Accounting Blogging: Status and Trends
Dr. Dan W. Meyer
Austin Peay State University
Mailing Address: P. O. Box 4416
Kimbrough Hall
Clarksville, TN 37044
e-mail:
Telephone: 931-221-7754
Full Paper Submitted for Consideration for Presentation at ABW 2007 Nashville
And For
Publication in:
International Journal of Academic Business World or
The Journal of Learning in Higher Education or
The Journal of Academic Administration in Higher Education
The author acknowledges with great appreciation editorial advice from Pamela Meyer,
J. D., L. Donald Meyer, Ph. D. and Roger Clark, Ph. D.
Accounting Blogging: Status and Trends
Introduction
Certified Public Accountants (CPAs) clearly need to increase their knowledge of new complex laws relevant to their practice areas and adhere to a myriad of new laws drafted to meet the public’s demand for higher ethical standards. These new laws are being written with shorter implementation times and some laws are retroactive. This changing landscape creates more pressure on the professional to not only keep up with the law but also maximize the efficiency with which they are able to review and analyze relevant changes. Timeliness and content have become absolutely essential components of any information delivery in today’s fast-paced business environment. This environment puts additional pressure on CPAs to sell their services to a more discerning and critical clientele following the recent auditing scandals, creating the value for more innovative and efficient delivery of current law changes.
Three approaches used during the last 40 years include:
· Continuing education courses and seminars;
· Academic and practitioner research into accounting and accounting-related topics;
· National expansion of college preparation to 150 hours as a prerequisite to sit for the Certified Public Accountant’s exam.
Each approach has been valuable in meeting the need for improved knowledge, but each has shortcomings:
· Most practitioners can only afford to attend continuing education seminars once or twice per year , with many firms relying more on in-house training;
· Limited reading time for busy practitioners working for higher billable hour levels means that academic and other professional research often is unread;
· Formal university study is rare after the initial degree or degrees are earned.
Additionally, the time gap between the collection of data and publication of academic research is often six months or greater. Therefore, although research content is available, timeliness of transfer of knowledge is lagging and a more efficient delivery of information is needed to transmit relevant knowledge. One response to this situation is Tick Marks, an accounting-and-related-issues blog maintained since May, 2005.
An example of the need for a more timely transmission of accounting knowledge would be in the field of tax patents. Though not widely known, the U. S. Patent Office has granted patents for at least one dozen tax planning techniques and practitioners using those techniques could be unknowingly susceptible to legal action. One source of information about tax patents would be Internet weblogs such as Roth CPA Updates (Kristan) and TaxProf (Caron).
By now, you probably are familiar with blogging (also known as weblogs). Blogs started as a means of personal communication similar to a diary; quickly expanded to politics, pop culture, religion and sports; and are becoming more accepted and prevalent as a means of professional contact; in fact, Wyld defines a blog as a “content management tool. Blogging is fairly common in the legal profession, but it is less so in accounting. This article will address:
· Active weblogs written by accountants about accounting, auditing and taxation.
· A summary of related blogging, such as personal finance blogging and tax blogging by attorneys.
· The phenomenon of carnivals
· A listing of several accounting news sites and portals.
· Suggested topics for accountants who are interested in becoming bloggers.
Accounting Blogs
With memories of Enron, Worldcom and other fiascoes fresh in the mind of accountants, it is not surprising that fraud and corporate governance are among the most popular topics of accounting blogs. In the fraud area, Tracy Coenen, a certified public accountant, operates the forensic accounting blog Fraud Files and both administers (oversees) and hosts (provides a web site) the Carnival of Fraud which frequently includes posts about financial and tax fraud. Ex-financial fraud felon Sam Anton, author of White Collar Fraud, points out the dangers of counting on auditors and audit committees with limited “street smarts” to detect fraud. Jack Ciesielski, editor of the Wall Street Journal-acclaimed Analyst’s Accounting Observer (AAO) writes on both fraud and corporate governance and is a worthwhile source on the topic of “backdating.” Both Big 4 Guy (anonymous author) and Corporate Governance (Rhodes) address practice issues related to Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) while the professional organization Financial Executives International (FEI) maintains a blog updating practitioners on new SOX developments.
