President and CEO, AICPA (and CEO, Association of International Certified Professional Accountants), American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA)
433. Ramp Wants to Be the Federal Spend Card, Interview with Mark Koziel | The Accounting Podcast
Could you spend years earning your CPA license only to be told you can't use it? In this episode, Mark Koziel, president of the AICPA, joins Blake and David to discuss the shocking trend of firms prohibiting CPAs from identifying themselves as such in emails, on business cards, and even on LinkedIn. Blake and David also explore the economic uncertainty created by Trump's tariff policies, with major corporations cutting costs and delaying investments. Plus, learn about Republican plans to eliminate the PCAOB, the wave of states creating alternative CPA pathways, and why Ramp could become the fe...
About Mark Koziel
Mark Koziel, CEO of the AICPA and the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants, appeared on the podcast "Everything CPA and Private Equity" in June 2024, recorded at the AICPA ENGAGE conference. He discussed the profession's talent shortage, describing it as an "unstoppable" cliff, noting that the number of students graduating each year is lower than the number of CPAs retiring. He argued that firms need to find new ways to operate in response to this trend. Koziel also addressed the role of AI in accounting, stating that CPAs have the opportunity to manage controls over AI for their companies and to serve as finance partners helping business leaders ensure AI outputs are appropriate for decision-making. He mentioned that the AICPA is building a "simulator" for training new professionals, which he said would be scalable to firms of all sizes.
Transcript (67 segments)
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Blake Oliver0:11
Hello everyone and welcome back to the show. You're listening to the accounting podcast, your weekly news roundup of news in the profession. I'm Blake Oliver and I'm David Liry. And David, I'm very excited. Today we have a special guest. Mark Koziel, president of the AICPA, is joining us to talk about private equity telling accounting firms or rather telling their staff not to use their CPA license or to advertise themselves as CPAs in email, business cards, and on LinkedIn. The AICPA reached out and offered Mark on the show. So we'll be talking to him about that. But first, let's get to the news. David, what is top of mind for you this week?
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David Liry1:01
A story about RAMP. RAMP wants to be the spend card for the federal government and may have an inside track to become that.
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Blake Oliver1:12
Wow, that would be big for accounting tech. Yeah.
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David Liry1:14
An article about a PE company. Instead of PE buying a firm, a PE company is spending $300 million to create an accounting firm from scratch, aiming to compete with the big four.
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Blake Oliver1:28
That's the plan. That is the plan. Wow.
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David Liry1:30
We've got Texas and Tennessee passing legislation creating alternatives to the traditional five-year education, eliminating the 150-hour rule. Also a draft bill in Congress to eliminate the PCAOB, which was rumored under the first Trump administration. The IRS acting commissioner was replaced for the fifth time in less than 100 days.
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Blake Oliver2:10
So for the last few news items: a power struggle between Musk and Bessant over the IRS commissioner; Republicans floating a millionaire tax; tariff lawsuits; Tesla bumping non-GAAP earnings by emitting a crypto loss; firms using AI reporting higher revenue; the cost to replace a pope.
Welcome to all our live stream viewers. If you have thoughts on the stories, put them in the comments. Subscribe to the accounting podcast on YouTube. Before we get into the news, let's thank our sponsors: OnPay, BlueVine, Cloud Accountant Staffing, and Robo Debit.
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David Liry4:02
And so you'll be hearing from those sponsors later. Let's kick off with the RAMP story. Ramp wants to take over spend management for the federal government. Currently, the government uses Smart Pay, a program with contracts held by Citibank and US Bank, allowing $700 billion in spending. Doge recently turned off spending by setting limits to a dollar. In January 2017, RAMP published an efficiency formula blog post that sounded like a Doge test balloon. RAMP's executives have met with top GSA appointees, likely due to ties to Peter Thiel, Joshua Kushner, and other Trump supporters. In March 2025, the GSA opened a $25 million pilot request for information for only seven business days, seeming already decided in RAMP's favor. The blog post even mocked up a dashboard.gov site. RAMP's pitch uses the metaphor of out-of-control startup spending, and they argue that Medicare, Medicaid, and SBA fraud are drag baskets wasting 7.9% of the government's budget. They propose a centralized vendor procurement but bypassed that process themselves, which is ironic.
