The Accounting Podcast

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Blake Oliver: [00:00:04] Some firms are just going to keep doing it the same old way until they die at their desks.

David Leary: [00:00:09] Coming to you weekly from the OnPay Recording Studio.

Blake Oliver: [00:00:15] Hello and welcome back to the Accounting Podcast, your roundup of news in the accounting profession. I'm Blake Oliver.

David Leary: [00:00:22] And I'm David Leary Blake. I have good news. This week I came to this great realization. So I don't know if you saw on Twitter I had a plumbing issue and I took a picture of a pipe.

Blake Oliver: [00:00:32] I missed this.

David Leary: [00:00:33] And it's all disintegrating. It's not good. The picture, if you could probably go find it. Um, so I took a photo of it and asked I how to fix this, and it said, go hire a plumber. That's basically what it said, which is good. Well, then it made me think about this, like for accounting. So I have this pile of receipts just piled up on the desk. It's a big mess. So I took a photo of it and I said, enter these into QuickBooks and it's like, I can't do that. You know, give me all these reasons. And I'm like, well, who can do it? And it said, hire an accountant. So if you think about AI taking away jobs, it may not like, it may not threaten the profession. And what I mean by that is the small business owner or the client is still going to bring a shoebox of receipts, and you can't just give that to I know somebody not, but somebody has to scan them and photograph them all in, like the service has to be done by somebody else. You just can't have a pile or I can't just say, fix this pipe. It just can't do it. I'll probably never be able to do it.

Blake Oliver: [00:01:36] Well, did you see the video on Twitter of the robot doing laundry? No. I mean, you know, Tesla is working on these robots. There's other companies working on these robots. There's they've got a ways to go, but it's kind of amazing how far they've come. Maybe at some point we'll have a robot at the front desk of an accounting firm that takes the shoebox of receipts and scans them in with the scan snap scanner. The Fujitsu scanner into the software that then processes them all. Who knows.

David Leary: [00:02:05] That's possible. Maybe we get to that point, but.

Blake Oliver: [00:02:07] We are seeing these tech companies.

David Leary: [00:02:09] Will be retired by then. I'm sure.

Blake Oliver: [00:02:11] We are seeing tech companies lay off thousands and thousands of workers. And yes, they overhired during pandemic times and now they're using AI to automate a lot of grunt work. And they don't need as many people. At least they've decided they don't need as many people. And I think we're also seeing that in the data in accounting. I've got a story here about how wages are up, but jobs are down, especially remote jobs. I've also got.

David Leary: [00:02:37] That word again. I didn't.

Blake Oliver: [00:02:39] Wrote, you know, jobs where you're just like rote meaning you're just doing tasks. Okay. Not a lot of analysis. Right? Like the lower level work. We're seeing this. There's a lot of concern among college grads that they're not going to be able to get jobs because companies just don't need as many people to do the entry level jobs anymore. Like the kind of stuff that you used to learn to do in accounting, where you would take in the paperwork and help with the data entry. And that's how you got exposure to tax returns. And then later after you put the numbers in, then you'd start to get an understanding of what's going on. But if we don't need people to put the numbers in the boxes anymore or to take the documents and process them, how do you get the experience? I think we're in for a fundamental reshuffling of the the, the flow from college into work. And that's going to be a big change for accounting because we've had for so many years the traditional path has been go get an accounting degree, go work for a big firm, do a bunch of grunt work for a few years, get your.

David Leary: [00:03:42] Real training, your real training.

Blake Oliver: [00:03:45] And then you're on the job training and then go to industry or move up. Right? But that's all getting disrupted. So I've got a little bit of data about that. I've also got a survey that talks about who's most likely to quit your firm. And the quitters are actually, of course, not the entry level people. It's the experienced people. Um, I also have an interview with Nicole Whetter from, um, green River College talking about their new Bachelor of Applied Science in accounting. Applied is the key word there. It's really fascinating what they're doing. The degree is designed to give accountants real world experience before they get into the real world. And that's exactly, I think, what educators are going to have to do in order to overcome this reluctance of firms now to hire entry level staff is they've got to up level the employees, the entry level folks, the recent grads. They've got to up level them so they can actually hit the ground running. So that's what that program is designed to do. So stay tuned until the end of the episode for that segment. David, I want to talk about ChatGPT. You mentioned AI. There's some issues with ChatGPT not being legally protected. That actually might be a reason enough not to use it, period. If you are an accountant serving clients. Your chat transcripts are being saved and could be used in court against you or against your clients. And that's due to a recent New York Times lawsuit. There's also a new study mode in ChatGPT. We could try that out if we have time, but we're a little compressed today because of that interview at the end, so I just want to keep it moving. We'll talk about tariffs if we can. I've got an opinion on these rebate checks. I think they're ridiculous. And especially when Social Security is about to run out of money in a few years. So David, anything top of mind for you that we should put on the agenda today?

David Leary: [00:05:43] Yeah. So we have a couple that I had was Nasba and AICPA owe us an apology. We'll talk about that. The reason for that Wipfli now has taken P money, and it's an interesting link between the company, what they own and who's with these clients are kind of the P companies always that possible conflict of interest there. Um Billy Long and uh is short on direct file. So we cover that and then I have a story that might tie to your employees quitting, but like 70 to 90% of all mergers fail. And some of the reasons for that. And then the other one that's I think is silly is, uh, Epstein apparently was doing tax planning. He was he provided tax planning services and made hundreds of millions of dollars doing this.

Blake Oliver: [00:06:29] Jeffrey Epstein gets talked about all the time, but for some reason, nobody ever mentions what he did for a living. And he was doing tax planning without any licenses or certifications, and he was making millions and millions of dollars doing it. There's a story about that. Uh, hopefully we can get to it.

David Leary: [00:06:43] So just quickly thank our sponsors. This week we have Kiefer team up human at scale and missive. So for sponsors this week.

Blake Oliver: [00:06:50] And welcome to our live stream viewers. Thanks for joining us on this Friday afternoon. Shortly to be afternoon. It is August 1st, and let's start off with who's most likely to leave your accounting firm. The second annual Accountants Professional Satisfaction Survey reveals that the employees most likely to leave accounting firms have a very specific profile, and this may not be surprising to anyone who has worked in public accounting. They are generally middle managers. That means managers, senior managers or directors. They have 6 to 10 years of experience, and they work at firms with 10 to 20 employees. Their work conditions include no work from home flexibility. They spend the most time on accounting and auditing work. They lack variety in assignments or client mix. They work as generalists rather than in specialized niches. They experience poor time boundaries with clients and colleagues, and they receive no firm support when dealing with difficult clients. This demographic fits the Satisfaction Smile phenomenon, which is this curve that starts high and bends downward over time and then goes up again, making what looks like a smile. Although the people at the bottom of the smile, the middle managers may be wearing frowns more often than not interns.

David Leary: [00:08:14] It would have been a more of a grin because there's mass exodus of the youngest people as well, right? They burn out in the first two years.

Blake Oliver: [00:08:22] In, in large firms. But remember, there are 40,000 or so CPA firms in this country. There's far more accounting firms. And so when we look at the profession at large, we have to remember the big four. Yes, they're big, but they're not most firms. They're just four out of 40,000 CPA firms.