Accounting practitioners looking to implement best practices in managing and wishing to expand their practices may find BSG Trendlines (Telberg) or CPA Blog: Marketing for Accountants by (Rachford) worth their while. Telberg addresses issues ranging from technology to time management to work-life balance for those wanting a better-managed practice while Rachford concentrates on creative ways to market an accounting firm. Bloggers addressing technology issues in accounting include Tech Gap ( LaFollette) and CPA Firm Technology Blog (Tankersley) —good sites to visit if you are considering the perfect device to improve efficiency or purchasing software. A broader range of accounting topics, including tax and personal finance posts, is available from Tick Marks (author name omitted for blind review). Tick Marks also includes an extensive blogroll for accounting, personal finance and tax blogs plus links to many professional organizations and accounting oversight bodies.
Auditing Blogs by Accountants
Arens, Elder and Beasley cite reduction in information risk as one of the purposes of auditing, but the recent development of blogs may be able to assist in this process.
There are at least three potential ways in which blogs can (and in some cases, do) improve auditing and related financial reporting. They can:
· Be a resource for improving technical skills.
· Increase technological resources available during an audit.
· Augment reporting disclosure, including notes to the financial statements.
Many of these potential means of improvement are in existence, at least to some level. An excellent example of a presently-active blog engaged in providing technical material is Big 4 Guy, which is posted almost daily and provides posts which are both practical and thorough on auditing topics. Presently, no blog exists which frequently explores the interaction of auditing and technology (or even financial reporting and technology) but CPA Firm Technology Blog and Tech Gap have occasionally explored auditing and financial reporting issues in their technology-oriented blogs.
Full disclosure is one of the generally accepted auditing standards and a critical part of satisfactory financial reporting. An interesting development here is the interest shown by SEC Chairman Christopher Cox in allowing blogs to make available corporate financial information so long as the blog is widely available. A number of blogs are already sifting through SEC filings to increase awareness of corporate activities; these include the Analyst’s Accounting Observer (AAO), Found in the Footnotes (Leder), and the 10-Q Detective (Phillips).
Taxation Blogs by Accountants
Two taxation blogs written by CPA practitioners were cited during 2006 by the Wall Street Journal in an article entitled “Blog Watch.” Kerry Kerstetter, who appears to be the only tax blogger with posts prior to 2000, gives tax planning advice, supplemented with numerous accounting and political cartoons, in Tax Guru. Joe Kristan produces Roth CPA Updates which covers a wide range of tax topics ranging from court case analyses to tax law changes to developments in tax protest and tax evasion techniques enhanced with a Midwesterner’s dry wit. Poker-playing CPAs who intend to be the next Chris Moneymaker may want to consult Taxable Talk by tax CPA and poker author Russell Fox; he has posted in detail about gambling winning and taxes while also being quite knowledgeable about tax evasion cases. Eva Rosenberg publishes a weekly column at her Tax Mama website and is a frequent contributor to the Accounting WEB news site; like the Tax Guru, Rosenberg’s columns successfully mix humor with good tax advice. Additional tax humor can be enjoyed at the Taxalicious (anonymous editors) site; additionally, the Taxblogger blog community has been started by the founders of this site.
Taxation Blogs by Non-accountants
Numerous tax and related blogs, created primarily by lawyers, are well worth perusing. TaxProf (Caron) is frequently cited by mega-blog Instapundit (Reynolds) and serves as a reference point for most tax blogging. Joel Schoenmeyer shows that there is more to death than one might think at Death and Taxes. The Erb law firm updates significant administrative and judicial tax developments on their Taxgirl blog. A number of attorney-developed blogs, often in impressive detail, evaluate tax developments from an ideological perspective. These include A Taxing Matter (Beale), Mauled Again (Maule), Start Making Sense (Shaviro), Tax and Business Law Commentary (Levine) and Tax Policy Blog (Tax Foundation).
Not all nonaccountant legal and tax-oriented blogs are provided by attorneys. Journalist Kay Bell posts at the catchy Don’t Mess with Taxes and also organizes the Carnival of Taxes. Michelle Golden publishes Golden Practices, which provides marketing advice for a number of professions, including accountants and attorneys.
