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These Two Finance Teams Are Already Using AI While You’re Still Debating It

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Picture two finance teams: One is drowning in expense reports, manually checking every receipt, and spending hours on data entry. The other analyzes spending patterns, negotiates better vendor deals, and helps business units make smarter decisions. The difference isn’t budget or team size. It’s whether they’ve embraced artificial intelligence (AI) tools.

This became clear during a recent crossover episode of The Accounting Podcast and Beyond Spend, recorded live at Emburse in Motion in Nashville. Host Blake Oliver, CPA, spoke with Adriana Carpenter, CFO of Emburse, and Olga Pavlova-Grebliauske from PizzaExpress—two finance leaders who have moved beyond talking about AI’s potential to using it daily.

While much of the accounting profession continues to debate what AI might do someday, these teams already use smart automation to eliminate tedious tasks. They’re moving from being compliance enforcers to business enablers who guide spending decisions and drive real value through data insights.

Stop Looking at Things That Don’t Need Attention

The change starts with a mental shift: finance teams no longer need to review every transaction. 

For Olga at PizzaExpress, it’s not an option. She manages financial operations for a restaurant chain with over 350 locations across the UK, Ireland, Hong Kong, the UAE, and beyond. She deals with massive transaction volumes that would overwhelm any team doing manual reviews.

“Just stop looking at something that doesn’t need to be looked at,” Olga explains.

Consider PizzaExpress’s approach to VAT compliance. Previously, finance staff had to manually check every receipt to find and separate tips and service charges from product items. This is critical because VAT treatment differs for these components. Miss a service charge buried at the bottom of a long receipt, and the company risks over-reimbursing itself on VAT.

Now, AI-powered keyword detection automatically flags receipts containing terms like “tips,” “service charges,” or specific alcohol brands. The system doesn’t skip human oversight. Instead, it surfaces just the transactions that need attention. A receipt with a clearly separated tip gets processed automatically, while one with a service charge in a long itemized bill gets flagged for review.

Finding Hidden Insights in Your Own Data

When finance teams don’t have to look at every transaction, they can use this time to discover insights hiding in their own data. Adriana’s experience at Emburse shows how AI-powered analytics transforms routine spend management into business intelligence that drives real improvements and cost savings.

The transformation began with unlocking insights in their data through the power of Emburse Analytics, which combines spending data to reveal patterns. Rather than just processing reimbursements, the platform analyzes spending across departments, vendors, and categories.

Adrianna shares an example where the system identified vendor spend flowing through the wrong channels. Employees were buying SaaS subscriptions and processing them through expense reports rather than the company’s preferred procure-to-pay process. This created multiple problems: lost visibility into software subscriptions, missed security assessments, no volume discounts, and risk of buying duplicate solutions.

The system found scattered Adobe and DocuSign subscriptions—twelve individual Adobe licenses buried in expense reports, plus one enterprise license in accounts payable. Similar patterns appeared across other software vendors.

Armed with this intelligence, the finance team took strategic action. They consolidated the scattered Adobe licenses into a single enterprise agreement, negotiated better per-seat pricing, eliminated redundant subscriptions, and established clearer procurement protocols. The result wasn’t just cost reduction—it was better software governance, improved security oversight, and stronger vendor relationships.

The Future: Finance as Business Enablers

Adriana’s vision for the future shows how smart automation can change the relationship between finance teams and the broader organization, shifting from gatekeepers to enablers.

This future isn’t theoretical—it’s “quarters away, not years away,” according to Adriana. She describes a comprehensive AI-powered system that integrates calendar data, location tracking, emails, and receipt capture to pre-populate expense reports with minimal employee effort.

Adriana envisions AI as a central agent for all travel spending decisions—a single interface where employees interact with compliant travel booking options through conversation rather than hunting through policy documents.

Let’s say you want to book a business trip. You’ll open the Emburse app, and the AI will ask, “Tell me where you want to go. Tell me what it’s for,” Adrianna describes. The system will present only policy-compliant options and handle approval routing automatically.

“You’re helping the employee be compliant,” Adriana explains. Rather than catching policy violations after they happen, the system prevents violations by making compliance the easiest path. Employees get what they need efficiently, while finance teams gain better visibility and control.