David Leary: [00:08:43] So and so. The smile is. I'm giddy when I start. I get to middle management. I'm burning out at the bottom of the smile, and then maybe I stick around long enough to become partner. And I'm happy again. And I get the other side of the smile.

Blake Oliver: [00:08:55] That's exactly right. The lowest satisfaction is seniors and managers. Partners have higher satisfaction. Although it's interns who have the highest satisfaction, they're just happy to be there. Overall satisfaction is seven out of ten across all levels, which is a little disappointing. I think we could do better as a profession. There's so many great things about accounting. The the pay is great compared to many other jobs. The hours can be great if firms set proper boundaries and price accordingly price properly. But for some reason we do this to ourselves. We make ourselves unhappy, and we don't have to be firms that struggle to retain employees or employees that are most likely to leave firms. Um, the firms have this profile they built by the hour. They require detailed time tracking and reporting. They lack a collaborative, nurturing culture. They keep knowledge siloed and closely guarded, and they offer minimal opportunities for non-partner track employees. The highest satisfaction type of work is business advisory and consulting services. The lowest satisfaction is audit. But the good news is that both audit and tax have shown consistent gains since 2023. And that might be because wages are increasing. This is a survey that I saw in CPA trendlines. Higher wages fewer jobs a new era for CPA staffing. That's the headline. So fewer jobs. Last year we saw 9200 fewer positions in accounting, tax prep, bookkeeping and payroll services.

Blake Oliver: [00:10:36] Or I suppose that's this year versus last year. So that's like a almost a 1% decline. Production staff were hit the hardest. There are 27,000 fewer production and nonsupervisory workers. That's a 3.2% decrease, and it's the sixth consecutive month of job contraction in our profession. The good news is that wage growth has accelerated. We have had 6.1% increase, a 6.1% increase in wages versus the over the past 12 months, which is significant. I mean that that that's like outpacing economic growth at this point. Firms are investing more in high level client facing professionals while cutting lower tier positions. So think about these two surveys. We have the people who are the least happy are the middle managers in accounting firms. But also accounting firms need more of these high level experienced Mid-career professionals. So keeping them happy is critical. So if you're doing any of the things that are on that list of work conditions that make people unhappy, I would suggest figuring out how to change it if you want to retain them and invest in Gen I for those pros, because that can reduce their hours, make them happier and retain them, and then they can do 2 to 3 times the work in less time. So David, that's my practice management advice.

David Leary: [00:12:12] I think some of the things you identified there tie into the story I have about why 70 to 90% of mergers fail. And so at the high level, the five reasons really are cultural clash, owner dependent firms, outdated systems, private equity roll ups and strategic growth. So culture clash. You know just you have a company that values four day work week. Maybe you have the value vacations. You have another culture that's like we value 80 hours of billable time every single week. And you have that. You have culture clashes. Owner dependent firms really are a big, risky one because the founder, the owner of the firm, is too much in the day to day to the firm. And that makes it really hard to, to, um, merge those two firms together. Outdated systems, of course, one firm maybe has a lot of outdated systems. And then that overwhelms your team, right? Some of these reasons, they feel overwhelmed. They're working too hard. Um, private equity rollups can sometimes sacrifice, uh, stability for speed. So they go too fast on these, some of these mergers and then, um, strategic growth sometimes, like, you're just trying to grow by, like, adding lots of firms and sometimes adding ten, $100 million firms is an equal $1 billion sometimes. Right. Because it's it's a mess at that point. So that's the there's a lack of strategic growth thought when you do mergers too. So or acquisitions something to keep in mind.

Blake Oliver: [00:13:38] Let's thank our first sponsor Zoho Practice. Introducing Zoho Practice, the all in one practice management platform.

David Leary: [00:13:46] Here are not on the right ad.

Blake Oliver: [00:13:48] I'm not on the right.

David Leary: [00:13:49] Ad you're reading ads from. We're 447, right?

Blake Oliver: [00:13:52] Oh, you gave me the wrong link.

David Leary: [00:13:55] It's the same document, right? Sorry.

Blake Oliver: [00:13:57] Uh, but different tab.

David Leary: [00:13:59] Oh, you must be in a different tab. Okay. Sorry.

Blake Oliver: [00:14:01] 447 right. That's our episode.

David Leary: [00:14:03] Yes.

Blake Oliver: [00:14:04] All right. Well, thanks, Zoho, for sponsoring a previous episode. Maybe consider maybe consider Re-upping your sponsorship. Let's thank keeper by combining client communications, file review reporting and task management. Keeper has everything you need to run your bookkeeping or CAS. Practice keeper is an all in one app that allows you, your team, and your clients to easily collaborate to make your monthly close as efficient as possible, starting with a beautiful custom branded client portal optimized Optimize for bookkeeping work. Your client can answer questions you have about uncategorized transactions, allowing you to categorize and automatically post them to QuickBooks online correctly, all without ever leaving keeper. Keepers month end file review feature will surface transactions that may not be posted correctly, and with keeper's customized reports, you'll be able to increase the value that your firm provides clients by giving them reports they'll actually read. Keepers built in task management ensures nothing falls through the cracks and includes time tracking, so you can see where you and your team spend their time keepers. Email features allow all your firm's email communications to appear in one shared inbox that can be easily assigned and turned into tasks for your team, ensuring no client work falls through the cracks.

Blake Oliver: [00:15:14] Keepers Tax Suite allows you to expand your use of keeper beyond your CAS clients. You can now use keeper with all your tax clients too, and keeper just started the beta of their new eye Bank feeds feature. It's the smarter, faster way to manage your bank feeds. It organizes every transaction into buckets based on confidence, so you can bulk approve the easy stuff. Zero in on what needs review and speed through the close with fewer errors and less back and forth, allowing you to automate classification while still maintaining control. Keeper has a very affordable and clear pricing model that starts at only $8 per client per month. What a deal! To learn more about why thousands of bookkeepers and accountants trust keeper to manage their monthly inflows, and to get 20% off your first three months, head over to The Accounting Podcast. And I gotta say, that is my favorite feature of keeper is being able to reconcile non bank accounts and have that as a checklist item that rolls forward. So like clearing accounts, um, stripe accounts, if they're not bank accounts.

David Leary: [00:16:19] Or you always have that PayPal account that you never get a bank statement for, but you got a.

Blake Oliver: [00:16:23] Loan.

David Leary: [00:16:23] Account.

Blake Oliver: [00:16:24] Yeah, exactly. All that stuff. And you have to make sure it zeros out like the ignition account. Right. If you're using ignition and you got that clearing account there. So, um, head over to The Accounting Podcast if you are interested in learning more and let them know that you heard about them on the accounting podcast. And welcome to our live stream viewers. Hey, Cody. Nikhil, Chris. Edgar, Raquel, thanks for commenting. Great to see you here. Don't forget, you can earn free continuing professional education for listening to this episode and our past episodes. Go to earmarked in your web browser, or download the free earmark app from the App Store and earn free CPE. It's free to create an account, free to earn CPE, and if you want to support us, subscribe for the low, low price of $150 per year for unlimited CPE, and that is going to be going up at the end of this month. So subscribe now. Lock in your price. We have honored for the years that we have been in business. We have honored the price that people signed up with. So it's like a gym membership. You keep subscribing, we're going to keep giving you that grandfathered in rate.