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Blake Oliver11:40
Well, right now there are multiple procurement systems across the federal government that don't talk to each other. Having all that data in one place could reduce waste. But my concern is that RAMP has no government experience, and this could be a distraction for their private sector customers.
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David Liry12:36
Probably likely yes.
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Blake Oliver12:39
Let's thank our first sponsor, OnPay. Forbes and CNBC rank OnPay number one for small business payroll. It's easy to use with outstanding service. Visit accountingpodcast.promo/onpay to learn more.
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David Liry13:48
Thanks, OnPay. Let's talk now about the PCAOB and Republican plans to scrap it. Republican lawmakers have proposed eliminating the PCAOB, folding its responsibilities into the SEC.
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Blake Oliver14:12
So this is something different: the PCAOB is funded by a tax on public companies. It's a nonprofit created after Enron. It has had a big impact on auditors. Anyone who hasn't listened should hear our interview with Christina Hoe, an independent board member. The PCAOB under Chair Erica Williams has taken a more activist approach with tougher standards and record fines, though fines are small relative to audit fees. There's draft legislation in Congress. The reasoning for elimination is unclear.
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David Liry16:01
The argument is that it costs $400-500 million a year and what has it accomplished? Audit failures are not getting better. Would it prevent another Enron? If an agency can't defend itself, it's on the chopping block.
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Blake Oliver16:53
Seems like perfect timing. The last recession exposed Ponzi schemes. If we get rid of the PCAOB, we might not discover collapses until it's too late.
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David Liry17:42
We might find out sooner with tariffs causing companies to cut costs. Major corporations are implementing cost-cutting measures due to unpredictable tariffs. There's chaos: 10% global reciprocal tariffs suspended until July 9th, country-specific tariffs delayed, China tariffs at 145% with transit exemptions until May 27th. Companies are not doing layoffs yet but are delaying investments and cutting travel. Examples: DAO delaying a plant, Norfolk Southern scrutinizing consultant fees, Boston Scientific cutting travel, Hasbro cutting $175-225 million. The AICPA poll with Harris found a third of adults are scared about finances, 27% delayed major purchases, 57% think things are too expensive.
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Blake Oliver22:39
Another layer of uncertainty: lawsuits over tariffs. A coalition of 12 states sued Trump under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, arguing he bypassed Congress. Can persistent trade deficits count as a national emergency? Small companies are also filing lawsuits.
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David Liry24:24
An interesting tariff story: Pepsi vs Coke. Pepsi moved concentrate production to Ireland for tax benefits, now subject to 10% tariff, while Coke manufactures in Atlanta and Puerto Rico, giving them an advantage. I sympathize with finance and accounting folks who can't forecast with this uncertainty.
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Blake Oliver26:29
Exactly. The problem with tariffs as a negotiating tool is the uncertainty. Even if tariffs don't happen, businesses pause spending and slow the economy. Levi Strauss is more exposed than Wrangler; Crest may have advantage over Colgate.
Let's thank our second sponsor, BlueVine. BlueVine offers banking built for small businesses with competitive APY, no monthly fees, and tools like sub-accounts and automated AP. Accountants get a free upgraded plan and bonuses for referrals. Visit accountingpodcast.promo/bluevine.
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David Liry28:35
The IRS has a new acting commissioner, Michael Falander, the fifth in less than 100 days. Previous commissioner Gary Shapely was installed at Elon Musk's urging without Treasury Secretary Bessant's knowledge. The new nominee Billy Long, a former House representative, faces delays due to associations with ERC mills. He used recent campaign donations to repay himself $130,000 from a failed Senate campaign, which looks suspicious.
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Blake Oliver30:00
Billy Long's campaign suddenly received nearly $137,000 after Trump announced him as IRS pick, despite raising little before. Democrats are raising concerns, slow-rolling his nomination. It's not great for the IRS to lack stable leadership.
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David Liry32:02
A private equity firm, Warburg Pincus, is investing $300 million to launch a new accounting firm called Unity Advisory in June 2025, led by former EY and PWC executives. They aim to challenge the big four by focusing on midsized private equity-backed companies, offering tax, consulting, and M&A, but no audit. They plan to hire big four alumni. I wonder what this will do to the talent shortage.