Emburse is already working on technology to make this vision a reality. Their upcoming AI-powered hotel and car rental folio capabilities will accurately extract detailed folio data and itemize everything automatically. “It’s basically going to be able to look at very detailed receipts and truly go in and read it all and itemize,” Adriana says. This detailed data layer becomes the foundation for more advanced AI that can make decisions automatically.

Getting Started: Don’t Wait for Perfect Conditions

For organizations hesitant about this transformation, both leaders stress starting now rather than waiting.

Adriana recommends education as the foundation. “Educate yourself, educate your team,” she says. “We have a CFO organization that I’m a part of, and I get ideas from that. I get ideas from others in the industry. I get ideas from my CTO.”

She also suggests finding partners actively investing in AI development. “Look for partners that are investing in leading in these areas because they can also make it easier as a finance org to adopt and then continue to iterate.”

Olga adds that organizations should identify their most repetitive tasks first and remember that automation systems need ongoing human oversight. It’s also critical to get input from the people actually doing the work.

The Time to Act is Now

While many in the profession continue debating AI’s theoretical implications, forward-thinking teams are already getting real benefits from smart automation. 

Finance professionals who embrace these tools are positioning themselves as strategic partners who guide spending decisions and enable business growth through data insights. The choice facing accounting professionals today isn’t whether to eventually adopt AI—it’s whether to lead this transformation or be dragged along by it.

For finance leaders ready to make this leap, the path forward is clear: identify your most repetitive tasks, educate yourself and your team, and partner with vendors actively investing in AI. Most importantly, don’t let fear of imperfection prevent progress.

Technology isn’t just changing how we work—it’s redefining what it means to be a finance professional. Those who seize this opportunity will discover that AI doesn’t threaten their careers; it elevates them to roles they never imagined possible.

Women in Accounting Are Finally Done Pretending They Have It All Figured Out

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“Can we be friends?”

It was a simple message sent through a professional Slack channel—the direct approach that might work perfectly in elementary school but feels surprisingly vulnerable in the polished accounting world. Questian Telka had been watching Nancy McClelland’s posts in their Bookkeeping Buds community, thinking she seemed smart and funny, and decided to reach out.

Nancy’s response was swift and brutally honest: “No, I don’t have time for that.”

Looking back, Nancy admits she still can’t believe she said that. But it was a perfectly professional answer, the kind that protects busy women behind walls of efficiency. Yet it also captured something deeper about how women in accounting often navigate their careers, maintaining protective barriers even when craving authentic connections.

That initial rejection might have ended the story there, but Questian’s persistence paid off. Their eventual friendship became the foundation for “She Counts,” a new podcast where Nancy and Questian create the space they both desperately needed when starting their accounting careers. 

In their inaugural episode, they share how two very different paths through the accounting world led to the same realization: the conversations they needed most were the ones no one was having.

Two Different Paths, Same Destination

While both women ended up in accounting, their journeys couldn’t have been more different.

Nancy’s path was anything but traditional. With an undergraduate degree in music education from the University of Michigan, she started teaching music theory and managing finances at the Ann Arbor School for the Performing Arts. They were using Quicken—not even QuickBooks—to run their finances, and Nancy discovered a stack of uncashed checks in a drawer that had been sitting there for an entire semester.

“I found this big stack of uncashed undeposited checks in the drawer when I first started, and they just decided they would collect checks for the whole semester and then deposit them at the end of the semester,” Nancy recalls with a laugh.

From there, she worked at a world-famous violin-making studio, where she met Teresa Briggs, a tax preparer who became an unexpected mentor. “That woman saw in me what I had no idea about, which was that I needed to become a tax professional,” Nancy explains. Teresa gave her a CCH Master Tax Guide as a going-away gift—a moment that completely changed Nancy’s career trajectory.

After moving to Chicago, Nancy accidentally started her firm while trying to temp during wedding planning and caring for her mother, who had been diagnosed with breast cancer. Twenty-five years later, she runs The Dancing Accountant, focusing on hyper-local small businesses in her neighborhood.

Questian’s journey was marked by persistence and significant life challenges. It took her three attempts to finish college—something she struggled to share because of the shame she felt around it. “It took me three attempts to finish school before I finally graduated, and it’s not because I was a bad student because I actually had really good grades,” she explains. “But life kept getting in the way, and at the time I also had undiagnosed ADHD.”