Personal Finance Blogs
The number of personal finance blogs has skyrocketed over the last two years—and many of them are quite informative. To avoid being overwhelmed, here are a few suggestions:
· Go to one of the carnivals listed below, pick out two or three posts that particularly impress you and scroll through the remainder of the poster’s blog;
· Visit Tick Marks’ blog which has an annual “Twelve Blogs of Christmas” feature, posted between Thanksgiving and Christmas, which arguably highlights the best in blogging in accounting, personal finance and tax;
· Explore pfblogs, a constantly-updated collection of personal finance blogs, or the Money Blog Network, a community of six well-known personal finance bloggers.
Somewhere between an accounting and a personal finance blog is Found in the Footnotes (Leder), a must-see for those interested in corporate governance and investing insight. Leder is deservedly praised by financial publications such as Business Week, Chicago Sun Times and the Wall Street Journal for digging into financial statement notes and SEC filings. In many cases, she doubtlessly unearths more about corporations than they would like revealed. Moreover, David Phillips now addresses similar issues in 10-Q Detective.
Carnivals
A Carnival is founded when a blogger establishes a regular schedule (usually weekly) where he/she encourages or solicits posts on a specific theme. The development of business-oriented Carnivals started with the Carnival of the Capitalists. In 2005, the Carnival of Personal Finance became the first of a number of personal finance carnivals which also includes the Carnival of Debt Reduction, Festival of Frugality and Carnival of Investing. More accounting-oriented carnivals did not exist until the middle of 2006, then Kay Bell (who also operates Don’t Mess with Taxes) created the Carnival of Taxes and Tracy Coenen (who also operates Fraud Files) started the Carnival of Fraud. Carnivals provide a variety of benefits:
· Provide new bloggers a chance to become recognized
· Enable other bloggers a venue to get their best posts seen
· Permit bloggers to evaluate carnival posts (determine if blogger is worthy of being added to their blogroll)
· Allow readers to gain new insights on fraud, personal finance and/or tax issues.
Sources for Blog Posts and Portals
As is true for political blogs, accounting and related bloggers use a variety of sources. Many bloggers post about items on other accounting or tax blogs, and court case results (especially in tax) are widely used.
Accounting news sites are an important means of improving the flow of new accounting knowledge. Both standard media (such as Business Week or ABC News) and accounting-dedicated media (such as Accounting WEB, Smartpros or WebCPA) may be cited. Professional sites may produce (i.e., Financial Executives International) or link (Association of Governmental Accountants) newsworthy material. Finally, some personal finance bloggers use personal experiences and practice as a source.
News portals can be a useful means of accessing multiple news sites. Tax and accounting
examples include Fairmark (primarily tax) and Tax Sites (name notwithstanding, this site
includes both accounting and tax sites).
So Do You Want to Blog About Accounting?
Come on in, the water’s fine. Even in comparatively crowded areas such as corporate
governance, personal finance and taxation, well-written posts will gain attention and generate blog views. More significantly, there are massive gaps within the accounting blogosphere. At present, there are no active blogs dedicated to governmental or managerial accounting. Many good blogs seem to cease after a short time, which points out one of the considerations in blogging—like dieting, it is easier to start than to persevere. Nevertheless, blogging gives the author an opportunity to gain knowledge about his or her profession, a means to increase the accounting knowledge base and a venue to express himself or herself—Wyld calls this a “raising of self-awareness.” Farrell points out that academic blogs offer the kind of academic excitement that attracts scholars into education and expects blogs to redefine scholarship within the next ten years. For practitioners, CPA Blog: Marketing for Accountants (Rachford) is one of several sources touting the marketing potential of blogging by accountants.
For those who would rather read about than participate in blogging, some additional references on accounting blogs include “CPA Bloggers: Where Are the Accountants?” (Golden), “Would You, Should You, Could You Blog?” (Lang) and “Blog, Blog, Blog” (Telberg). The Lang and Golden articles chronicled active accounting and taxation blogs at the time that the articles were published while Telberg addressed marketing and client education benefits of a blog. Of course, at a minimum, no tour of accounting blogs would be complete without a quick trip to Tick Marks.
References
Accounting WEB (2007)
http://www.accountingweb.com/
Anton, Sam (2007). White Collar Fraud