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Blake Oliver34:40
Let's talk about the new alternative CPA pathways, and then we'll get to the Mark Koziel interview. But first, thank our third sponsor, Cloud Accountant Staffing. They help you hire full-time team members in the Philippines. How much would your firm...
Change or for that matter your life if you could add 40, 80, 120 hours of capacity to your firm in 2025? Cloud Accountant Staffing was founded by a firm owner who grew his firm using offshore talent. Now he is applying everything he learned to help you grow your firm. If your firm needs expert bookkeepers, accountants, CPAs, or virtual assistants, head over to accountingpodcast.promocas. That's accountingpodcast.promocas, promo SLC. And now a bit of brief news about the CPA pipeline. Tennessee has passed a law creating a new path to CPA licensure. This initiative was supported by the Tennessee Society of CPAs. It basically mirrors other states implementing similar measures to expand the CPA pipeline. They are going from 150 semester hours of college education to an alternative 120 semester hours including a bachelor's degree plus two years of accounting experience. The coursework needs to include an accounting concentration as determined by the Tennessee state board. The legislation also includes CPA practice mobility provisions so that CPAs can practice across state lines. Current and future CPAs who don't have a principal place of business in Tennessee will be able to practice in the state if they hold a valid CPA license in good standing from another state and at the time of licensure showed evidence of having passed the uniform CPA exam.
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David Liry37:03
And to save a lot of time, Texas, everything Blake just said, but put Texas in front of it as well. And then I don't know if we talked about this last time, but Indiana also did it. Did we talk about Indiana?
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Blake Oliver37:15
It's hard to lose track. There's so many states now. We're pushing 14 or 15 I think.
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David Liry37:20
Now it's becoming a significant amount.
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Blake Oliver37:26
Yes, we're getting close to that 30 states that we've heard about that were considering it or doing it. They're all doing it. They're getting it done. Um, I guess one more thing before we get to Mark Koziel, the millionaire tax idea.
Which just kind of blows my mind that Republicans are talking about raising taxes on the wealthy. I saw two headlines: Republicans and Trump were for it, and then another headline that maybe Trump's against it because he thinks everybody's going to move out of the country. Please fill me in on this because I saw conflicting headlines.
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David Liry38:11
I did too. Well, sometimes that happens with Trump, right? He expresses different opinions and they get taken in different ways. He told Time magazine that he loves the concept of higher taxes on millionaires, but he worries that it could hurt him politically.
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Blake Oliver38:30
So what is this change? It would be a new 40% tax bracket for those earning more than $1 million annually. The tax could generate $400 billion in revenue over a decade.
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David Liry38:45
And Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has also said that everything is on the table regarding the tax bill, but Republicans in Congress may not be so excited about it. So we'll see if this happens. It would give Trump flexibility in his other tax cuts he wants to do, like making tips tax exempt.
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Blake Oliver39:09
But he's worried about his political future. He only has one term left. It's not like he can rerun. The members of Congress who might vote for this should fear. But this is his legacy run. It doesn't matter what he does. He's not rerunning. At least some people believe he's going to try to rerun, but in general he's not. Whatever he implements is it. He has no political loss happening in the future. Other than his members, you know, David, never say never with Trump.
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David Liry39:38
Right. That's true. I remember when it was inconceivable that he would have a second term and yet here we are. The man defies expectations. Let's just put it that way.
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Blake Oliver39:52
All right. Let's get to Mark Koziel. And sorry we didn't get to this thing about firms using AI reporting higher revenue. I'll get into the details next time. And we'll talk about Tesla next time as well. So without further ado, here is Mark Koziel, president of the AICPA. Hello everyone. Welcome back to the show. Today we're joined by Mark Koziel who became the CEO of the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants this January after leading Allinial Global. Mark, welcome to the show.
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Mark Koziel40:30
Thanks for having me guys.
