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Ed Barnicott

“We are gearing up with the AICPA to start the next practice analysis and we are asking for the Boards’ permission to use Accountancy Licensee Database information to gather the pool of newly licensed CPAs to participate in the surveys and focus groups,” Ed Barnicott, NASBA Vice President – Strategic Planning and Program Management, announced at the Executive Directors’ conference. He assured the Boards that the information would not be used without their permission. The initial draft results from the practice analysis are expected to be completed by the end of 2019 and released for public comment.

The Board of Examiners has announced the practice analysis will focus on two areas:
1. The impact of the technology revolution (e.g., audit data analytics, automation, etc.) on the required knowledge and skills of newly licensed CPAs engaged in core services to protect the public interest.
2.Areas of Exam content that may no longer be required. This work will be informed by a prioritization exercise of each section’s areas, groups, and topics to better focus on knowledge and skills required of a newly-licensed CPA.

The AICPA Exams Team plans to release the results of the practice analysis in a December 2019 research paper. To prevent delays in implementing Exam updates, Board of Examiners Chair Jeffrey Hoops and AICPA Vice President -Examinations Michael A. Decker have requested the State Boards and CPA Societies make plans now to meet in the first quarter of 2020 in order to provide feedback on the research paper by March 31, 2020.