Future-proof | A Podcast For Tomorrow's Accounting & Finance Pros

Settle in and relax, folks, because this might be your last chance to chill until April.Yeah, tax season is here. And yeah, you’re probably going to be busy — but today’s episode just might help.Our guest is Cari Weston, director of tax practice and ethics for the American Institute of CPAs. She down with our host, Bill Sheridan, at the 2019 Digital CPA Conference to talk about the issues that will be impacting tax pros in 2020. This year, for a change, those issues go well beyond the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit blionline.org/blog.Resources:Prepare for tax season at aicpa.org/taxConnect with Cari on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/cariwestonLearn more at MACPA.org/future-learning Find CPA tax training at MACPA.org/taxAccounting Today's 2020 "Year Ahead" surveyRead: "2020 tax season filing preview”Future-Proof is a production of Crate Media

Given the latest research within the profession — see our recent conversation with Lexy Kessler for details on all of that — there’s one thing that most accounting and finance professionals are thinking about: talent.How to find talent, how to keep it, and how to figure out what the best talent wants in the first place. This last bit is really important, too, because what younger generations want is often different from what the older generations wanted. To learn more about this generational gap and what you can do to attract the best and brightest of the next generation of accountants, we sit down with Monique Malcolm-Hay, a senior consultant at PwC and founder of New-Gen Accountants.If you have any interest in the future of this profession, this episode is a must-listen.To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit blionline.org/blog.Resources:www.newgenaccountants.comLinkedIn: .linkedin.com/company/new-gen-accountants/Twitter: @NewGenAccountInstagram: @NewGenAccountantsLearn more at MACPA.org/

This episode releases on the cusp of a new year — so, if you’re reading this in 2019, we want to wish you a very happy, healthy, and prosperous 2020. Here’s to you and yours.Of course, with the new year comes New Year’s resolutions, and there’s one resolution that all accounting and finance professionals (and, really, most people) can benefit from: becoming a better delegator.So we sit down with Emily Morgan, the mastermind behind a group called Delegate Solutions, which offers premium-level virtual assistant services for entrepreneurs. They tackle your distracting to-dos, create a strategic delegation plan for meeting your goals, and fully manage the virtual team assigned to your projects.To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit blionline.org/blog.Resources:DelegateSolutions.comDownload your FREE Delegate and Elevate worksheetRead: Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business by Gino WickmanRead: How To Be A Great Boss by Gino Wickman and Rene BoerLearn more at MACPA.org/future-learningFuture-Proo

Client Accounting Services (CAS) are the services that CPAs provide because clients can’t do them, don’t want to do them, or just aren’t good at doing them. It’s that full-menu offering of taking over many of a client’s routine internal accounting chores. The popularity of these services is growing, too — to the extent that a lot of people in the accounting and finance profession consider CAS to be a new line of business, something they need to start exploring to keep up with the competition.But these services really aren’t new at all. Some firms have been doing this stuff for years, and bear the battle scars to prove it. In the process, they have also learned a thing or three that the rest of us can benefit from.So we sit down with one of these early vanguards of Client Accounting Services, Robin Thieme. Robin is the CEO and CAO — that’s Chief Anticipation Officer — of KBS CFO, a company that serves as a CFO, Chief Information Officer, and Chief Operating Officer for their clients. That might sound like

Today’s episode puts the P in CPA — because we’re talking about public practice! What is going on with CPA firms these days, anyway?Quite a bit, as it turns out. The world is changing, and with every change that the world experiences these days, the folks who work at CPA firms seem to get a double dose of it. They have to figure out how to embrace these changes and disruptions inside their own firms, but at the same time, they have to help their clients figure out what to do about all of this complexity.But our guest Lexy Kessler has her fingers on the pulse of CPA firm challenges and opportunities more firmly than most people in the profession. Because, in addition to being a partner with Aronson LLC and a member of the Maryland Association of CPAs’ Board of Directors, Lexy is the current chair of the AICPA Private Companies Practice Section, a group that supports CPA firms in the everyday intricacies of running a practice.To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit blionline.org/blog.Resources:Lea

