The so-called “one big beautiful” reconciliation bill making its way through Congress could mean a lot of big changes for organizations. Luckily for them, experts are watching the complex legislative game and giving the rest of us the highlights.

It’s the timing of the legislation rather than one particular provision that Jennifer Acuña, Washington national tax principal at KPMG, is paying closest attention to at the moment.

“The first question that we get right out of the gate is, ‘When can I expect something?’ Timing affects everything,” from effective dates for new tax provisions to a company’s exposure to a new provision, Acuña told CFO Brew.

So, what are organizations to do while waiting for this legislative sausage to be made? Plan for everything, of course.

“Clients are trying to work through various scenarios,” she said, to consider what certain provisions would mean to business “if they survive, if they’re modified, and how to respond to those should [they] make it over the finish line.”

What’s in it? As the name “big” suggests (no judgment on whether it’s “beautiful,” too), the bill has a lot in it. But for CFOs paying specific attention to tax implications, the reconciliation bill includes some of those greatest hits that business interests have backed for years.

So what exactly is in the new tax bill?—AZ

The accounting world just got some good news.

Undergraduate accounting enrollments are up by double digits for the second straight semester, according to data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. In fall 2024, undergrad enrollments climbed by 12% year over year, the Journal of Accountancy reported, reaching their highest levels since fall 2020. The spring semester of 2025 has seen a similar jump, with enrollments up by another 12% year over year.

Enrollments at two-year colleges rose a remarkable 24% over spring 2024. At four-year colleges, they were up 11%.

Even master’s degree programs in accounting appear to be on the rise: Almost three-quarters of programs had more applications in 2024 than they did the previous year, Graduate Management Admission Council survey data shows.

The new data hints at a reversal of a decade-long trend of declining accounting enrollments. The AICPA’s biennial Trends survey, last released in 2023, showed that enrollments fell 16.9% in the time period spanning 2012–2022. In the 2021–22 school year, bachelor’s graduates in accounting dropped a worrying 7.8%.

Click here for more on the increase in accounting enrollment.—AZ

Coworking is a recurring segment where we talk to CFOs and other leaders in the finance space about their experiences, their companies, and the larger economy. Let us know if you are—or you know—a CFO we should interview.

Matthew Ostrower is CFO of Link Logistics, the second-largest owner of warehouse real estate in the US. About 5% of US GDP goes through its warehouses each year, Ostrower said. He spoke with CFO Brew about how e-commerce has changed distribution, and about how someone with a liberal arts background wound up as a CFO.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What advice would you give someone who aspires to become a CFO?

You need to understand finance. You need to understand accounting…But I would say there’s two important things that do get neglected a lot. One is strategy, and being able to be a strategic partner to the CEO, and a trusted advisor…Understand how finance fits into strategy, which means understanding how strategy actually works. Sometimes we view that as a soft skill. It turns out strategy is a real thing, and it can be learned.

And the second piece is tech. Tech, tech, and tech. What you need to understand is, what can tech help you do? What are your choices for how to use tech in your business? It’s moving into the world of predictive analytics, and…how you should operate differently as a result, delivering data in real time to people’s desktops in a way they can understand it and act upon it. That’s central to what a CFO should be focused on these days.

Continue reading here.—CV