Journal of Accountancy Podcast

Overall, positivity about the U.S. economy remains muted, with just 23% of respondents to a recent survey saying they are optimistic about the domestic outlook for the next 12 months. That’s an improvement from the fourth quarter, when just 12% expressed optimism. Also, 45% of respondents in the first-quarter Business and Industry Economic Outlook Survey are optimistic about their own businesses, up from 35% at the end of last year.

Kelly Richmond Pope, CPA, CGMA, is a professor at DePaul University and the author of a book scheduled to be published later this month on fraud. Fool Me Once: Scams, Stories, and Secrets From the Trillion-Dollar Fraud Industry is designed to help people “see themselves or see their businesses in the stories” so that they can improve their defenses against fraud. Pope details an interactive game related to the book that can help educate business owners about fraud and the motivations of fraudsters.

Uncertainty isn’t going away. And because of that, entrepreneur and consultant Pascal Finette says that organizations and leaders should think differently about how they view the current business environment. Finette, a keynote speaker at the Future of Finance Summit in Austin, Texas, challenges leaders to think of uncertainty as an opportunity, not an obstacle. He asks: “How do you actually show up as a leader in a world of uncertainty and lead into, and then lead, in the unknown?” Also, here’s the late 2021 interview with Finette in which he talked about the accounting profession’s “interesting inflection point.”

A well-defined, vibrant work culture certainly can help employees perform at or above expectations. And a poor culture can absolutely be a performance constraint. But how do leaders change culture, or grow it in the age of remote and dispersed workforces? Kerry Brown has a few thoughts. Brown specializes in workforce transformation, and she spoke recently to finance executives about such issues at the Future of Finance Summit in Austin, Texas.

Robin Thieme, CPA/CITP, CGMA, the founder and CEO of KBS CFO, has gotten all kinds of questions over the years from clients. As an early adopter of offering advisory and fractional CFO services, she’s someone well versed to share the insights that simply getting those questions can unearth.

Making a run to the Super Bowl never gets old. That’s one of the messages that Dan Crumb, CPA, CGMA, the CFO of the Kansas City Chiefs, shares in this episode of the Journal of Accountancy podcast.  The team has qualified for the Super Bowl three of the past four seasons, and Crumb encourages the members of his finance team to “step back and soak this moment in” — in between doing extra work in advance of Super Bowl LVII on Sunday.

Steve Ursillo, CPA/CITP, CGMA, is a partner in the Risk & Accounting Advisory Group at Cherry Bekaert and the firm’s national leader of information assurance and cybersecurity. He explains much about digital assets and the threats that digital asset owners must guard against. Cyberattacks are on the rise, including attacks focused on digital assets In this podcast episode, Ursillo explains the threat landscape and offers advice on the safeguards that organizations should have in place to prevent the theft of digital assets.

Jody Grunden, CPA, the co-founder and CEO of Summit CPA Group, isn’t afraid to fail — he says he’s done it many times over the years. The firm, now part of Anders CPAs + Advisors thanks to a 2022 merger, is an innovator in several aspects of client billing and payment, from getting away from paper checks to escaping the “rat race” of hourly billing. Grunden, the author of two books, explains on this episode of the Journal of Accountancy podcast some about Summit’s journey, why his co-founder at first was against a move to remote work, and why his approach to risk is more about developing a workaround than deciding to retreat.

Consternation and chaos are two of the words used to describe some of the reactions to IRS updates related to Schedules K-2 and K-3. On this collaboration episode with the Tax Section Odyssey podcast, CPAs Tim Chan of KPMG and David Sites of Grant Thornton talk about the particulars with April Walker, CPA, CGMA, lead manager–Tax Practice & Ethics for AICPA & CIMA, together as the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants.

Orumé Hays, CPA, CGMA, didn’t follow a traditional path to owning an accounting practice. From Africa to the Big Apple, she blazed a trail all her own. Raised in Nigeria, Hays moved to Miami with a college degree in sociology and anthropology and a budding career in modeling and acting. Her pursuit of Hollywood stardom peaked with appearances in the 1996 movie The Birdcage. She then discovered a new passion. Pursuing education and experience, she built her accounting career and launched her own firm in New York City.