David Leary: [00:17:32] So that's what I did. I refused when I had back surgery. I refused to cancel my membership because I didn't want I was grandfathered in. It makes a lot of sense. So I have two survey datas that completely conflict. I just want to throw them out there before we jump.

Blake Oliver: [00:17:44] Go for.

David Leary: [00:17:45] It. So one of them. So according to Intuit Accountants survey. So this is an Intuit survey. 95% of firms adopted automation in the last year. And then another survey that came out uh, this is from market research agency Agile Market Intelligence. This is in Australia. They have a stat that says only 1 in 2 accounting firms have adopted new tech in the last five years.

Blake Oliver: [00:18:10] So how wait, so who are the two? Who are these two?

David Leary: [00:18:16] Um, so one one surveys from Intuit and it says 95% of firms have adopted automation in the last year. Okay. And another survey says one and two. So only half of accounting firms have even adopted new tech in the last five years.

Blake Oliver: [00:18:31] Who did the second survey?

David Leary: [00:18:33] That's the second survey. Oh, that was from a research company called Agile Market Intelligence. Mm.

Blake Oliver: [00:18:39] And it really depends who you survey. Right. Yeah. If you're if Intuit is surveying firms that use Intuit products like QuickBooks online.

David Leary: [00:18:48] Yeah.

Blake Oliver: [00:18:48] Obviously they've adopted automation technology of some kind. Like I would expect that to be very high. But maybe there's just a ton of firms out there that still aren't on cloud. It's possible. I mean, there's a big gap developing. It just keeps growing. I mean, some firms are just going to keep doing it the same old way until they die at their desks.

David Leary: [00:19:12] Yeah. There's a couple of interesting things in these surveys. So one of the interesting stats in Intuit survey was that 82% of firms are developing proprietary AI tools, Which I feel like is really high. Like, that's that's an amazing amount of people building proprietary AI tools in their firm.

Blake Oliver: [00:19:28] I have a thought on that.

David Leary: [00:19:29] Okay.

Blake Oliver: [00:19:30] It depends what you define as a proprietary AI tool. If creating a ChatGPT custom GPT or a cloud project is a proprietary AI tool, then yeah.

David Leary: [00:19:40] Okay. Yes, it's pretty broad. Okay.

Blake Oliver: [00:19:42] If you're coding your own app, then no.

David Leary: [00:19:45] And the interesting thing, the Intuit one that I thought I kind of questioned is they say AI is used most for payroll, 47% AP and are at 46% and data entry 43%. And I'm trying to think like because we use we don't use QuickBooks payroll, but we use Onpay, obviously. But I'm just wondering, like, where is this AI and the payroll thing at in QuickBooks? Like, what function is AI doing in payroll right now? I just don't know. It seems it seems like a pretty high number. And then the other survey that I found was interesting is they give stats as far as the money spent on, um, tech. So at smaller firms in Australia, 63% of the small solo practices, they spend under 5000 a year on technology. Large firms with staff 200 to 1000 spend 100,000 to $200,000 a year on tech. Um, and 75% of the large firms plan to spend even more. And only 9% of the smaller firms plan to plan to spend more. Now, this was just an interim survey from this agile marketing company. They're going to have the final report in November. So we'll have to look at the rest of the data they publish.

Blake Oliver: [00:20:57] So I mentioned you were going to say something.

David Leary: [00:21:01] Oh, I was just like these. I don't know if we can trust any surveys anymore. They're so conflicting.

Blake Oliver: [00:21:06] You gotta really dig into the numbers.

David Leary: [00:21:09] Yeah.

Blake Oliver: [00:21:10] To believe it or not, here's a warning from OpenAI's CEO, Sam Altman. Anything you tell ChatGPT could be used against you in court. On a recent podcast appearance, Sam Altman warned that anything users share with ChatGPT could potentially be used against them in legal proceedings. He called the current situation, quote, very screwed up, unquote, noting that OpenAI can be legally compelled to produce chat records, including user's most sensitive stuff. This is the result of an ongoing lawsuit from The New York Times. Openai is currently required to maintain records of all user conversations, even those that users have deleted. This means that no ChatGPT conversation is truly private or permanently erased. That's enough to make me not use ChatGPT, period.

David Leary: [00:22:00] So much for it being open. Or.

Blake Oliver: [00:22:03] Well, I guess it is open.

David Leary: [00:22:04] Yeah, it's.

Blake Oliver: [00:22:05] Open to the lawyers. Yeah. Um, it's kind of amazing that the judge issued this injunction as part of a lawsuit with New York Times. You would think they would limit it, but didn't. And so this is the current situation. So I would advise our listeners to consider alternatives to ChatGPT. A great alternative is Clod by Anthropic. Another is perplexity by uh, well, perplexity. Give those a try. And maybe until.

David Leary: [00:22:39] The accounting specific ones that are starting to bubble up, which there's lots. That's right. I feel like there's at least ten accounting specific AI chat bot things I've seen now bouncing around. But maybe hopefully those have data retention policies that align with your policies with your clients. Yes. So we'll have to maybe we'll see an article about that or somebody will figure that out.

Blake Oliver: [00:23:00] But one thing I like about perplexity is that you can go view your library of past queries, and there's an option to delete all queries. And there's an option to delete everything except the ones that you saved into what's called a space, which is like their version of a folder, because I don't necessarily want to clear out my entire history of searches. I want to save some of them because I want to go review them again. I don't want to do the search again. So I think perplexity has done a really nice job with that ability for me to control my history and what is saved. And as far as I know, they don't have any legal injunctions that require them to keep deleted searches, so that could be a good option. And what's nice about perplexity is that it uses the other search engines or not, the other search engines, the other LMS through the API. So they have their own models. But you can also decide for this. I want to use OpenAI O3. For this. I want to use grok for for this I want to use perplexities model. For this I want to use deep seq. For this I want to use whatever. And so it gives you a lot of flexibility in. And you can try out different models. You can rewrite an answer so you can say I want to try the answer again but with a different model.

David Leary: [00:24:25] So so one login I just get perplexity, one login. And I can use all these tools without having to sign in to every single tool separately. And that's accounts and pay for them, etc..

Blake Oliver: [00:24:35] Yeah. So that's, that's what's interesting about perplexity as like a business model, because they're really not about creating LMS, they're about creating a wrapper around it, the productivity software, the interface for it. And I think it could be a winning model because, you know, Claude and OpenAI or anthropic and OpenAI are investing so much in these models that the sometimes they lag behind in terms of feature development for me, actually using it. And then what if one of them leapfrogs the other? I don't want to have to switch all of my saved projects into from one system to another. I'd rather just have them in one place. So it's a good argument for using perplexity while all of this is changing so rapidly. Okay, let's also talk about a new feature from ChatGPT called Study Mode, which you might want to keep using as long as you know that those chat logs might be safe forever. This is an educational mode that's designed to help students learn through guided problem solving, rather than simply providing quick answers. It's now available to all ChatGPT users. It uses Socratic questioning and hints to guide understanding instead of giving direct answers, and it breaks down complex information into digestible sections with a with appropriate content. It was developed in collaboration with teachers, scientists, and pedagogy experts. So I want to give this a try because I want to like a lot of times I'm using AI just to learn to teach myself something. So I don't know, do you want to like, try learning something new. David, could we do this, like right now?

