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Audit Friendly MONTH END CLOSERS
TUE · SEP 8 · EDITION

KPMG agentic tool certified for security and reliability as AI audit risks grow

 

The biggest story this week sits at the intersection of AI and audit credibility: KPMG has put its agentic tool through a formal security and reliability certification at a moment when finance teams are asking hard questions about what they can actually trust in an AI-assisted close. Alongside that, the IMA and ACCA survey out of Q2 2026 puts a number on what controllers are already feeling - 83% of CFOs reported elevated operating costs, a surge of more than 20 percentage points from the prior quarter and above the post-Ukraine peak. Ramp's Q2 release summary, covering more than 60 product updates including Accounting Agents that run reconciliations end to end, shows where the close-stack build-out is heading. On the regulatory side, the AICPA is pressing Treasury and the IRS for clearer Corporate Alternative Minimum Tax guidance, which matters for any team managing the gap between financial and tax reporting. One signal from the hiring data: Workday's share of accounting job descriptions is growing faster than any other tool tracked this quarter.

THE LEAD
KPMG agentic tool certified for security and reliability as AI risks mount
Sep 1, 2026 · cfodive.com
KPMG has had its agentic AI tool formally certified for security and reliability, a step that stands out as AI risks in finance and audit draw more scrutiny from regulators and audit committees alike. Certification is the mechanism by which a firm can make a defensible claim about an AI system's behavior - not just its accuracy in demos. For controllers and finance ops leads evaluating agentic tools in their own stacks, a Big Four firm going through this process sets a reference point for what due diligence on AI reliability can look like.

INTELLIGENCE

Record CFO cost pressures and a push for CAMT clarity

 
IMA/ACCA Q2 2026 survey: 83% of CFOs report elevated operating costs, a record high
Sep 2, 2026 · thinkaccountants.net.au
The IMA and ACCA's Global Economic Conditions Survey for Q2 2026 found that 83% of CFOs reported increased operating costs - up more than 20 percentage points from the prior quarter and above the peak recorded after Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The drivers cited are geopolitical tensions, supply chain disruptions, and elevated commodity prices. For close teams, sustained cost pressure at that scale tends to translate into more scrutiny on accruals, more variance questions from leadership, and tighter budget-to-actual work at each close.
AICPA urges Treasury and IRS to clarify three Corporate Alternative Minimum Tax notices
Sep 4, 2026 · cpapracticeadvisor.com
The AICPA is pressing Treasury and the IRS to clarify three CAMT notices, citing compliance burdens, risk of double-counting income, and inconsistency between financial and tax reporting. An extension of qualified wildfire relief payment exclusions through year-end 2026 is also in the September roundup. For controllers at companies subject to CAMT, the lack of clarity on those three notices is an active close-process risk until guidance is resolved.

STACK WATCH

Close stack: Ramp's Q2 agent sweep and NetSuite's intelligent close manager

 
Ramp Q2 2026: Accounting Agents run reconciliations and monthly reporting end to end
ramp.com
Ramp's Q2 release covers more than 60 product updates, with Accounting Agents positioned as the headline addition - described as running reconciliations, schedules, and monthly reporting from workbook to ledger without handoffs. The release also includes the launch of Ramp Stack, aimed at accounting firms. The volume of close-adjacent updates in a single quarter signals that the AP and expense platform is now competing directly on close automation, not just spend management.
NetSuite 2026.1: Intelligent Close Manager with generative AI bank matching
netsuite.com
NetSuite's 2026.1 release adds an Intelligent Close Manager that applies AI-driven monitoring to sales and spend close tasks, surfacing trends, errors, and areas needing attention. Bank transaction matching gains generative AI to extract richer structured data, with the goal of increasing successful auto-matches and cutting manual reconciliation time. The release also notes the ability to connect external AI clients - including Claude - directly with data from NetSuite Analytics Warehouse.