Today we’re asking an important question that every industry is going to have to ask sooner or later: What does future-focused leadership look like?Our guest, Rachel Druckenmiller, is on a mission to humanize the workplace by igniting intentional leadership. She has made a name for herself nationally in the fields of workplace wellness and culture. In 2019, she was recognized as a 40 Under 40 Game Changer by Workforce Magazine, and in 2018, Employ Humanity named her one of “7 Wellness Leaders Making a Positive Impact.”But all of this — wellbeing, wellness, culture — it all ties directly to leadership. And Rachel trains leadership teams to be more self-aware, curious, and connected so that they can have greater impact and influence at their organizations.So, with those types of insights at our disposal, we wanted to find out from Rachel what a future-ready leader looks like.To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit blionline.org/blog.Resources:www.RachelDruckenmiller.comLinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/i

So you know Simon Sinek? Best-selling author, leadership expert, the people-don’t-buy-what-you-do-they-buy-why-you-do-it guy?Well, he has a new book titled The Infinite Game and our host, Bill Sheridan, has become a bit obsessed with this notion of playing the Infinite Game, of adopting an infinite mindset.So we sat down with Stephen Shedletzky, chief of staff with Simon Sinek’s team at Start With Why. He supports leaders in creating environments where their people feel inspired to go to work, feel safe and valued while they are there, and return home at the end of each day fulfilled by the work they do.Stephen and I talk about ALL of this — the difference between Finite and Infinite Games, the benefits of thinking more infinitely, and how traditionally Finite-based professions — LIKE accounting and finance — can get started down a path toward thinking more Infinitely.Really good stuff this week. And if you can’t listen to Simon Sinek, then Stephen will definitely do. Here is Stephen Shedletzky.To learn more,

Back in episode 66, we spoke with Matt Loeb about digital transformation, and he brought up a great point — just because you’re enacting some digital solutions doesn’t make you a digital organization. There’s a difference between doing digital and being digital, which is about culture and mindset more than anything else.Jeanne Ross is a principal research scientist at the MIT Sloan Research Center for Information Systems Research and co-author of a new book titled Designed for Digital: How to Architect Your Business for Sustained Success. And she says there’s a key reason why your organization isn’t crossing that digital divide, and one that really isn’t being talked about enough.To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit blionline.org/blog.Resources:Read: Designed for Digital: How to Architect Your Business for Sustained SuccessCenter for Information Systems Research: http://cisr.mit.edu/Connect with Jeanne https://mitsloan.mit.edu/faculty/directory/jeanne-w-rossTwitter: twitter.com/MIT_CISR

Today’s episode focuses on something a little different. Not the technology that’s going to prepare us for the future, not the hard trends that will affect change in the future, and not why we should stop panicking about AI putting all auditors out of work. Today, we’re talking about joy.Because our guest is Richard Sheridan, co-founder and CEO of Menlo Innovations (and of no relation to our host Bill Sheridan), has written two books on the topic: Joy, Inc.: How We Built a Workplace People Love and Chief Joy Officer: How Great Leaders Elevate Human Energy and Eliminate Fear.To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit blionline.org/blog.Resources:Check out MenloInnovations.comRead: Joy, Inc.: How We Built a Workplace People Love Read: Chief Joy Officer: How Great Leaders Elevate Human Energy and Eliminate FearLearn more at MACPA.org/future-learningFuture-Proof is a production of Crate Media

Riddle me this, Batman: What do you get when you cross exponential advances in technology with an unrelenting regulatory environment?The answer is no joke: what you get, oftentimes, is one big headache. These “hard trends” or “future facts” that futurist Daniel Burrus talks about — the things that we know will happen, with absolute certainty — they’re hard enough to come to grips with individually. But when they cross borders and join forces... well, that’s when our lives really start to get complex.There’s another way of looking at it, though, and our guests today are here to provide a little perspective.Marchelle Klippenstein is the Director of the SAP Concur value consulting organization and Jameson Hughes is a Value Consultant at SAP Concur, and they are both working to help organizations improve their financial outcomes through data analytics and deep-dive management consulting.To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit blionline.org/blog.Resources:Learn more at www.concur.comSEC’s Financial T