David Leary: [00:26:12] How how how how? Um. Like historically? Or can it be something that's in the news? Can we learn something about the big, beautiful bill?

Blake Oliver: [00:26:20] Sure. Yeah, whatever you want. Um, I've got it open right now. Okay. I've got the, um, study mode turned on. Let's let's ask a question. We can say. Explain this to me. Help me with this.

David Leary: [00:26:31] I think the, uh, the deduction for meals, business meals is changing and has changed. I think it was in the Tax Cut and Jobs Act. And then it changed for two years during Covid. And now it's changing again on part of the big beautiful bill. It's changing again in January. First I need to understand this meals deduction for businesses the history of it.

Blake Oliver: [00:26:51] Okay. So help me understand the history.

David Leary: [00:26:54] So I think originally olden days you had a meals deduction right. And then the tax uh, the tax and tax cut and Jobs Act I think at that time changed the percentage that was available, and there was a plan to eliminate it in January 1st of 2026. And then I think for two years during Covid, it went up to 100% because they were trying to spur the economy. Then it reverted back. And now I think because they extended the tax, the tax cut and job Act in the OBB that now on January 1st, 2026, meals deduction is not going to be 100% anymore or it's not going to be 50%. They're completely getting rid of it. So it's it's very confusing right. What the meal deduction is now.

Blake Oliver: [00:27:37] So I said help me understand the deduction for business meals. How the deduction for business meals is changing with the passage of the big beautiful bill. Help me understand the history of it. And ChatGPT says sure. Let's walk through it together step by step, first with a quick history, and then we'll explore what's changing under the big, beautiful bill. But first, can I ask, are you studying tax law, doing business planning, or just trying to understand this for your own taxes? That'll help me shape the level in detail. And now it's got The history of it. It's got the change under COVID that you mentioned. So historically, before 2021, we had the 50% deduction for business meals. And here's why. Here's the reasons. Um, it had what it had to be to qualify. And then we've got the temporary boost to 100% that you mentioned. And then the 100% deduction expired post 2022 returned to 50%. Now it's saying now enter the big beautiful bill. Let's go one piece at a time here because this is where it might be new to you. What have you heard about the bill so far? Any headlines or summaries that'll help me know whether to focus more on definitions, politics, or just the changes in deduction rules?

David Leary: [00:28:45] We've heard it that this deduction goes away on January 1st, 2026.

Blake Oliver: [00:28:51] I heard that this deduction goes away on Jan one, 2026. Great. Sounds like you're tracking some of the key updates already. You're right that something is changing starting January 1st, 2026. And here's what it likely refers to. What's changing. And I'm summarizing this as I read because it's a lot of text. 50% deduction for qualified business meals is the current situation. If it's not a meal, it's generally not deductible under the B-b-b. Starting January 1st, 2026, the business meals deductions phased out entirely from most situations. And then it's got some examples of when it could partially be deductible, etc.. And now it says let's check your understanding with a quick scenario.

David Leary: [00:29:33] Oh it's testing me.

Blake Oliver: [00:29:34] It's testing you. Yeah. So David, here's a here's a quiz for you. A business owner takes a client to dinner in 2024 to discuss a possible deal. They spend 200 at a restaurant. How much can they deduct right now in 2024? Is it A0B 100 or C 200?

David Leary: [00:29:50] I think.

Blake Oliver: [00:29:51] It's.

David Leary: [00:29:52] B, but they're tricking me with taking a client to dinner. A client meal versus a team meal. I'm not sure.

Blake Oliver: [00:29:57] Exactly. B is 100 or sorry B AB1 hundred. 100 is right. That's 50% of the $200 meal. You're on it. Now let's stretch it a bit. Same business owner, but now it's 2026 after the b-b-b takes effect. Same dinner, same $200 bill, same purpose. How much can they deduct in 2026 under the new rule? 0a0. Perfect. Zero is correct. And it gives an explanation. And then it does a quick recap. Isn't that interesting? So it's like this is a cool way to learn. I really like this.

David Leary: [00:30:32] So before you just have to create a bunch of prompts to do this dance, right to get it to like teach me this now, quiz me on it. Now it just instead of it, I think in general ChatGPT you ask a question, it just belches on you, right? Like, here's everything.

Blake Oliver: [00:30:47] It just spews an answer.

David Leary: [00:30:48] It just spews it out. And now it's giving it to you more in digestible chunks, and then checking your knowledge to see if you've actually learned something. It's this is pretty disruptive. I, I think the first wave like kids should be using this to help study. Yep. Right out of the gate. Yeah. You don't have to hire a tutor. You don't have to hire a tutor for your kid. This is a tutor. But then that next phase would be. Do you need teachers anymore? Like, where's this going to end?

Blake Oliver: [00:31:12] Yep. All right, David, I think it's time to thank our second sponsor. And that is team up. If you're a growing firm struggling to scale or turning away clients because you can't find the accounting talent you need, listen up. You probably want to hire a person, not a company. You've heard about hiring in the Philippines, but using outsourcing companies comes with endless turnover and mediocre talent. Introducing team up. Team up helps accounting firms hire top Filipino talent directly. No middleman, no corporate policies getting in the way. And when you hire direct, you own the relationship completely. Training them your way and building your own culture. And think about it from the accountant's perspective. They'd rather work directly with you than sit in a corporate cubicle. And these are accountants. They can do the math and know they're getting a fraction of what you're paying the outsourcing company. Ready to see what hiring a person in the Philippines could cost? Team up just released their 2025 Salary Guide for Accounting Talent in the Philippines, and it's completely free for our listeners. You'll get current market rates for various roles, real candidate profiles, and everything you need to hire confidently. To download your free copy today, head over to The Accounting Podcast. That's The Accounting Podcast. Up. Should we talk about Billy Long or Jeffrey Epstein?

David Leary: [00:32:34] Uh, Billy Long is super fast. It's like a ten second story.

Blake Oliver: [00:32:38] So go for it.

David Leary: [00:32:39] Billy Long, who is now the new. It's not even elect like he's officially the IRS commissioner. Yes, he he was at a July 28th tax summit, and he said that direct file is gone, quote unquote, gone. And the official decision awaits a Treasury Department task force report. That's due to Congress within 90 days. But all indications are the new administration. Billy Long, they are going to kill direct file, which, you know, I thought this was true when Intuit or Intuit donated $1 million to the Trump inauguration. It was very clear, like, what's going to happen here? Direct file is dead. Um, we'll see where it goes. But yeah.

Blake Oliver: [00:33:18] I also saw a story about Billy Long that makes me hopeful that he will be a good leader for the.

David Leary: [00:33:25] I saw a tweet about this year.

