Over the last century, the accounting profession has marked many milestones that changed the way CPAs delivered services to clients or enhanced an association with their employers. Just in the last several years, the AICPA has established an ongoing process to generate new assurance services.

The Special Committee on Assurance Services, chaired by Bob Elliott, designed and helped implement a new set of programs to identify the assurance needs of customers and develop services that meet those needs. The process was entirely consistent with what the AICPA’s Vision Project calls for, and both are oriented toward the marketplace and toward the future. And both consider the capabilities of CPAs and how they can be more productively and profitably applied.

Connecting With Member Needs
Potential revenues for the US profession are estimated to be at least $1 billion for each of the six assurance services developed by Elliott’s committee, which include Risk Assessment, Business Performance Measurement, Information Systems Reliability, Electronic Commerce, Health Care Performance Measurement, and CPA ElderCare. To identify these services the committee studied the needs of customers and potential customers and evaluated the effect of long-term trends on those needs. This was followed by detailed business plans and recommendations on how CPAs can meld these services into their own practices. The committee also designed and supplied content to the AICPA Web site and the pages on assurance services, located at http://www.aicpa.org/assurance/index.htm.

The Assurance Services Executive Committee is dedicated to continuing the work of service identification Elliott’s special committee began. And while assurance services are primarily for members in practice, the industry sector’s Center for Excellence in Financial Management enhances its members’ focus in providing services to an employer. "These two categories cover the vast majority of our members, and each segment is receiving a business-oriented response to their needs," says Elliott.

Elliott, a partner with KPMG in New York City and 1998-99 vice chair of AICPA’s Board of Directors, believes the time devoted to this project was well-spent, not only because of the opportunities for new revenues, but because it helped establish a renewed customer focus among the membership and a refreshed relationship between the AICPA and its members.

"The process we established puts the AICPA in the role of generating revenue opportunities for members. That’s quite different from the role not so long ago of setting limits on what members can do. The Institute still sets limits, and they’re important. We have an ethics code that is at the heart of our professionalism. But we’re also helping members to adapt to the marketplace more directly than at any time I can remember, and the Vision Project should ensure that the process is enlarged and permanent," he says.

A Precursor to the Vision
The Vision Project has a life of its own, Elliott makes clear. But he also believes the work done by the assurance services special committee foreshadowed the Vision Project’s efforts to turn the attention of thousands of CPAs toward the marketplace and the future.

"The Vision Project was able to piggy-back on top of the work done in assurance services, and although the new assurance services don’t cover the entire waterfront of what our members do, you can see in the general methods we used to reach our conclusions similar methods applied in the Vision Project."

Elliott explains that the committee did quite a bit of outreach work with speeches, videos, articles and seminars around the country, and as a result, the committee’s messages began to be understood by members across the country.

"When we came together with the Vision Project, the ground already was fertilized," says Elliott. "The Vision was able to get much further and go much faster than it would have if it had started from scratch."

What’s next for the new services? The committee identified many more than the six for which it developed business plans. They may be taken up by the Assurance Services Executive Committee, which will identify still more as it continues its work.

"We also are seeing a great deal of interest and cooperation from professionals in other countries, such as the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants. Working with these other groups will only enhance our members’ own initiatives and that too will contribute to fulfilling the Vision," Elliott says.