Halloween is over. Autumn is kicking into full gear. And you know what that means — it’s time to talk about audits!Because the future of audit is... uncertain, to say the least. Luckily, we had an opportunity to talk to Mark Miklosovic, the Customer Proposition Strategy Lead for tax professionals at Thomson Reuters, who spends much of his time thinking very critically about the future of this profession.We talk about where audit has been, where it is now, where it is going — and most importantly, what the future of this profession looks like. Given the pace of change today, it’s a crucial conversation to be having, and to be able to dig deep into the brain of someone who has a passion for this stuff like Mark does is a real treat.To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit blionline.org/blog.Resources:Learn more at tax.thomsonreuters.comLinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/markmiklosovicAccounting Today: “Where is the audit profession going?”Accounting Today: “Audit dead in a decade?”Accounting Today:

Pretty much every survey under the sun identifies recruitment and retention as one of the top five issues facing accounting and finance organizations today. Everyone is struggling with this and nobody seems to know how to solve it.There are a lot of suggestions being put forward throughout the profession — communicate, be a role model, make your expectations clear, offer a safe working environment, provide a clear career path, build leaders — and that’s all great advice. Yet, no matter how many times we hear this, talent continues to be one of our most pressing problems.So, what’s the real issue here? Why can’t we hire the people we want? And why can we keep the people we have?Our guest Alan Jagonlinzer has some ideas. Alan is a Professor of Financial Accounting, the Head of the Accounting Faculty Subject Group, and the Director of the Centre for Financial Reporting & Accountability at the Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge, where he has helped develop leadership, innovation, and change-

Today we’re going to talk about something that most accounting and finance professionals probably never give a second thought — writing.Writing is one of those skills that we all take for granted. We all do it in some way, shape, or form every day, so we all assume we’re awesome at it. Maybe even better at it than some of our peers?This is a misconception that happens all the time, in different areas of our life. We can’t all be better than mostly everyone else at most things, but we’ll learn more about that phenomenon in a moment.First, we want to introduce our guest Bob Dean, a learning and development expert who has designed, developed, and facilitated hundreds of interactive virtual learning programs, using a variety of technology platforms. More to the point, he has authored a series of programs for the Business Learning Institute about writing for results, writing as a leader, writing in a way that will get you noticed — and, equally important, writing in a way that makes sure people won’t notice you as

Pascal Finette is co-founder of be radical, an organization that teaches leaders how to create new business models for success, positively embrace disruption, and prepare their people to be future-forward and future-ready.He is also chair for Entrepreneurship and Open Innovation at Singularity University, which is a global learning and innovation community that uses exponential technologies to tackle the world’s biggest challenges. He previously held leadership positions at Google, Mozilla, and eBay.Pascal’s focus these days is what the future looks like, as it pertains to the intersection of business and technology. And that future? It terrifies him and thrills him at the same time. He says he’s living this duality between freaking out and being super excited — and that gets us excited, too.To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit blionline.org/blog.Resources:be radical: beradicalgroup.comSingularity University: su.orgLinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/pfinette/Twitter: twitter.com/pfinetteDisruption Map

Summer’s over, October’s here, and things are changing. But that’s the state of our world today, isn’t it? And not just when it comes to the weather. Change is the new normal, and that can be an uncomfortable thing, especially for CPAs. But for those who are ready to embrace it — to adapt a more nimble and flexible mindset — there are a lot of opportunities just waiting to be taken advantage of.The question is, then, how do we do that? How do we start embracing flexibility and fluidity as competitive advantages? How do we start thinking about transforming our very business models so that we’ll remain relevant in a changing and complex world? Those things aren’t baked into our DNA, are they?But here to help us figure it all out is Will Hill, the Tax Professionals Advisory product manager for Thomson Reuters. He’s also been included on CPA Practice Advisor’s “40 Under 40” list twice and he’s an iInnovator with TR’s Practice Forward service offering, which is focused on helping firms make the transitio