Blake Oliver: [00:33:28] There was a story in accounting today, and apparently Billy Long has been arriving to work 90 minutes early every day to meet one on one with employees for ten minutes each. And the first employee that he met had worked at the IRS for 18 years, but he had never been to the commissioner's office before. Long wants to eliminate what he calls the Wizard of Oz mentality, where the commissioner stays hidden behind the curtain. And he's also working on something called direct audit technology that will let employees track where tax audits are stuck, instead of cases dragging on for years without answers. Kind of sounds like they are missing some workflow software at the IRS. That would be a good thing to implement. His vision for the IRS is being upbeat, friendly, and open while implementing Trump's massive new tax bill, something he said in this interview that might not please tax accountants, though, is that they're going to delay the tax filing season until February, so you're not going to be able to file taxes until sometime in February. And they're saying that's because of all the new stuff they got to do as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill act, which is actually no longer called the One Big Beautiful Bill act.

Blake Oliver: [00:34:52] I didn't realize that, but apparently because of the budget reconciliation rules, that title got stripped. Well, and it's now it's just like some generic title. It's not actually that, but that's what we're calling it. I actually did a survey on LinkedIn to see what people are calling the one Big Beautiful Bill, and I want to go check the results here to see, you know, just like, what are we going to call it? Is it OBB? Is it OBB. Is it ob three. Is it ob cubed okay. So currently the results are 31% are referring to it as ob or OB A 25% are referring to it as OB three. That's my favorite. 7% are calling it O triple B, and then 37% call it the big ugly bill. But I think I'm going to go with OB three, even though I know the three should come after the B, but whatever. It's not even called the One Big Beautiful Bill act anymore, so we can call it whatever we want. All right, so that's Billy along. Let's talk about Jeffrey Epstein. Yes. I never thought we would get to talk about Jeffrey Epstein. Actually, no. We talked about this a while ago on the show. Do you remember?

David Leary: [00:36:12] I don't remember.

Blake Oliver: [00:36:13] Oh, yeah, I brought it up because, like, when the whole thing started happening, I, I, I saw in some stories somewhere that he made money doing estate planning of some kind, but it wasn't clear exactly what it is. So what's the new story about Epstein related.

David Leary: [00:36:28] Here is Senator Ron Wyden, the Democrat from Oregon, who's the chair of the Senate Finance Committee. He's pressing Billy Long in the IRS for answers on why it never audited or investigated Jeffrey Epstein's questionable tax planning work. Um, so if you think about Jeffrey Epstein, Epstein had no credentials in accounting or tax law, but he made hundreds of millions of dollars doing tax planning for wealthy clients. Hundreds of millions, apparently.

Blake Oliver: [00:36:58] It says he had no professional training. No professional certifications. Yeah. Yeah.

David Leary: [00:37:03] And he would help them create complex trust structures, offshore accounts, charitable foundations, all aimed at minimizing and deferring taxes. And so what Senator Ron Wyden is looking to do, he wants to get how come this never bubbled up on the radar like which which we know the reason is IRS is understaffed. So they never audited rich people who were Jeffrey Epstein's clients?

Blake Oliver: [00:37:27] Yeah. Or conspiracy corner. Right. Well, maybe. Maybe the people in power didn't want Jeffrey Epstein's tax planning audited at the IRS. Who knows? Who's to say?

David Leary: [00:37:39] But, yeah, I think he's made hundreds of millions of dollars being a tax planner.

Blake Oliver: [00:37:47] And apparently he would he would do work for people, and then he would just send them giant bills with no explanation. He didn't bill by the hour, that's for sure. He was definitely value pricing in in some regard. All right. So we talked about Billy Long. We talked about Epstein. We've got just a few moments left before we have to play the interview. So mind if I just rant about tariffs a little bit.

David Leary: [00:38:14] Yeah. Go off on tariffs and I'll give the next.

Blake Oliver: [00:38:17] Regardless of whether you think tariffs are a good idea or a bad idea, I think we should all agree that tariff rebate checks are an incredibly stupid, harmful, ridiculous idea. And our Senator, Josh Hawley, has introduced a bill that would send rebate checks to every American under a certain income level using tariff revenue. The checks would be at least $600 per person, meaning a family of four would get $2,400 minimum. The US is now collecting nearly $30 billion per month in tariffs, with projections of over $150 billion in 2025 alone. And it's crazy to me that the deficit is creeping up, up and up and up. The big, beautiful bill increase the deficit by like three over $3 trillion. And here we are talking about taking the one source of revenue that is increasing that could offset this and sending rebate checks. And the reason it's a terrible idea isn't just because of the deficit. It's because what happens when you pump stimulus into the economy. We saw this with the Covid checks. The people who would get these, which is I think it's it phases out. If you make more than like $150,000 a year. So as a family. So basically it would go to the people who are going to inject it straight into the economy. And what's that going to do. Inflation. And that's exactly what the administration and the economy doesn't need right now. When you've got effectively 20% tariffs on average, increasing the cost of inputs for everything that we make here and all the stuff we buy.

David Leary: [00:40:09] If you send these checks out, doesn't that defeat the whole purpose of the tariffs? Because I think I saw stats. The average American family is going to take a $2,500 hit because of the tariffs. But now the government's going to send you 2400 bucks. But is it just a wash. Like why even do the tariffs. Why send the checks. Just stop it all. It doesn't make any sense.

Blake Oliver: [00:40:27] Yeah. It's it's all it does is increase inflation. Meanwhile, Social Security is only eight years away from going broke. Only eight years away. I remember when it was, like, decades away. But according to a new analysis by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget based on government data, the trust fund is going to run dry in 2033 and every retiree will automatically face a 23% benefit cut. So if you are 59 years old today, you're going to hit retirement age and your Social Security is going to be 23% less than you'd planned for. A typical retiring couple would lose $16,500 per year in benefits. So what is going to happen? I don't believe that politically, there's the appetite in the country to cut benefits. So something is going to have to happen. And I also don't.

David Leary: [00:41:23] Think that money in there.

Blake Oliver: [00:41:27] I mean this is the thing too, with AI and all of this less need for entry level workers, which are, you know, most workers in the pyramid of corporate America is if you have fewer people earning paychecks and paying the payroll taxes. We already have a demographic shift, right, where we've got a lot of baby boomers now in retirement age hitting it like. I don't know if they're all in it yet or what, but there's a lot of people retiring, not a lot of people working relative to them. And so the payroll taxes just aren't funding Social Security. So I think what we're going to see is probably a big increase in payroll taxes, especially if you import.

David Leary: [00:42:12] A lot of possible taxpayers that could fill the bottom of this funnel, who maybe won't ever claim against it. I don't know.

Blake Oliver: [00:42:19] Well, yeah. And actually, if those illegal workers like the undocumented workers, illegal immigrants, whatever you want to call them, if they're working W-2 jobs, they're paying into.

David Leary: [00:42:32] Into the system.

Blake Oliver: [00:42:33] Into the system. And so, yeah, you deport millions of them, and now you've got even fewer workers paying into the system. It it's sort of like the, the it's almost like the right hand. And the left hand of the government doesn't know what it's doing here.

David Leary: [00:42:49] I have another crazy story that's as crazy as this. Like tariffs thing if you want to hear that one.

Blake Oliver: [00:42:55] I've got an immigration stat too, so I just. Do you mind. Like is this related to what we just talked.

David Leary: [00:42:59] Then I'll do my Chicago okay.

