It’s been a busy half-year in regs, especially in audit. Here are some of the biggest regulatory developments in the first six months of 2024:

PCAOB on a spree: Regulators tend to move at a turtle’s pace, but not the PCAOB under Chair Erica Williams. As part of a push to modernize regulations, and amid concerns that audit deficiencies are on the rise, it’s been releasing updates at an unusually fast pace.

In May, the agency overhauled regulations that had been in place since it was established in 2003. It adopted AS 1000, “General Responsibilities of the Auditor in an Audit,” a consolidation and clarification of four existing standards dealing with principles auditors need to follow, and shortened the audit documentation from 45 days to 14.

The agency also released QC 1000, an update to quality control standards that had existed since before the PCAOB’s founding in 2002. QC 1000 stipulates that audit firms must identify their risks and report on how their quality control systems address such risks on an annual basis. It also requires firms performing 100 or more audits per year to have their QC systems overseen by an external party.

And, in June, the PCAOB amended regulations around technology-assisted audits to provide greater clarity, and tightened a standard around when auditors could be found liable for contributing to firms’ noncompliance with rules and regulations.

Click here for more on the year in regulations.—DA

Finance teams at growing companies are in a challenging spot. They’ve gotta balance spending whatever it takes to win while spending wisely to stay in the game for the long haul.

Can they really do it all? The answer is yes—but it’ll require a li’l bit of financial discipline and strategic spending.

Here are some tips from Brex to help you make every dollar count:

• Proactively manage costs by prioritizing strategic investments and setting up proper controls for those investments.
• Automate financial busywork so your team can focus more on driving growth.
• Prioritize real-time visibility so you can control outcomes by reallocating swiftly.
• Find ways to maximize spending power—and don’t be afraid to make a small investment to test a new way of earning as a business.

Make every dollar count.

Change is good. It’s the kind of vague platitude someone might share with you after a brutal breakup, and it’s also the kind of thing companies said to their CFOs this year.

CFO turnover at publicly traded companies climbed to a three-year high in the first quarter of this year, according to analysis from executive search firm Russell Reynolds Associates, which noted the jump “demonstrates that as economic uncertainty becomes the new normal for organizations, the trepidation to replace CFOs has dissipated.”

As any CFO who had to switch posts before they really wanted to can attest: Uh, yeah. Without further ado, here’s a (nonexhaustive) list of some of the biggest CFO switchups of 2024 so far.

The CFO next door. This June, OpenAI hired Sarah Friar to serve as its CFO, per a company release. Most recently, she served as CEO of Nextdoor, the neighborhood-oriented social network app, and has also previously served as CFO at payment processing company Square.

In a statement, the artificial intelligence organization said Friar will “lead a finance team that supports our mission by providing continued investment in our core research capabilities, and ensuring that we can scale to meet the needs of our growing customer base and the complex and global environment in which we are operating.” (And yes, the announcement was written by OpenAI.)

For more on the year’s biggest CFO moves, click here.—NP

Stre-AI-mlined. When automating cash applications, efficiency and ROI are the name of the game. That’s why Versapay commissioned a Total Economic Impact™ study from Forrester Consulting. In the study, you’ll learn how Versapay’s AI-powered Cash Application streamlined processes, reduced costs, + improved efficiency for customers. Read it here.