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Blake Oliver40:34
So Mark, one of our listeners sent us a message and said there's this private equity firm that bought a big accounting firm. That's nothing new. I think something like 11 of the top 30 accounting firms in the US have now taken private equity money. But this particular firm is doing something interesting. They are telling their CPAs not to hold themselves out as CPAs in emails with clients, not to put their CPA in email signatures, not to put it on any documentation with clients, and also shockingly not to call themselves CPAs on LinkedIn. I posted this on LinkedIn and it created quite a stir. A lot of CPAs are not very happy with this policy and critical of private equity for making that happen. It might be your most viewed LinkedIn post ever. I think hundreds of thousands of views and comments. People have a lot of opinions about this. Like 145,000 in a week, which is a lot of accountants. We've got what, 660,000 CPAs? So that's a pretty good chunk. I want to get your take on this, Mark. What do you think about this situation with private equity telling CPAs not to be CPAs?
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Mark Koziel42:05
So it hasn't started with the private equity firms. This has actually been around for a number of years. We've heard those rumors in the Big Four for a period of time, but I think it's starting to become more of an issue. And I don't know that it's the private equity firm per se. We had our regional council meetings where we split up our AICPA governing council into four quadrants and we went to New York, Chicago, LA, Dallas. It came up in New York and it was actually one of the state societies that raised their hand and said the private equity firms are telling their alternative practice structure people not to put CPA on their email or on LinkedIn. They naturally assumed it was the private equity firm driving that, but it actually was the legal team. And why that's become so fresh is because we've had APS for a long time, but the current issue gets into this whole issue around changing the additional pathway to CPA and mobility. One of the firms in the room that is backed by private equity said it was actually because they have offices in Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, and they are afraid of getting tripped up in some issue around mobility. If I'm a CPA but not recognized in another state, what does that look like? So there are a lot of driving forces. To say it's private equity telling the firm what to do isn't necessarily what's happening. It may be in some and not all. But to me it is problematic. First and foremost, I'm incredibly proud that I have the CPA. Coming from a blue-collar family, it was important for me to get that education. One thing I told the council members is, 'Look, there is one thing I can guarantee: I will never pass that exam again.' So you could take those three letters out of my cold dead hands because I am incredibly proud of it. I do think we are doing a disservice to our young professionals by telling them it's important to pass the exam, but by the way, you can't call yourself a CPA. So we are looking at some things. What can we do to better understand this? How do we work with the state boards? Because there is a lot of confusion. If I don't put it on my business card, am I still subject to the CPA rules because I'm still licensed? There's a lot to it.
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Blake Oliver45:11
No, that's fine. So to summarize, it sounds like it's the legal teams in these firms that are saying don't have your CPAs hold out as CPAs. And why are they doing that? They're afraid of any type of liability concerns, especially crossing over state lines. Are you properly licensed in the states in which you're doing business? It's easy in tax to cross over state lines when you have a corporate tax return that happens to be in five states. Are you appropriately licensed in all five states? We don't see it as much in audit and insurance because typically you see different scenarios. But again, some firms may be doing it in audit and we haven't seen it yet. It only seemed to be on the advisory side that people were concerned about it.
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Mark Koziel46:07
My example is how I do my license. I'm licensed in North Carolina. I was originally licensed in New York and transferred my license to North Carolina when I moved here in 2006. Now I have just a North Carolina license. After my signature, you'll see that I have CPA and then North Carolina and my license number. I think that's enough. But we really need to better understand the rules and do a better job of communicating that to the profession so that people understand what it means. We are going to have more conversations with some of the firms to try to figure that out.
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Blake Oliver46:55
It's true that this is not new. More listeners reached out after I posted this and said actually this is happening at my firm. This has been the policy at Deloitte for years and it's not like Deloitte has taken private equity money. They actually have a formal policy that tells their CPAs not to advertise themselves as CPAs, not to use it in emails, and also on social media. It says CPAs in licensed Deloitte US firms are prohibited from holding out as a CPA on social media sites including LinkedIn, email signatures, business cards, stationery, building directories, telephone listings, and other such directories. CPAs in unlicensed Deloitte firms, the alternative practice structure firms, are prohibited from holding out as a CPA in any matter. But if you are in a licensed CPA firm at Deloitte, you are permitted to hold out as a CPA in resumes, proposals, engagement letters, and other communications for distribution to the public, clients, or potential clients, and the materials must reference the state or jurisdiction in which you are licensed. So we have this situation. This is the official policy. It's policy number 07 in their documentation. They are telling their CPAs not to use CPA on LinkedIn, social media, anywhere, business cards, emails, but you can do it if you're doing an engagement letter or a proposal. So help me understand this, Mark. It just seems wild that one of the largest accounting firms in the country is telling people, 'Yeah, you got to go get your CPA to work here, but once you do have it, we don't want you using it for anything except proposals.'
