Leading Insights Blog

Businesses that operate in the consulting, accounting, auditing, and regulatory industry must learn the capabilities of AI to understand fraud, security risks, and implementation challenges surrounding the use of AI, and in contrast, the benefits and ability to implement its use.

The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year (FY) 2022 established and directed the Commission on Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE) Reform to conduct a comprehensive assessment of all four phases of the PPBE process and recommend improvements with a particular focus on defense modernization.

Federal CFOs are now able respond to Congressional inquiries by leveraging and analyzing historical data in seconds and search large populations of financial transactions for anomalies indicating the risk of fraud. AI provides for this reality.

When management of a user entity receives a SOC 1® report from its service organization, it is important that management tasked with the review, analysis, and interpretation is well-equipped and informed to perform an effective review, incorporating the results of that SOC 1® report into the internal controls at the user entity.

As agencies continue to invest and transition to cloud computing, it is important to understand the cloud, security implications, and how it impacts an audit.

Effective October 1, 2023, the Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board redefined lease reporting requirements through the issuance of Statement of Federal Financial Accounting Standards (SFFAS) No. 54, Leases, as amended.

The success of an IT system transformation is dependent on the commitment and stability of program leadership and a continuity of knowledge of key program personnel. Federal agencies can easily spend multiple years, even decades, working to transform critical systems or migrate.

An adaptive data governance framework is necessary to keep pace with the rapid advancement of AI and automation tools. Agencies can mitigate the unique and unprecedented risks associated with these new technologies through a continuously evolving data governance framework that is tailored to the entity to ensure the appropriate stewardship of data, accountability, and privacy.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Special Publication (SP) 800-37, Revision (Rev.) 2, Risk Management Framework for Information Systems and Organizations: A System Life Cycle Approach for Security and Privacy, provides agencies with guidelines and a framework for authorizing information systems to operate.

This is a reprint of an article that appeared in the July 2024 AFERM Newsletter. Integration, as it relates to the maturity of agencies’ Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) programs, has been a hot topic recently. According to the Chief Financial Officer’s (CFO) Council and Performance Improvement Council (PIC), Playbook: Enterprise Risk Management in the U.S. Federal Government (ERM Playbook), “Successful integration of ERM into agencies’ day to day decision-making and management practices enables agencies to leverage opportunities and avoid, mitigate, and transfer risk, resulting in more resilient, effective, and efficient programs.”

This is a reprint of an article that appeared in the Winter 2024 issue of the AGA Journal. It previews AGA’s 2023 IG and State Auditor Survey, which was sponsored by Kearney. The full Survey will publish in February 2024.

The world’s business environments are constantly changing, and technology gives today’s accountants a chance to break free from the confines of their traditional roles. Tomorrow’s accountants could be beacons for transformative change, resulting in positive impact for their organization and clients.

The emergence of conversational AI has heralded a new era in human-computer interaction, transcending the boundaries of what was once thought possible.

Innovation forces the workforce to grow and adapt, not only to meet changing legislation and emerging requirements, but also because leadership and accountants alike must take action to reskill current employees on applications and technologies to maintain relevancy. Innovation will continue to drive the future of the accountant’s position. Ultimately, the institutional and technical knowledge accountants hold will have to be harnessed to couple new technology appropriately and keep resources upskilled on day one.

With malicious actors becoming more sophisticated in exploiting various attack avenues, along with organizations adopting new technology to meet business needs, the attack surface has become exponentially larger. This makes it much more difficult to just defend organizational assets through a defense-in-depth approach.