Blake Oliver: [00:43:00] So so the Economic Policy Institute did an analysis that shows that Trump's mass deportation plan would eliminate nearly 6 million jobs. Now, I don't think he's actually going to go through with this because of the economic impact. It would basically cause a recession. But let's say that Trump followed through with his threats, which I think is like deporting like, uh, what is it, a million more than, um, it's like 3 million immigrants, right? So basically. Okay, no, the deportation agenda is 4 million people over four years, so a million people a year. So if the administration actually did this, we would lose 3.3 million jobs that the immigrants are working, and that would actually cause a loss of 2.6 million jobs for US born workers. Maybe we talked about this in the last episode.

David Leary: [00:43:54] We might have talked a little bit about this in the last episode.

Blake Oliver: [00:43:56] Yeah, I think I think I already mentioned it. So. So basically like it would it would shrink the economy a lot. Okay. You go.

David Leary: [00:44:03] Yeah. So the Chicago mayor wants to tax corporations per employee to help their $1 billion budget shortfall. So the city of Chicago used to have a tax like this that they abolished in 2014. And the way this works they charge companies a fee per employee. And it would really mostly affect larger companies. But I look at this and this doesn't make any sense. Wouldn't you want to reward the companies that hire them and employ the citizens of Chicago that eventually, because they're getting paychecks, would pay pay sales tax, they pay their taxes. The whole it's like it just doesn't make any sense. You're going to punish companies for hiring your citizens. It doesn't make any sense to me.

Blake Oliver: [00:44:48] Well, I mean, this is the criticism of blue cities like LA, Chicago, New York. It's it's just like they're successful in spite of the political leadership. And I gotta say, like, it's probably the, the, the best argument on the right is just that these cities are completely mismanaged by people who have no idea what they're doing.

David Leary: [00:45:11] And they're getting desperate because they tried two other ways to raise money. They wanted to have a ballot measure to tax homes that are $1 million plus, and that failed additional tax on that. And then they tried to do a $300 million property tax hike proposal and that failed. So they're getting desperate now. They're now they're like, let's do a bad policy that caused companies to leave Chicago in the past. Let's reimplement that policy. It just it feels like it's very upside down thinking, like there's another just poor example of, uh, the ways to run government.

Blake Oliver: [00:45:40] Let's thank our next sponsor who can.

David Leary: [00:45:43] Do it if you want.

Blake Oliver: [00:45:44] Scale. Yeah. Go ahead. David. Human at scale.

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Blake Oliver: [00:47:05] And now I have for you an interview with Nicole Wetter, who leads the Bachelor of Applied Science in accounting at green. Is it green River?

David Leary: [00:47:18] Yeah. Is she a professor? Is she a department head?

Blake Oliver: [00:47:22] She's both. Both. And, um. I'll just let it. I'll let the interview speak for itself. And, uh, let's hear from Nicole. Nicole, thanks for chatting with me today. Thank you for reaching out about this new program. Um, I'm really eager to learn about it.

Nicole Wetter: [00:47:42] Thank you. Blake. Thanks for having me on. I'm excited to be here. I love your show.

Blake Oliver: [00:47:46] You have created a Bachelor of applied science program at green River College. I love that word applied. I want to learn more about that. But first, can you tell me a bit about green River College and what you do there?

Nicole Wetter: [00:48:01] Absolutely. So green River College is a relatively small community college in Auburn, Washington, a suburb of Seattle. We currently have ten b.a.s. Bachelor of Applied Science degrees that we offer. Prior to that, we offered solely associate degrees and have since expanded into our Bas programs. And this Bas in Accounting program is a brand new program that we launched last fall. So we are actually cohort one is starting their second year this fall.

Blake Oliver: [00:48:34] Tell me about the Bachelor of Applied Science program. This accounting program. What makes it applied? What is it?

Nicole Wetter: [00:48:41] What makes it stand out I would say is that we are affordable. And then we're also applied, which means we do a lot of hands on case studies. We require all of our students to take like a QuickBooks class, an Excel class. We require an internship as a part of the four year program. So all of our students have to go out and do that first year work as a bookkeeper, or preparing tax returns, or working for enrolled agents, and kind of getting in there and applying what they're learning as they're learning. Typically, our students do that in their second or third year of the program. What I think makes it really special is that they're learning As they're working. I just remember as a college student not knowing what I didn't know. So I was learning all of these concepts, but not even knowing what questions to ask. And our students are out there actually doing the bookkeeping, doing the reconciliations, and then coming into class and asking pertinent questions. And they have the questions. They kind of know what they don't know as they come into the classroom.

Blake Oliver: [00:49:44] So why did you create this program?

Nicole Wetter: [00:49:47] Mostly because I saw there was in need. There was a big need for CPAs first and foremost. It's just a few years ago with the drop off of so many CPAs retiring. But also I had worked as the program director in our Bachelor of Applied Science in Management program. And so I saw that the need for affordable and accessible bachelor's degrees for students that maybe would never be able to go to university, but have a lot of experience in a particular industry and just need that bachelor level education to be able to go out and, you know, either become managers or move up in the company, get promoted in the company that they're working for.

Blake Oliver: [00:50:29] But what doesn't work about a traditional accounting degree in that regard?

Nicole Wetter: [00:50:34] Well, it's kind of like what you mentioned in one of the segments that I listened to, where right now, you know, we're outsourcing a lot of that first year work to either, you know, India or now I and a lot of students are missing, you know, even looking at a complete 1120 before stepping out into the tax world. And there's a gap there. I saw that there was a need for doing that work early on, and seeing those tax returns or looking at and going through a full, complete audit before going out there and reviewing as a senior, reviewing a tax return that maybe you've never really prepared yourself. So I think what we're doing here is just filling in that gap and giving the students that experience as that first year so that they know how to review and they know how to manage, whether it's AI or, you know, whatever it happens to be prior to stepping out in the workforce.

Blake Oliver: [00:51:33] So we're outsourcing a lot of that year, one year, two work that we used to cut our teeth on as accountants that's going over overseas. It's getting automated, maybe AI. So you're saying that we have to bring that into the classroom. Otherwise students aren't going to be able to keep up. They've got to be higher level when they graduate.

Nicole Wetter: [00:51:54] Absolutely. And I think understanding how to utilize AI, we're bringing AI into the classroom. We've already brought in generative AI into the classroom. Now we're looking at agentic AI and just exposing our students to that and kind of helping them know how to write good prompts and how to teach AI how to do the work. Because even though I know we're all afraid of AI taking over the world, which probably is inevitable, but in the meantime, we have to know how to utilize that as a tool and, you know, feed it the right information. And in order to do that, you really have to understand the process and go through that work yourself. Otherwise, you really don't know what you don't know.

Blake Oliver: [00:52:38] That's interesting because we've seen professors ban AI in the classroom the same way calculators were banned in the classroom when they first became available. But you're saying, no, we're going to do the opposite. We're going to bring it in. Tell me, tell me about how you're using it in the classroom and, like what? What are you using? Is it ChatGPT? Is it Claude? Is it something else? What kind of assignments are you giving to students?