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Mark Koziel48:51
I think it highlights the confusion in the marketplace, and that's where we need better answers. We need to make sure that the rules of engagement are appropriate for folks to hold out. Why is it that other businesses out there seem to value the CPA more than our own profession at times? When H&R Block wants to advertise that they have CPAs on staff to help their customers, we need better answers. We need to work with the state boards and figure out why there is confusion and how to better answer that.
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Blake Oliver49:33
And is this legal risk all hypothetical or there?
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Mark Koziel49:38
Great question. I'm not a lawyer to opine or deny what the legal risk may be. Lawyers are there to minimize risk as much as possible. We just need to make sure that as a profession we're showing up the way we need to in the marketplace.
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Blake Oliver49:57
So there's the idea that this is being pushed by the legal teams to protect the firm from people thinking they're working with a CPA when they're not. But one of the more cynical takes on social media is that firms like Deloitte and all the big firms are offshoring and outsourcing, using unlicensed accountants, and they don't want their clients knowing they're not always working with a CPA. So if you just tell everyone not to say you're a CPA, then clients will assume everybody they work with is a CPA. What's your take on that, Mark?
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Mark Koziel50:44
I will say that the non-use of CPA happened far before India outsourcing happened. So I don't know that that is necessarily the fact that started that. I was in India last January visiting with our member firms and the India office of US firms. Many of them are licensed there and looking to get licensed as a US CPA or an India CA. Also, when I as a senior or a new associate at a firm am not licensed, we don't have that issue. A lot of the work is being handled for capacity reasons in other countries. I don't know that a client is going to say, 'That person who sent out our accounts receivable confirmations aren't CPAs? I'm going to fire that firm.' They haven't replaced CPA for CPA. Many firms do not require the CPA until manager, and some firms have relaxed that. Smaller firms have softened those rules. So I can't equate one to the other based on that.
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Blake Oliver52:25
So the way private equity tends to do these deals with these alternative practice structures is you take a traditional CPA firm and split it into two entities. You have a non-CPA entity that does everything but attest work and audit work, and then the original CPA firm, much smaller now, that just does that. But they share the same name, the same website. They're almost indistinguishable to anyone who doesn't know. There are disclaimers everywhere, but it's not something most people would ever be aware of. So from a legal perspective, this move is that we've got these two entities and there are rules about when you can hold yourself out as a CPA to avoid confusion. So it seems like the legal teams are basically saying, 'If we hold ourselves out as CPAs, the public might think they're getting services from a CPA firm when they're not.' So isn't that a public protection issue?
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Mark Koziel54:03
Well, the question is always based on what the rules of engagement are state by state. The states require that CPA firms are 51% owned by CPAs. That's where the alternative practice structure was created. This is not new, not private equity exclusive. It was created back in the late 90s, early 2000s with public companies. Public protection is always paramount. The disclaimers are there. Even EY was going to split into two organizations between audit and an alternative practice structure. These are today's rules of engagement. The firms are talking to their clients about the two structures and how they operate separately and together. It's not like they are hiding things from their clients. What we see from a website perspective may be different from how those conversations happen on a client-by-client basis.
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Blake Oliver55:49
So what is the AICPA doing about this to protect the value of the CPA? I, as an individual, spend a lot of time getting licensed. Then I go work for a firm that tells me, 'Sorry, you can't hold yourself out as a CPA because we've got this alternative practice structure and we don't want liability.' What is the AICPA doing to protect my right to call myself a CPA?
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Mark Koziel56:21
We're getting with the firms now. This is relatively new. Keep in mind, I'm on day number 115. I love all the AICPA comments about what we're up to. It is a focal point of mine. I have a number of meetings with a variety of firms. I believe we can have good discussions, get a better understanding, get the state boards more involved, and come up with a solution that's right for people to want to be a CPA and also be able to hold out as a CPA. It has already started, but it's early and will take a lot of conversation.
