CPA2Biz and IT Alliance To Unite for Fall 2014 Conferences

CPA2Biz and the Information Technology Alliance (ITA), an independent professional association comprised of most of the nation's top 30 accounting firms, premier technology consultants, and leading technology vendors serving the accounting profession, today announced they will jointly host events on December 7-10 at the Gaylord National in Washington, D.C. CPA2Biz is the technology subsidiary of the American Institute of CPAs,

The two events are the AICPA/CPA2Biz Digital CPA Conference and the ITA Fall Collaborative. The overlapping meetings will be run as separate conferences but offer attendees joint networking opportunities, shared general sessions, and crossover topics that are geared to appeal to both audiences. Both organizations are involved in advancing technology solutions within the accounting profession and business sector, so the concept of teaming up for the annual conferences seemed like a sound strategy for this year.

“We have tremendous respect for the Information Technology Alliance, and a long history of working with its members to advance the role of technology in the profession,” said Erik Asgeirsson, president and CEO of CPA2Biz. “Our activity with ITA has increased in the last couple of years and lots of our strategies overlap. We're thrilled to be doing this with the ITA.

“By holding our conferences concurrently at the same venue, we're offering a single destination for attendees who might otherwise have to juggle their schedules during the busy holiday season in order to attend both events. In addition, there are many synergies between our organizations that make this a natural fit and we are excited to explore the benefits this will offer our two audiences.”

The ITA event runs from Dec. 7-9 at the Gaylord National Resort in National Harbor, MD outside of Washington, DC. The CPA2Biz Digital CPA event will run from December 8-10 at the same location.

“Our co-location with the Digital CPA event this fall will provide great opportunities for both memberships to network, socialize, share information and generally come away from the larger event with a richer conference experience,” said Stan Mork, ITA President. “We're very pleased to be working collaboratively with AICPA/CPA2Biz to create this unique opportunity for our members.”

In comparing this conference with the AICPA's Practitioner's Symposium and TECH+ conference which is held in the summer, Asgeirsson said, “Prac/Tech is a much broader conference, covering technology and practitioner issues, providing technology updates in tax and accounting and auditing. You get a broad view of everything that's going on in the profession. At Digital CPA what we're really focusing on is just the technology component.” Attendees at Digital CPA will likely want to focus on what is happening in the area of client accounting from a technology standpoint and will want to “find the best of what cloud technologies are available in this emerging area.”