Short Attention Span Theater: Popular Websites for the Accounting Community

We’ve all become conditioned to using online search engines, not only to find what we want, but to find it fast. Experts say the average user decides in the first seven seconds of visiting any site whether to stay or go somewhere else. As a result, it’s more important than ever to provide engaging sites with solid content. Here’s a rundown of some of the more popular websites for the accounting community … along with some hidden gems worth checking out.

Accounting Regulations, Audit and Tax
Sites that provide information on accounting regulations are highly technical in nature and offer exact language of pronouncements, accounting standards and other documents, as well as announcements, current projects and other activities.

Many accountants use these sites for their own edification, although it’s not uncommon to send a client to one of these sites to provide the original source of a regulation or pronouncement with the exact, original language. In order to be effective, accountants who work closely with financial professionals within companies should provide their clients with the URL of a subpage instead of the main address.

Accounting Regulations:

• Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB)
• Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB)
• AICPA Accounting Standards
• Securities Exchange Commission (SEC)
• Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board

Audit-Specific Sites:

• International Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA)
• Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB)
• Government Auditing Standards (Yellow Book)
• AuditNet (annotated links to audit sites)

Tax Sites

• Internal Revenue Service (IRS)
• TaxSites.com – Full listing of tax-related sites
• TaxAlmanac – All things tax, run by Intuit
• SalesTaxSupport – Aggregator of sales tax information

Accounting Organization Sites
With the increasing number of accreditations and designations offered to the accounting community, as well as the need for practitioners to network in their local communities, it’s important to be aware of various professional and trade organizations. Although this list does not include state CPA societies, you can use a search engine to find specific state groups and other associations.

• American Institute of CPAs (AICPA)
• American Society of Women Accountants (ASWA)
• Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE)
• Association for Accounting Administration (AAA – for CPA firm managers)
• Institute of Management Accountants (IMA)
• American Women’s Society of CPAs (AWSCPA)
• Big4.com – Alumni site for Big 4 firms and their consulting arms
• National Society of Accountants (NSA)

Blogs
If this story about popular accounting websites had been written five years ago, the number of accounting-related blogs would have been slim. Today, there are more blogs than we can possibly list here. Here’s a tip: Search for content-specific blogs through Google BlogSearch. Note that many blogs were reviewed for this listing. However, many were eliminated from the final list if postings were not current.

• CPATechViews (collaborative blog for The CPA Technology Advisor)
• CPABlogger – Tracks CPA and accounting-related blogs
• Bordeaux and Bordeaux CPAs – Beancounter ramblings
• CPA Technology Blog – Brian Tankersley’s blog on technology and news for accountants
• ConvergenceCoaching – Inspired Ideas
• Tick Marks – Dan Meyer’s blog
• FromGregsHead – Greg Price’s blog on accounting and technology trends
• TheTechGap – Greg LaFollette’s blog on technology
• Perspective - A Brotemarkle, Davis & Company blog
• TaxMama – Eva Rosenberg’s blog on tax information with a mother’s touch
• TaxGirl – Kelly Phillips Erb’s blog
• ATaxingMatter – Linda Beal’s blog
• The Tax Lady Blog – Roni Deutsch’s blog