TOOL SPOTLIGHT

FloQast's Visual Agent Builder puts no-code close automation in the controller's hands

 
FloQast Visual Agent Builder: agentic close workflows without writing code
floqast.com
FloQast's Visual Agent Builder, part of its Transform product, lets accounting teams build agentic close workflows through a visual interface rather than code - the stated design goal being transparency as much as accessibility. For a close team that wants to automate a repeatable task but does not have engineering resources, a visual tool that makes the logic inspectable is a different proposition than a black-box agent. The vendor positions it as a way to make AI automation for the close something a controller can own directly.

FROM THE DATA DESK

Three findings from the wire this week

Workday is the fastest-growing tool in accounting job descriptions this quarter, up 1.61 points of share - worth factoring into hiring criteria and team upskilling plans now.

 
Accounting hiring holds the largest share of this month's roles, and the fastest employer closes in 1 day.
jobs.auditfriendly.co
Apply early: PricewaterhouseCoopers closes accounting roles in a median 1 day from posting.
Workday is the fastest-growing tool in accounting job descriptions, up 1.61pts of share in a quarter.
jobs.auditfriendly.co
5105 live postings name it today; share measured against all postings each month.
The same staff accountant job pays 23% more in California than in North Carolina.
jobs.auditfriendly.co
Measured medians: $75,000 vs $61,014, advertised pay only, disclosure-state coverage noted on the page.

WHO IS HIRING CLOSERS

Employers that posted close roles this week

 
1872 CONSULTING: 6 roles (Senior Accountant, VP Accounting)
jobs.auditfriendly.co
For example Senior Accountant (ARs/Billing), Herndon, Virginia, US.
SVA Careers: 6 roles (Accounting Manager, Senior Accountant)
jobs.auditfriendly.co
For example Accounting Manager (Closely Held Business), Brookfield, Wisconsin, US.
Trident Consulting: 4 roles (Senior Accountant)
jobs.auditfriendly.co
For example Senior Accountant - AR, Aliso Viejo, California, US, $57/hr.
Nesco Resource: 4 roles (Accounting Manager, Senior Accountant, Controller)
jobs.auditfriendly.co
For example Financial Controller, Latham, New York, US, $100K-130K.
Not Specified: 4 roles (Controller, Senior Accountant, Accounting Manager)
jobs.auditfriendly.co
For example Divisional Controller, Elmore, US, $150K-175K.

PAYING ABOVE MARKET

Close roles priced well over their title's market rate

 
Controller at Peregrine Technologies
job-boards.greenhouse.io
$275K to $350K, 2.3x the $135K median for the title across 4,179 postings, San Francisco, CA.
Senior Director, Assistant Corporate Controller at Stryker
stryker.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com
$179K to $388K, 2.1x the $135K median for the title across 4,179 postings.
Senior Director, Controller at Anduril Industries
boards.greenhouse.io
$220K to $292K, 1.9x the $135K median for the title across 4,179 postings, Costa Mesa, California, United States.

NEW AT AUDIT FRIENDLY

What shipped on the platform

 
Every number on the job category pages is now measured
Aug 19, 2026 · jobs.auditfriendly.co
The remote and role category pages used to carry hand-written figures for average pay and weekly volume.
The Data Desk reads cleanly for AI answer engines
Aug 19, 2026 · jobs.auditfriendly.co
Every dataset page now serves a full, citable version of its tables to search and AI crawlers, with the same numbers a visitor sees, machine-readable dataset descriptions, and a source line.
The insights wire: findings no single dataset can produce
Aug 18, 2026 · jobs.auditfriendly.co
The wire pairs datasets that never usually meet: layoff announcements against live hiring, salary guides against measured trend, state against state. A fresh set of findings every hour, each one linked to its evidence.
A fuller picture of first-job pay
Aug 18, 2026 · jobs.auditfriendly.co
Entry-level pay numbers now draw on every posting we can verify, including roles that never reach job boards, and new-grad program roles count as first jobs.