Nicole Wetter: [00:53:04] That's a great question. Um, yeah. And I had the same fears initially as well. Just that my big fear, I think even now, is just that this is going to a lot of students are reaching out to ChatGPT and missing that problem solving skill, like even just creating something from scratch and being creative themselves. However, because it is a tool and it's going to be used in, you know, it is being used out in the workforce, we are bringing it in to the classroom. For example, I developed just a simple financial statement analysis assignment where I have students use ChatGPT just to analyze the financials and calculate some ratios, and then see how it did, and then present that to the class and and tell us were there any errors or how do you think it did. What would you do differently. How would you change your prompt next time. Things like that, so that they understand it's not perfect. They need to review the work, but they understand that it's very valuable and that it could save them a lot of time initially, so that they kind of understand that it's like almost like a partner that they're working with and, and kind of brainstorming ideas with and then reviewing the work afterwards.

Blake Oliver: [00:54:15] You mentioned you're using QuickBooks and Excel in the classroom as well.

Nicole Wetter: [00:54:19] Yes.

Blake Oliver: [00:54:20] And how are you using those tools? What are the assignments?

Nicole Wetter: [00:54:24] So we have QuickBooks class where they run through. They create this big firm and run through some financials. They do bank reconciliations. We also have Excel that we utilize in the classroom just for projects and case studies. We have them develop spreadsheets and do a lot of ratio analysis in in the spreadsheets. So those are two separate classes that they have to take. And then in addition to that we apply both QuickBooks and Excel into our financial and managerial accounting courses as case studies. So we'll have them prepare, you know, a simple PNL and then discuss how does the company do this quarter compared to last quarter, or how did this company do to the industry average and then discuss that as a group.

Blake Oliver: [00:55:15] Any other tools that you are using in the classroom?

Nicole Wetter: [00:55:19] Yeah. So for our audit class, which we are just launching, this is going to be a brand new class. I just met with the audit instructor. She will be using Mindbridge in her class. Unfortunately, not everyone offers free resources for students and educators, but Mindbridge does, which is great. And the idea is really not to have the students necessarily become experts in ChatGPT or quad or Mindbridge, but just to get exposed to them so they're not afraid of learning these new tools, and that they understand that a lot of these tools are similar. So if you learn one, you can don't be afraid to learn another.

Blake Oliver: [00:55:53] Did you have any trouble getting this program off the ground? I know it can be difficult because so much of the curriculum in many states is prescribed. In order to become a CPA, you have to take this class, this class, this class, and it has to have specific keywords in the title. At least that was the case in California, where I got licensed. Did you have any challenges building this program to make sure it would? It would work for future CPAs.

Nicole Wetter: [00:56:23] There were definitely challenges. The biggest was just to show that there was demand and that there that there's a need. As far as the different courses that we offer, we have the traditional audit, tax, cost accounting, accounting, information systems, but there is some leeway with our electives and kind of special classes. So for example, we threw in a special topics class in the second quarter where students just learn about the various careers in accounting, and they learn more about the CPA exam and the CMA exam requirements. And so they have an idea of what's out there as they're starting the program. And then we also offer two data analytics classes kind of a basic software development, one on one introductory data analytics class as well as an advanced business analytics class for accountants. So we had some leeway with these extra classes to make our program unique. But we still have those core classes that are required for the CPA exam. And in addition to that, I was able to. It's always tough to make changes to a program of an entire program, but we have that academic freedom within the classroom to add things. You know, as long as we're sticking with the core objectives. So that's where we have been adding things like ChatGPT or Mindbridge and other things.

Blake Oliver: [00:57:42] Got it. So you're still teaching the audit class that's required. You're just adding in the tech into the curriculum. So how do you get faculty that can teach the applied aspect of this? Because, you know, many PhDs, they spend, like many of us, a couple of years in, in public, maybe at a big firm, and, and then they leave and they go back into academia. So they don't actually have a lot of practical experience or experience with technology. How do you bridge that gap?

Nicole Wetter: [00:58:14] That is a tough gap to bridge. And the the way we've kind of solved that problem is we have our core faculty group which teaches the like, I teach intermediate accounting, and we have another faculty member that teaches QuickBooks. Another faculty member teaches tax. But then for all those specialty classes, we bring in adjuncts who actually work part time as an adjunct instructor, but full time at either Deloitte or a particular firm. So, for example, we have a CFO who's coming in and who will be just teaching cost accounting once a year. And so he will specialize in that one particular course. But he's on the job working and living and breathing cost accounting day to day.

Blake Oliver: [00:58:56] What's your background? How did you get into teaching?

Nicole Wetter: [00:58:59] I'm a CPA, I, I worked at KPMG. I'm local here. I've grew up in Kent, Washington. I went to the University of Washington and kind of did the traditional four year bachelor's degree, and then continued on and got my master's in accounting, specifically tax, and I worked in the federal tax department at KPMG Seattle. I took a few classes during the summer at green River College, so I got to know some of the instructors here, and I personally really enjoyed teaching. I actually started teaching piano lessons in high school and college, so I've always been drawn to teaching, and I got offered a full time position at green River. After teaching a few classes as an adjunct while working at KPMG, and I just fell in love with teaching. So when a full time position opened up, I applied and got the job. And I've been at green River now for about 13 years, teaching both in the accounting and the business departments.

Blake Oliver: [00:59:55] So what is your hope for this program? What kind of jobs do you envision your students getting when they graduate?

Nicole Wetter: [01:00:03] Most of our students are interested in becoming CPAs, but we we are really wanting to introduce them to other avenues as well. So we talk about the CMA exam and the CMA certification, and we plan on getting endorsed by the EMA so that we can offer some scholarships to our students. I think most of our students will go on and become CPAs. However, a lot of them are switching careers, so they may be lifelong nurses and deciding, I want to go into accounting now midlife, and I would like to learn a little bit more about, you know, maybe not necessarily becoming a CPA, but about accounting in general. And so they're doing these internships, learning as we are teaching the core curriculum and then going on and becoming accountants, maybe for a private company or something in that regard.

Blake Oliver: [01:00:54] How do you choose what tools to include in the classroom?

Nicole Wetter: [01:00:57] A lot of it is based on whether we can access them for our students and make them affordable. So some for I won't call out any, any, um, software in particular, but not all offer free tools for educators and for students. So those are then we can't use those. So if they.

Blake Oliver: [01:01:17] Ask you this, let me ask you if you if you could write, what would be, uh, what apps would you love to be able to have in the classroom with educator access, right. Free access for students and teachers?

Nicole Wetter: [01:01:30] 11i thought of, though it was hopeful to to get access to is texto and, uh, unfortunately they just don't currently have anything. But that would be wonderful because I think a lot of the small business, a small CPAs, use Taxstone to manage their client information. And unfortunately there's there's a two week free trial, but that makes it tough for educators to actually use and utilize in the classroom.

Blake Oliver: [01:01:54] No, it would be so great to have like a practice management suite that you could use for education purposes, because, I mean, if I'm running a small CPA firm, how great would it be if I could hire students right from your program who already know workflow software, who have exposure to it, even if it's not the one I'm using? They have similar capabilities, similar features. It's sort of like if you learn QuickBooks, a lot of that can be applied to an ERP system.

Nicole Wetter: [01:02:25] Right now, a lot of our students are finding internships for CPAs and small CPA firms, but we would love to partner with a bigger firm if we could. And, you know, get our students ready for the workforce to just dive right in and be able to utilize whatever they're utilizing and get our students trained up so that they can hit the ground running.

