuned for our community announcement. And if you want free CPE for listening to this episode, download the earmark app or just go to Earmarked App on your web browser and create your free account and sign up and get a free CPE credit for listening. And if you want to support the work that we do at earmark and on this show, become a earmark subscriber for the low, low price of $130 a year. You too can support Blake and David's podcasting habit. Make make it possible for us to, uh, go off on all sorts of topics every week for your enjoyment and education, your edutainment, and your CPE. Heather, thanks for joining us. Bacon memes. It's a good meme. I never thought I would say bacon memes on our show, but now I have thank you bacon memes for joining us. Bacon memes says thank you for all the wonderful work. Um, I'm I'm getting kind of hungry, so maybe I'll go eat some bacon.

David Leary: [01:00:47] Yeah.

Blake Oliver: [01:00:48] Bye, David. See you here next week.