By: Melisa Galasso
NCACPA’s Accounting & Attestation Committee meets quarterly to discuss recently issued and proposed guidance and determine the best way to communicate this to the membership at large. While serving on a technical committee can sound intimidating, this group has continually shown it knows how to have a good time! The fall meeting each year is held at a different spot around the state aimed at combining business and pleasure. This year the group voted to hold its October 17 meeting at Childress Winery, just north of Charlotte.
The setting couldn’t have been more beautiful. We held our meeting in the barrel room in the basement of the winery. While the list of agenda items was large, we managed to kick off our meeting with a tasting of six wines from the vineyard and then enjoyed a lovely meal from the bistro upstairs.
Once we enjoyed our delicious lunch we definitely got down to business! We reviewed recent blog assignments and discussed a few recently issued items. But our big goal for the meeting was to discuss the recently issued Enhancing Audit Quality (EAQ) discussion paper. Our comments were going to be sent to NCACPA’s Board for incorporation in its response to the paper. We also used this time to discuss the proposed changes to the CPA exam. The next big update for the exam will be in 2017, and the AICPA is seeking input on the topics and structure of the exam. Our discussions included small group work as well as a full group discussion. We plan to use these discussions as way to help draft our response to these important discussion papers. We also encourage our members to consider sharing their thoughts with the AICPA about these very important topics!
But when the business meeting ended, promptly at 3:00 pm, we were whisked off on a private tour of the vineyard and the winery. We even had a chance to meet with the wine maker and ask some questions. He seemed pretty knowledgeable about accounting!
The A&A committee serves a very important function for our membership. We are currently looking for 10 – 12 more people to join the Committee. The Committee has some really great members with a passion for the profession. We’d like to see a few more join the group and share their knowledge and experience. If you are interested in serving (we meet quarterly), please email Melisa Galasso, A&A Chair, at mgalasso@cbh.com and we’ll gladly have you join the roster.
Melisa is a Senior Manager in the Professional Practices Department at Cherry Bekaert, LLP, in Charlotte. She currently serves on NCACPA’s Accounting & Attestation Committee and is President of the Charlotte Chapter. Melisa can be reached at mgalasso@cbh.com.