On October 9th, KPMG became the first Big Four firm to publicly advocate for alternative pathways to CPA licensure that emphasize experience after one earns their bachelor’s degree.
Today, people pursuing a CPA are required to complete 30 additional hours of academic credits after earning their bachelor’s degree, work under the supervision of a CPA for one-year and then pass the CPA exams to be licensed.
Alternative paths would replace the additional 30-hour academic requirement with experience or create work-study programs overseen by businesses that deliver the equivalent or better value. These options would reduce the financial costs of achieving a CPA, while elevating the role of hands-on experience in securing one’s license. As states move forward, we also believe automobility is essential and reforms should aim for the simple over the complex.
We believe this reform will attract more people to the profession, enhance the quality of CPA candidates and build trust in our capital markets.
Explore our answers to five questions to understand our position, the context and actions we are taking to drive positive change.
This issue affects our economy and our capital markets. Corporations, governments and accounting firms of all sizes need accountants to build trust in the financial data that drives corporate strategy, financial investments and more.
We see three dynamics happening today:
Our take: The cost of becoming a CPA is too high, including both the cost expense of the extra education and the opportunity cost of spending an extra year in school. Conversations across the country are a step in the right direction in that they recognize a change is needed, but the details matter, and we need to accelerate action.
Data and technology are fundamentally changing our profession. By having people start working with us earlier, we can accelerate talent development – providing more real-world, hands-on experience with the innovative data and technology capabilities that are increasingly driving the work we do every day. More experience with coaching by practitioners enables a far more prepared candidate for the CPA. (LinkedIn)
As states continue to discuss reforms, we must also avoid a patchwork of licensing requirements that restrict people from working as a CPA across state lines. A CPA should be like a driver’s license. If you're licensed in one state and move to another, you should continue to be able to practice and work without any roadblocks.
We believe preserving mobility is essential and states should quickly adopt automobility provisions so that CPAs can live their life wherever it takes them. Over 19 states are preparing automobility language with safeguards for their 2025 legislative sessions.
This reform is not a quick fix. Our profession must continue to drive progress.
In the past three years, we’ve raised starting salaries 25%, nearly double the rate of inflation.
We’ve also expanded our benefits, lowering employee health care premiums by 10% in 2022, with no change in the benefit levels.
We also replaced our current KPMG 401(k) match and pension programs with a single, automatic firm-funded contribution within the 401(k)-plan equal to 6–8% of eligible W-2 pay.
We are investing $2B+ in artificial intelligence and cloud technologies backed by our Trusted AI framework to reimagine how we work to deliver more value for our clients and protect the capital markets.
All KPMG professionals have access to our Microsoft CoPilot and KPMG Chat, our proprietary GenAI assistant.
In Tax, by equipping our 10,000 Tax professionals with a Tax-specific GenAI tool and the enterprise version of Copilot, we estimate the burden spent on this type of work has been reduced by 10-20% in just one year.
In Audit, a typical KPMG audit uses more than 4X the number of more advanced technology capabilities compared to just three years ago, and we’ve already embedded AI capabilities, including a GenAI assistant, into KPMG Clara, our global smart audit platform.
Compared to 2020, during the traditional busy season (early January – early March), the average weekly hours worked on audit engagements declined by 18%. Moreover, the percentage of people working no hours on the weekend went from 20% to 40% of our practice.
Our firm implements a “energy check-in” program to help employees at risk of burnout course correct. We use self-reported data and internal systems to gauge which employees may be running out of steam. When certain metrics related to the intensity of work veer off compared to the usage of PTO, an employee’s manager gets a prompt to conduct a check-in and discuss a strategy to get back to a better balance.
We invested nearly half-a-billion dollars to build KPMG Lakehouse, our learning, development and innovation facility and cultural home. All new hires attend and gain hands-on learning opportunities with their colleagues.
We executive a wide range of programs at various stages of the CPA journey. See below for examples.
For new hires, our CPA Kickstart program pays them to study for the CPA. Last year, 266 people opted into the two-month, 40-hours-per-week program to prepare for the CPA exam. People of color made up ~40% of total enrollments.
Our Master of Accounting with Data and Analytics (MADA) Program is an award-winning, collaborative, first-of-its-kind program that prepares students to hit the ground running in today's data age by providing specialized skills for practical use of the latest analytics technology needed in the current data-driven accounting environment. We are providing over $7 million in scholarship funding over three years for students to obtain their MADA degree at one of fifteen participating universities, including 4 HBCUs and 2 HSIs.
Empower is a hybrid 3+ week paid program for high school students designed to expose them to public accounting and the professional services industry and administered by our Corporate Impact team. Students are selected for this program through local non-profits the firm collaborates with.
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