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Blake Oliver57:10
I mean, is this a threat to the AICPA itself? Eventually, if enough accountants are at firms and they tell them not to use their CPA anywhere, the next thing is why should I even maintain my CPA and pay for my AICPA membership? This is a threat, right?
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Mark Koziel57:24
Ultimately, I don't worry as much about the threat to the AICPA as I do the profession and the public. I grew up as an auditor. I spent 12 years in public accounting, three years in industry before my first at the AICPA. I had great audit clients in Buffalo, which was Main Street America to me. As a firm, we expanded services because we couldn't survive on audit only. Buffalo is a limited marketplace. The only way to grow was to expand services. At the core, the only thing we are licensed to do is audit. Everything else is by permission in the marketplace, but we were given that permission because of the trust we created as good auditors and being in the public interest. That needs to remain. No matter how much advisory services expand, we need to know that we are a trusted profession.
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Blake Oliver59:06
But what's happening is that all of those services that you grew in your firm in Buffalo, the non-attest, non-audit stuff that drives value, is now being carved out into non-CPA firms because of private equity and this APS strategy. So CPA firms are shrinking, becoming smaller and more limited. That seems like a bad thing. We don't want CPA firms to get smaller if we want to promote the profession. They're carving out the more profitable business units and saying we don't need CPAs in this business unit or we're not even allowed to say there are CPAs in this business unit.
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Mark Koziel1:00:05
No, they absolutely need CPAs in that business unit. The beauty of it is that the trend in the profession is not CPA only, but CPA-led. We still see that even in APS structures, CPAs are in leadership very consistently. Some of the largest firms have CEOs who aren't even CPAs, but they still value it and have good representation on the board. It still needs to be a CPA organization. The firms that are still as one will continue to be CPA-led and primarily CPA-owned. The APS is still overall a CPA organization. Even some private equity firms I've spoken to see incredible value in the CPA in the audit practice as a trust mechanism to support the other pieces. They don't see it as letting that die on the vine.
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Blake Oliver1:01:35
But there's no guarantee that these firms will continue to be CPA-led because once you make this split, the non-CPA firm can have ownership of any kind. They may currently be leading it, but who's to say they will in the future? That seems like a problem when you have a CPA firm and a non-CPA firm sharing the same brand and holding themselves out with the same name to the public, and the public doesn't know that the CPAs aren't in charge anymore. Isn't that a problem?
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Mark Koziel1:02:09
Well, if you think about even some of the branded firms, I have to go back and look. Anderson, who came in as a tax firm, whether they classify themselves as a CPA firm or not, I think it's the same. Small firms are saying, 'I am a cash-only practice and I'm not going to hold out as a CPA firm because I don't want to be subject to peer review.' But if you do cash only, you're not subject to peer review. So we need education on that. But for the big firms like CohnReznick or Citrin Cooperman who do audit and assurance, the CPAs are still in charge. Yes, there is a board now that is representative of a variety of folks, but the CPAs are still there. From a strategy standpoint, private equity, if they take a majority investment in the non-CPA firm, they control it. But from where we are today, they are very interested in the firm doing what it needs to do as it has in the past. They have provided additional guidance, but there hasn't been a major influence to completely take over the CPA space. But if you wanted to do that, the first step would be to tell people to stop putting CPA on all your stuff.
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Blake Oliver1:04:00
But if you wanted to do that, the first step I would take was tell people, stop putting CPA on all your stuff. That would be my first step to not have that part of my...
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Mark Koziel1:04:07
Well, you're assuming it was the PE firm that drove that, not the legal team on mobility issues and the fact that it was already in the marketplace and in the firms well before that ever happened. It wasn't just the Big Four back then either. It wasn't only PE-backed firms. So if that argument is saying that this is because of PE that we're at the point we're in today, it's not. We need to take a look at the real issues behind it and see what we can do to help fix that.
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Blake Oliver1:04:42
Mark, we're out of time. Thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciate you coming on the show and offering your perspective.
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Mark Koziel1:04:46
Great. Thanks.
