PATHWAY TO CPA

After taking Principles of Accounting her sophomore year in college, Brianne Smith fell in love with accounting. More specifically, she discovered her passion for individual finances and specialty tax. “I didn’t even know it was a thing,” she joked. Which is exactly why, according to Smith, getting students introduced to the profession early is key. 

Smith’s career as a CPA began in public accounting, doing specialized low income housing tax credit audits. After a few years, an opportunity in the state trust department presented itself - and that’s when the wheels really began to turn. Fourteen years later the assistant provost from a local college asked her if she knew anyone that was interested in teaching. 

“I’ve always, in the back of my mind, thought, ‘I would love to teach. I’d love to go get my PhD.’ So, that actually started the conversation,” said Smith. And with that, she stumbled upon her second passion - teaching. 

“At the time I had three little kids and it was the best ‘mommy schedule’ you could possibly think of,” said Smith. “But when I got into it, I was really surprised that I didn’t feel like I was busy enough. I was teaching two hours a day, I had all summer off.” Cue third passion - Brianne C. Smith, CPA, LLC.

“I started my practice in 2016, just to do some big projects,” she said. “Financial planning projects, and then also business valuations.”

GIVING BACK TO THE PROFESSION

Smith currently serves on the AICPA Personal Financial Planning Executive Committee, and is in year one of her three-year term.

“I’ve been interested in serving on this committee for quite some time, because it really does make all the things I do makes sense,” said Smith. “I teach in an accounting program, but my PhD is in financial planning.”

The goal of this committee is to help provide resources (Figure 1.11) to practitioners interested in expanding their practice, but also to educate students that this pathway is an option. 

“We also believe it is a draw to people being interested in being CPAs, because a lot of people would like to work with individuals in a different way - other than preparing tax returns.” 

For Smith, the existence of an actual section in the AICPA that’s dedicated to CPA financial planners means they are preparing for CPA Evolution. The Tax Compliance and Planning (TCP) setion of the Uniform CPA Examination tests the knowledge and skills that nICPAs must demonstrate. 

“I’m part of this group of amazing leaders who’ve been doing this for a long time,” said Smith. “Pushing through and trying to grow awareness of this pathway, and also making wonderful resources for people like me who want to expand their tax practice into adding financial planning into an existing tax practice.”

THE PIPELINE 

“One myth is that if you pick the accounting track, you’ll be expected to sit behind a desk,” said Smith. 

When it comes to discussing the traditional idea of pipeline, Smith thinks long term. “This is why I think the CPA exam is changing, too, because we’re moving away from being either audit or tax. Instead, we’re really moving more towards solutions.”

“If we have a client who’s really struggling with something, and they’re calling us constantly about one particular problem,” she said, “instead of spending more time helping them fix the problem, we try to find a technology solution to fix the problem and integrate it into what they already have.” 

“I guess you could say I’m not chasing a billable hour for a particular pay, and the hours in my day are not capping the possibilities,” said Smith.

As a college professor Smith is always surprised at the number of students who stumble upon accounting through an elective, or a required course late in their curriculum, and then think to themselves, “Ah! I like this! I wish I had know.”

“I always ask, ‘Who like money?’”said Smith. “And when you say, ‘You get to be a trusted advisor. I shut these doors and people spill their guts. They tell me everything. And you have to keep it to yourself and help people through their problems. A lot of these are related to their financial decisions, but not all of them.’ They really like that trusted advisor piece.”

As Smith points out, people have left the workforce recently because they have figured out how to make their own money being entrepreneurs.

“I think it’s really motivating to students to say, ‘Hey, accounting is a really great way to learn how to be an entrepreneur, and then advise other entrepreneurs,’” said Smith. “They also really like that it’s going to show them how to grow their own wealth and build their own net worth.”

As much as the profession, and the world around the profession, is changing, Smith says the students give her energy and keep her and her research current. 

“Practicing feeds the teaching,” said Smith. “It gives me the stories, the case studies.”-

“I feel like I can’t do one without the other.”