Why We Formed AccountingMalpractice.com (June 2000)

For more than two years we have been identifying and researching those factors that cause accounting malpractice claims. We believe that the economic and environmental factors now present have the potential to result in numerous, quick and dramatic client failures. These failures in turn have the potential to produce losses in time, resources and personal well-being that could dwarf the profession's losses of the early to mid 1990s. Upon consideration, we believe that practitioners will agree with our assessment. The factors include:

• Fundamental shifts in competitive structures deriving from technology changes, convergence, global markets and business-to-business e-commerce
• Re-emergence of economic cycles leading to massive industry shakeouts of marginal companies
• Increase in non-audit services and related liability exposure implications to firms and practitioners
• Implications of proposed changes to the audit process by the Public Oversight Board and AICPA in the areas of business risk assessment, engagement risk assessment and fraud
• Heightening of legal liability exposure deriving from the vast amounts of information and software products now available to auditors and tax specialists (artificial intelligence products, peer financial and reporting data, personal and corporate background data, industry risk assessment tools, legal and regulatory change resources and other)
• Continuing existence and expansion of the Expectation Gap and the propensity of lawyers to prosecute these cases

Our Mission

Our mission is to provide the practitioner CPA with:

• The latest information and tools to help reduce their exposure to accounting malpractice claims. These resources will be delivered in the form of advice, educational services, proprietary database resources and real-time downloadable information products
• A central depository of relevant information and resources regarding the advancement of business risk assessment, fraud detection and loss prevention
• Innovative resources, databases and web resources that will take the prevention of malpractice to a new level of sophistication on a real-time basis

Our Strategy

Over the past two years we have invested substantially in developing not just a platform for loss prevention advice but some never before available resources that can be used by practitioners to materially reduce loss exposure. Further these resources have been designed to help practitioners satisfy the new and emerging auditing requirements of the POB and AICPA. Through our "Prevention Firewall Program", we are able to deliver an extraordinary breadth of on-line resources that can help with loss prevention, staff training and keeping up with professional obligations.

If you have any questions about our subscriptions, please call us directly and talk to Christine Renda, at (508) 476-7007 ext 225.