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Blake Oliver1:04:57
That was such a great interview. Thank you again, Mark Koziel, for joining us on the show. David, let's thank our final sponsor before we go. It's Robo Debit. As an accountant, you know the drill: constantly looking up account balances, computing and posting routine journal entries for loan interest, COGS, estimates, commissions, or salary reclasses. Wouldn't it be nice if this just happened automatically? Well, now it can with Robo Debit. This brilliant new app automates the posting of daily, weekly, or monthly journal entries based on an account balance you choose. No more waiting until month end. Your financials stay updated throughout the month. It's simple and genius. Imagine automatically accruing loan interest, pulling 5% commissions from monthly sales, or reclassing 25% of wages to COGS exactly when you want, every day, week, or month. If you know your sales data is ready by 5:00 p.m., set the entry to post at 5:30 p.m. Done. Robo Debit launched its beta on January 1st, and you can be among the first to try it. As one of their Robo Groupies, you'll get early access, discounts for the first four months, a say in future enhancements, and cool Robo Debit merch. If you're ready to let your journal entries post themselves, sign up as a beta user and become a Robo Groupie. Head over to accountingpodcast.promo/robodebit. That's accountingpodcast.promo, promo slash R O B O D E B I T.
You don't forget. Go for it, David. I was going to say, do you wonder how much it cost to replace the Pope? Go for it.
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David Liry1:06:41
Tell me. Okay, I'll tell you. It's probably anywhere between $15 to $50 million. That sounds kind of cheap to me for a pope. The funeral cost itself, an anonymous donor covered the whole cost. Imagine being at that point in your life where you're so fearful of not going to heaven you pay for the pope's funeral to get your ticket in. Then the conclave: 135 cardinals eligible to participate, hundreds of people flying to the Vatican, getting locked up for a couple days, all expenses paid. They don't release exact numbers, but from history, in 1978 they had to replace two popes back to back. They spent about $20 million that year, which is about $101 million in today's money. Pope John Paul II's funeral and the conclave was about $9.7 million, or $14.7 million today. So this is going to be a $50 million expense for the Vatican this week.
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Blake Oliver1:08:04
Well, the Vatican can just pull some art out of its library and museums and finance it. I think they're probably okay with cash flow. This is that interesting time when you turn on CNN and Fox News and all you see is a chimney for a while. They just watch the chimney and the smoke. Do you remember last time how they made the wrong call? They weren't sure whether the smoke was the right color. They couldn't tell. Well, that's what we get to watch during the day. Now, thank you everyone for joining us. Don't forget, you can earn free continuing professional education for tuning in to The Accounting Podcast. Download the free Earmark app from the app store or go to earmark.app in your browser, sign up for free, take a course every week for free. If you want to support our work at Earmark, buy an unlimited subscription for only $150 per year for unlimited on-demand CPE. We're going to be doing live CPE soon. Stay tuned. We got our NASBA sponsor approval for live in-person continuing education. Thank you everyone who joined us today and commented. I apologize that we couldn't get to all of your comments, but we read them and love having you with us. Hope to see you again soon.
And as promised last week, we did record a special bonus episode of The Accounting Podcast. I just put it in the comments that you can get CPE for it. It's about the movie The Accountant. So go watch The Accountant, listen to this episode, and you can get CPE for the first one, not the second one. Accountant 1, not Accountant 2. We just saw Accountant 2 on Friday. It was amazing, great movie. But we have not set that up for CPE yet. There's not as much accounting in The Accountant 2, though. It could be hard. No, it is pretty funny, but not as much actual accounting. Although my favorite was, because we did that movie theater get-together with a hundred accountants in Tempe, we all laughed at the married filing separate joke. That was the key to unlocking the mystery: a tax return stapled to the wall along with crime scene photos. The filing status was how Ben Affleck figured it out. That was good. And then I also liked his... well, I'm not going to spoil it. No spoilers. One thing: if you go see the movie, you should try to create the same trend. Everybody waited in the theater until the credits rolled. Every movie has CPAs that work on the movie. Well, we don't know if they're CPAs; they don't put their CPA in the credits. They were accountants. And it rolls up and starts listing the real accountants who worked on the movie The Accountant. Everybody in the theater cheered and clapped. So do that when you go see it. People might think you're weird, but you'll be the only ones left in the theater by the time those credits roll. All right, David. Great to see you. See you again next week. Have a great one. Bye bye.