Welcome to DCPA21! We are thrilled to be back together with this innovative community of practitioners! Join us at 2pm CT as we kick off the start of the main conference.

Learn how to equip your organization and deliver what your clients most want and need as George Blankenship conveys animated stories of challenge, strategy and demonstrated results. How far do you need to go to change the way people think and act? With 30 years of strategy, retail and real estate experience, the former Tesla and Apple executive believes in order to develop brand loyalty and earn the trust of clients, organizations must first dedicate themselves to understanding the client experience.

Blankenship captivates audiences and energizes them with the tools they need to remove barriers to innovation, deliver outstanding experiences, and create a culture of service excellence. His high-energy presentation inspires audiences to rethink the challenges that face leaders in a modern market and develop groundbreaking, client-centric strategies that will transform and elevate organizations into global icons.

The accounting and finance profession has always adapted during unprecedented times, and we are riding the momentum of our successes to leverage change to seize new opportunities. Together, the profession is taking steps to continue evolving and growing so we can thrive in the future. In this Profession Update, AICPA President & CEO Barry Melancon will explore the ways the accounting profession is adapting and thriving to lead the way in a complex world.

In a tech-driven world and business environment of accelerating change and increasing complexity, the ability to see and think like a futurist offers a growing strategic advantage. But “embracing the future” in business has too often meant succumbing to endless hype cycles, techno babble & wishful thinking. We offer a practical alternative: a solutions-oriented grounding in futures-thinking that cuts through the hype and gives leaders the tools to identify emerging opportunities/threats and to understand the future as a dynamic space for experimentation and learning.

We combine principles and practices from the worlds of strategic foresight, social entrepreneurship, tech innovation, and design to create a unique introduction to envisioning the future and learning how to seize it.

MIT economist David Autor dives in to how machines and humans will work side-by-side. His research goes beyond theory, it identifies evolutionary trends in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) advancements to pinpoint the augmentation that is taking place. Do new technologies automate tasks and eliminate jobs – or do they augment human skills and create new work? The answer is YES! It is the and, not or.

Autor breaks down how accounting & finance professionals will move up the value chain, identifies the new work that machines create, and explores how we have been automating ourselves for 200+ years. This session will clearly define what makes us more productive and which systems to capitalize on.

For over 2 decades the profession has been trying to solve the staffing question. As firm leaders are exploring the impact of flex work schedules and technology like RPA and AI augmenting the skills of our team, it is time to reframe the productivity question. In place of focusing on how to get more staff onboard to do more work, we should look at the structure and make up of our teams. What roles do technology play? What positions can be filled by non-accounting professionals? Where do we use bots and fractual staffing to level the peaks and valleys of busy seasons? Join this session to discuss these questions, and hear many other perspectives to reframe the productivity question of the 21st century.

Auditing has been digitized with the advent of paperless and cloud technology. Now it is time for a digital transformation. Some in the profession are developing a new vision of what auditing looks like. Remote audits are one aspect, but what about when it goes beyond that? In this session, we will discuss how the traditional team structure can change by leveraging technology, specialized skills, and preparing for continuous auditing opportunities. Join the discussion on leading the way to a new audit of the future, and where to begin.

In this session, we will examine the four levels of Gartner’s financial analytics maturity model and how to grow into higher value advisory services using this framework. Learn how financial planning and analysis (FP&A) technology can help firms deliver a full range of advisory services from: analytics to financial modeling (forecasting and budgeting), to strategic business planning for scaling your practice, to deepening client relationships, and growing revenue.

As advisors, we strive to improve our clients’ businesses with the financials we provide them. Yet many of us still spend the majority of our time calculating ratios and creating spreadsheets manually. This doesn’t leave the necessary amount of time in our day to advise our clients on how to improve their financial results at a holistic level. Business Intelligence (BI) and data analytics are invaluable tools for client advisors to gain insight and foresight. However, without digging into the numbers, your advisory clients still may feel they are not getting what they need from you. We can learn to create the value that our clients desire by clearly communicating and analyzing the meaning of financial data in a way that helps them succeed and thrive.

During this session, be ready to learn from best in class vendors on how to dig into their KPI and Dashboard data in combination with Amy Vetter, CPA to help you learn how to take your advisory services to the next level with the communication techniques that will differentiate you from your peers. Be prepared to interact. We will generate questions you need to ask during an advisory engagement using the insights and analytics generated from automating these calculations through technology. Once we change how we create and deliver analytics, we can lift our value to our advisory clients as a strategic, highly valued partner whom they can’t imagine living without.

Deloitte's 2020 global intelligent automation survey found 94% of global executives have started implementing robotic process automation (RPA) or will in the next 3 years. RPA can perform as a team member for rules based processes. As firms are performing back office functions for businesses, or consulting businesses on streamlining their accounting and finance functions, RPA should be part of the discussion. In this session, panelists will discuss the differences between using API and RPA to automate, as well as, how these tools get us closer to the zero day close. You will hear how RPA is becoming more accessible to firms of all sizes and not just firms with extensive technology teams.

Cryptocurrency is hitting mainstream conversations, so it is no wonder valuations and reporting are emerging as services across the profession. Along with increased awareness and interest in cryptocurrency comes new use cases and applications. In this session, we will review updates in this field over the last year and discuss what is on the horizon for uses and accounting services to support the growth. Practitioners and consultants working in this niche space will share their point of view and how the profession should prepare to meet clients' cryptocurrency needs.