We’re jumping back on the culture train today. As you can probably tell, we’re big believers in getting your culture right. We’ve had conversations on the topic with Tom Peters, Karl Alrichs, Jamie Notter, Richard Silberstein, and David Barrett — and that’s because it’s a REALLY important conversation to be having! Really, there might not be a bigger or more important differentiator in business today than your culture. If you get it right, you’re going to have a leg up in recruitment and retention, for one, but you’ll also just be doing business with really great people who will sing your praises and be loyal to you, and evangelize what you do to the world.To help us take this conversation a step further, we sat down with with Dee Ann Turner, who speaks and consults with businesses around the world on how to leverage talent and culture to create what she calls “legendary customer experiences.” And she ought to know. She spent more than 30 years with Chick-fil-A, including a stint as their vice president

Today’s episode is all about Color Accounting — and if you’re not familiar with Color Accounting yet, you need to be!So, we invited Peter Frampton, co-founder of Color Accounting, onto the show to teach us all about what Color Accounting is and why it’s so important to the future of our profession.To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit blionline.org/blog.Resources:ColorAccounting.comLinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/peterframptonHow Color Accounting works: https://youtu.be/QeoCoatHGsYColor Accounting’s books on accounting and finance: coloraccounting.com/books.htmlLearn more at MACPA.org/future-learningFuture-Proof is a production of Crate Media

Today we’re going to talk about something you probably didn’t expect from this show: Cannabis. But legalization for both medical and recreational cannabis products is growing at the state level. At this point, it seems like a hard trend. So it’s high time we talked about this stuff (pun intended)  if we want to future-proof this profession.To help us come to a joint understanding, if you will, about how we can best serve our clients in this area, we are joined by Emily Burns, who provides customized legal and consulting solutions specifically for the rapidly evolving cannabis industry.To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit blionline.org/blog.Resources:Check out LegallyBurns.comTwitter: twitter.com/legallyburnsLinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/legallyburnsWatch Sen. Orrin Hatch’s statementTake one of Emily’s courses: blionline.org/instructor/emily-burnsLearn more at MACPA.org/future-learningFuture-Proof is a production of Crate Media

We’ve been talking about the cloud for so long now that it’s easy to assume that everyone already has it figured out – but that’s the wrong assumption to make with our profession.   There are exceptions, of course. There are some accounting and finance pros out there who take pride in getting ahead of new technologies early. But a sizeable part of the profession hasn’t made that leap yet.   So Blake Oliver, co-host of the Cloud Accounting Podcast, joins us to assess where we’re at in the profession when it comes to cloud adoption, as well as what’s next from here.   To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit blionline.org/blog.   Resources: Read: Cloud Accounting Blog Listen: Cloud Accounting Podcast Twitter: twitter.com/BlakeTOliver Facebook: www.facebook.com/blake.t.oliver LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/blaketoliver/ Learn more at MACPA.org/future-learning Future-Proof is a production of Crate Media

How do you transform your organization into a truly digital organization?    It’s not as simple as it sounds. You can’t just about employ some digital technologies and think that you’ve made it. Doing digital and being digital are not the same things. Not even close.   So, we’re joined by Matt Loeb, principal of Optimal Performance Seekers and acting CEO of SECURE, who is simply one of the deepest thinkers about what it means to be digital in an increasingly digital world. Quite frankly, too many people get this stuff wrong, and Matt is here to point us in the right direction.   To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit blionline.org/blog.   Resources: LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mattloeb/ Twitter: twitter.com/mattloeb digitalNow Conference: digitalnowconference.com How to Win in a Winner-Take-All World by Neil Irwin Learn more at MACPA.org/future-learning Future-Proof is a production of Crate Media