Accountants, Firms Continue to Flourish

Good accounting never goes out of style. The people who are in the business of helping others stay in business are doing fine, and a look at statistics kept by the Arkansas State Board of Accountancy proves as much.

In Arkansas, licensed Certified Public Accountants (CPAs) and CPA firms have been on the rise for nearly a decade. The number of firms has risen by 19.3 percent, from 512 in 2005 to 611 this year.

Over the same time period, the number of licensed CPAs has grown by 14.8 percent, from 2,584 to 2,968.

Though the figures aren’t broken out by region, it’s safe to say Northwest Arkansas is a big reason why the state’s accounting industry remains healthy.

“The great thing about the environment in Northwest Arkansas is that it continues to grow very quickly,” said Norman Prestage, a managing partner with the Rogers office of accounting heavyweight Ernst and Young.

In this region, the accounting industry is driven in part by the arrival of new investors and businesses, which need a firm to make sure their numbers are right.

“I’ve had a chance to see the tremendous influx of businesses over the last five years,” said Prestage, a transplant from the Ernst and Young location in Chicago. “We’re growing because the local economy is growing on a sustainable path.”

Symbolic of the state’s health in the financial services sector is Frost PLLC, a Little Rock firm with an office in Fayetteville and one in Raleigh, N.C.

According to a list published in Accounting Today, Frost is one of the top firms in the Southeast region with more than $25 million in revenue and appears in the magazine’s national list of “Firms to Watch”.

Nationally, accounting is an important industry. According to the 2007 U.S. Economic Census — the most recent one of its kind — there are over 123,000 “accounting, tax preparation, bookkeeping and payroll services” establishments that generate more than $114 billion in annual revenue and employ more than 1.3 million people.

The United States does not have a monopoly on accounting, but it is a leader in the global industry. Of the top 10 accounting and finance universities in the world, five of them are in the United States, according to the 2012 ranking by U.S. News and World Report.

Ryan Underwood, a CPA with BKD LLP, said the nature of doing business has made the role of accountants more and more important.

“It has been resilient because things have gotten so much more complex — the CPAs have just been in high demand,” Underwood said.

An Arkansas State graduate with more than 20 years of experience, Underwood says he’s seen big changes in the last two decades. The tax code, business transactions, real estate, retirement and investment planning — all of it is more sophisticated than it used to be.

“You’re not just crunching numbers, auditing and doing compliance work,” he said. “We’re more consultative in nature. I think that has attracted people into our field, the challenge and creativity.”