Blake Oliver: [01:02:46] You mentioned internships. That's a core part of the program as well, right?

Nicole Wetter: [01:02:50] Yes. So we do require at least 120 hours, and most students do more than that Nats of hands on practical accounting experience. So most of our students either find their own, uh, they work for a CPA or an enrolled agent and get some experience that way. I usually go on indeed and LinkedIn and search for entry level accounting positions and just post them in our. We have this canvas shell that we use to share information. So I will post those weekly for my students and they'll apply. And a lot of them have already found internships as a backup. They could always do the volunteering, you know, volunteer income tax prep work, but a lot of them already have their basically a bookkeeping type role at a CPA firm.

Blake Oliver: [01:03:38] You've done this program now for is it one year two years? It's relatively new right.

Nicole Wetter: [01:03:43] It is very new. Yeah. We're just starting our second year. So our first cohort just finished their first year this last spring.

Blake Oliver: [01:03:50] Okay. So they're sophomores now.

Nicole Wetter: [01:03:52] They are.

Blake Oliver: [01:03:53] So I mean, you've got a little ways to go and then you're going to they're going to graduate. You're going to start getting feedback. But have they started their internships yet? Are they getting out into the workforce?

Nicole Wetter: [01:04:03] They are. I highly encourage them. So technically our internship course is offered in their final quarter. But I tell them all they can start early and even do multiple internships if they like, and they just need to document what they're doing and then reflect. There's kind of like a reflection paper that they dare to tell me about what they learned, what software they utilized. We started with a cohort of 18 students. And our cohort number two, we're at 32, which is kind of our max right now. Of the 18, I believe, 14 have already found internships, the ones that were looking. So they've already landed these these jobs. They've had some great stories. Students, you know, utilizing Excel to find fraud was occurring at a particular firm. Or, you know, they have a lot of great stories and experiences to tell us in the classroom. So I find that that is actually probably the most valuable part of our program is having the internship early on.

Blake Oliver: [01:04:59] Yeah. I tell everyone who asks that if you can work while you're studying accounting, because for me, being able to apply the debits and credits in a real business to practice what I was learning in the classroom in an accounting system is so valuable. I don't understand how people learn debits and credits with just t accounts in theory and retain it. I don't know, I guess I'm I'm a doer. That's how I learn. I think a lot of people are, though.

Nicole Wetter: [01:05:33] I think most students do learn by doing, and I think that that is probably one of the most valuable things about our program is doing the internship, early learning and asking questions and applying it. A lot of students will be in the classroom and then just tell a story about how they just worked on something similar, you know, at their internship. That and the fact that we just have a really small cohort of students, 24 students, typically in an average cohort, they get to know one another really well. They're, you know, cheerleaders for each other, and they network and they get jobs from, from from people in the classroom.

Blake Oliver: [01:06:10] Do you have any advice for academics who are looking to either build an applied program like yours, or add more real world practical knowledge into their more traditional programs?

Nicole Wetter: [01:06:28] I would my probably my biggest piece of advice would just be to not be afraid of of trying new things. I think as academics, we tend to get into a rhythm of things and stick with what we've always done. So not being afraid to, just trying out a new tool and seeing if it works, or trying out a new teaching method and seeing if that works. You learn through trial and error. So I bring in all sorts of things into the classroom. Some things work, some things don't. But I do find that getting feedback from students is really helpful. Sometimes I don't even realize something was as impactful or as effective as I thought it might have been, and they let me know. And that's really helpful within reiterating and trying new things in the classroom. So that would be my biggest piece of advice is just don't be afraid to try new things. If it doesn't work, it's okay. You have next quarter to try something different. Love your podcast. Your podcast actually is kind of featured in my class. I have students listen to the podcast for extra credit and I think you, you both you and um, you and David are excellent at just bringing in the cutting edge ideas to the podcast, which help helps me a lot, actually, as I'm developing curriculum. But students have also enjoyed learning about the news and everything that's happening in the accounting world. So I appreciate that, and I appreciate having this time with you today to be able to feature our program.

Blake Oliver: [01:07:54] Yeah. Thank you so much, Nicole, for sharing your insights with our audience. And and thanks for listening. It's been great to chat with you.

David Leary: [01:08:01] Great interview. And it's so encouraging to see programs like what she's doing, what David Weight's doing at Utah Valley University, because I've remember I've talked to QuickBooks Proadvisors in the past who maybe were doing adjunct teaching community colleges, and they were told they can't teach QuickBooks, which is insane. Like, it's it's used by so many businesses and you can't they were told they weren't allowed to teach this. And to see this pendulum swing to these college professors that are taking chances and building this curriculum now is it's super encouraging, I love it. Love it.

Blake Oliver: [01:08:37] Let's thank our final sponsor of this episode, which is missive. Here at earmark. We rely on missive every single day to manage our team communications. And there's a reason hundreds of accounting firms have made the same choice. If you're running an accounting practice, you know the pain. As you grow, you become the bottleneck. Every single client email lands in your inbox. You forward it to team members with a quick handle this and then it disappears. No visibility, no accountability, no idea if it's actually getting done. Missive solves this brilliantly. Instead of emails vanishing into individual inboxes, client communications go to dedicated team inboxes where everyone who needs access can see them. You can assign conversations to specific people, create trackable tasks, and have internal discussions right within the conversation, all without the client seeing your internal notes. What makes this so special is that it feels familiar, like the email client you're already using, but it's incredibly powerful under the hood. Whether you organize by client, by service line, or run pod based teams, missive adapts to your workflow. Plus, their AI can automatically escalate urgent emails to managers, so you're not constantly checking every inbox, ready to stop being the communication bottleneck, and want to try missive for free. Head over to The Accounting Podcast. The Accounting Podcast.

David Leary: [01:10:04] So, Blake, one final story unless you have another one.

Blake Oliver: [01:10:07] I actually have to go. David I'm sorry. But. And I have to cancel our next meeting. Okay. I'll. I'll call you when I'll call you on my way to the airport.

David Leary: [01:10:17] 22nd or you have to go the airport. All right. We'll have to catch this next week, but it will tease next week. Aicpa and Nasba owe us an apology. All right. Next week.

Blake Oliver: [01:10:26] Well, I'll take your word for it. I'm going to Chicago for the American Accounting Association Ethics Symposium. I've been asked to participate on a panel, and I'm going to get to talk in person with dozens and dozens of academics at leading institutions. And maybe shock them a little bit. We'll see.

David Leary: [01:10:47] It'll be great to hear about this when you get back next week as well. So we'll have to reserve time for your recap next week as well.

Blake Oliver: [01:10:54] Thanks everyone who joined us live today. Don't forget you can follow us on YouTube. Hit that subscribe button and notification button, get notified when we go live and you can chat with us and let us know what you think about what we're talking about on the show. What you think we should be covering in the accounting news. Don't forget, you can earn free continuing professional education credit with the earmark app for listening to podcasts like ours and many, many other fine accounting and tax podcasts. Go to earmark app in your web browser or download the free app on the App Store. I'll see you here next week, David.

David Leary: [01:11:31] Enjoy. Chicago.

Blake Oliver: [01:11:32] Bye.

David Leary: [01:11:32] Your flight.