QUICK HITS

Short takes

 
Congress passes funding bill that holds IRS budget flat
Sep 3, 2026 · journalofaccountancy.com
IRS budget maintained; no immediate change to audit staffing or processing timelines for close teams.
AP invoice coding: clean GL rules before you automate
Sep 5, 2026 · kvia.com
Standardize GL coding rules and chart of accounts first; pilot automation on low-risk invoices to keep close controls intact.
Paychex WISE: agentic AI platform for payroll and HR compliance tasks
businesswire.com
Paychex's WISE platform deploys agentic AI for payroll, HR compliance, and timesheet approvals within customer-defined workflows.

BUILD WITH AI

Build an AI-assisted accrual schedule in five steps

This workflow produces a draft accrual schedule - with amounts, GL accounts, and supporting logic - ready for controller review before any entries post. It runs in the last two to three days of the period, after expense data is pulled but before journal entry cutoff.

1
 Export the current period's open POs, uninvoiced receipts, and recurring contract commitments to a flat file or spreadsheet tab.
2
 Feed the export to an AI assistant; prompt it to identify accrual candidates, assign likely GL accounts from your chart of accounts, and flag ambiguous lines.
3
 Have the AI produce a structured accrual table: vendor, estimated amount, GL debit and credit, and a one-line rationale, formatted to match your journal entry template.
4
 Run a second AI pass to check for duplicates, already-invoiced items, and amounts above your threshold requiring additional approval.
5
 Route the draft schedule to the controller or accounting manager for line-by-line sign-off before any entry is posted to the ledger.
The rule: A human must verify each accrual amount against source documentation - PO, contract, or receipt - before the entry posts; no AI-drafted amount goes to the ledger on the AI's judgment alone.
FROM THE CAREER PORTAL
Upload your resume once. The portal does the rest.
Drop your resume into the career portal and it pulls every signal out of it, role history, skills, seniority, target comp, then feeds that into our matching engine. From one upload you get job matches ranked to your profile, recruiter contacts who place people like you, and a prioritized list of fixes to get your resume past the ATS. Tools that do a fraction of this charge around $40 a month and were never built for accounting. Ours is free, and the matching is tuned on accounting and finance profiles, not a general pool.

How AI-Era Pricing Is Reshaping Finance Operations

Usage-based and hybrid pricing models are changing how B2B companies generate revenue — and creating new headaches for the finance teams behind them.

Tabs co-founder Rebecca Schwartz and PwC Partner Amit Dhir sat down to unpack exactly what that means in practice: how pricing model decisions ripple into revenue recognition, forecasting, and financial ops — and what it takes to scale without piling on manual work.

Watch the on-demand recording to get practical frameworks, real-world examples, and a clear path to operationalizing usage-based revenue — including a forward-looking take on how AI will reshape financial workflows. If your team is navigating pricing complexity heading into the back half of the year, this is worth an hour.

Watch the recording now

SPONSORED

Gusto: full-service payroll that posts clean journal entries to your ledger
Federal, state and local filing in all 50 states, native two-way sync to QuickBooks Online and Xero, and published per-employee pricing with no contract. Audit Friendly scored it 74/100 in a fact-checked review; we earn a referral fee if you sign up, and the score is not affected.

GO DEEPER

Go deeper

Remote accounting and finance jobs → The Audit Friendly job board, every posting verified live
The insights wire → Cross-dataset findings, refreshed hourly
Software in postings → Every tool ranked by live demand
Skills that pay → Which named tools move the number
AF Stack Designer → Design your accounting stack in ten minutes

Next issue: the week's close-software releases and roles worth a look.

Forward this to the controller still tying out by hand. They will owe you an hour back.

Items are reported from the linked source pages as published on the dates shown. Market figures are measured from live postings on jobs.auditfriendly.co. The Build with AI workflow is original; replicate it in a sandbox first.

Audit Friendly's flagship weekly for the people who run the close: the tools, the workflows, what the roles pay and who is hiring.

Accounting Stack · Audit Friendly Data · Remote A&F Jobs

Audit Friendly · members.auditfriendly.co

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