She eventually worked in a non-client-facing role at a Big Four firm for ten years, then moved to a nonprofit as director of finance and accounting. But everything changed when her second son was born with a rare chromosomal abnormality. After six weeks in the NICU and eight surgeries before age two, Questian realized she needed the flexibility to be present for her family.

“When he was born, I expected we would see negative things. People would stare or say negative things. But what I really saw was the good in people,” she reflects. “It completely changed my view and made me want to lean more into nonprofit work and specifically disability advocacy.”

That experience also opened her up to having deeper conversations with other women, eventually leading to her recognition that so many women in accounting were struggling with similar challenges.

The Masks We All Wear

Despite their different backgrounds, both women discovered they were dealing with the same fundamental issue: professional isolation. But it showed up differently for each of them.

When Questian started her firm five years ago, she had “no accounting colleagues or friends” to turn to when challenges came up. “There were several times where I had problems that I needed to solve, and I didn’t have anyone to ask. And so then I started questioning, do I really have enough knowledge to be doing this? Do I have what it takes to run this business?”

Nancy’s experience was shaped by what she calls “loads of displaced confidence”—raised by parents who told her she could do anything. But underneath that confidence was a different kind of struggle. “I knew that I was just stabbing in the dark at a lot of it, and I didn’t have anyone to talk to about the fact that I was just making it up as I went along.”

She knew some people in accounting, but they were mostly men, and some were “really judgy and self-important,” which made her feel small, wrong, angry, and defensive. So she did what many women do: “I just put a mask on and pretended that I had it all figured out. And wearing that mask, it was actually really isolating.”

Both had breakthroughs when they found community. For Questian, it was joining Bookkeeping Buds, where she could finally connect with other women who understood her challenges. “It wasn’t until I found community that I finally began to find my stride,” she says.

The Invisible Challenges No One Talks About

Through their friendship and conversations with other women in accounting, Nancy and Questian realized that women face challenges often invisible to their male colleagues.

“Women really have some specific challenges that, quite honestly, men don’t have to deal with. And for the most part, don’t necessarily understand what those challenges are that we’re facing,” Questian explains.

These challenges can feel invisible sometimes. Nancy mentions one many women will recognize: “It turns out that having a favorite place to cry in the office is a thing, and men are shocked when they find out that we all had our safe place to go when we had to cry in the office. It’s real.”

“It’s not about excluding men,” Questian clarifies. “It’s about making space where women can stop filtering and just be themselves.”

Creating the Conversations We Need

Their vision for “She Counts” came from recognizing that the needed conversations were already happening in scattered, private moments. “It’s like a parallel to our WhatsApp groups and our Slack groups of female colleagues that we’ve met along the way, or the conversations that we have when getting together at conferences or meeting for coffee,” Nancy explains.

What makes their approach different is their commitment to authenticity over expertise. “We are not going to be preaching,” Nancy emphasizes. “This is not about that because we are not pretending that we’ve got it all figured out.”

Their approach deliberately avoids toxic positivity. “The good and the bad, they coexist, right? They don’t cancel each other out,” Nancy explains. “If you’re acknowledging the good in your life and you’re acknowledging the bad in your life, then you start to recognize, oh gosh, we’re just humans trying to figure this out.”

They’ve already identified over 50 topics they want to cover, including “Start with No” (about learning to say no before convincing yourself to say yes), “How to make business happen when life happens,” “Do it anyway” (about facing fear), and “I engage in too much negative self-talk like a stupid idiot” (yes, that’s the actual title—see what they did there?).

The podcast won’t feature guests every episode. Instead, it’s topic-driven; they want listener input on what to discuss. “We really want to hear from all of you what ideas you have, what topics you would like to discuss,” Questian says.

Building Community Beyond Individual Success

What they’re creating goes beyond just another professional development resource. It’s about shifting from isolation to community, from pretending to have it all figured out to admitting we are all work in progress.

Nancy captures this perfectly when describing a conversation with a colleague: “I’m not happy that you’re struggling with this, too, but I’m also glad that it’s not just me.” That sentiment—wishing others didn’t have to struggle while finding relief in shared experience—is exactly why authentic professional community matters.

Their philosophy, borrowed from friend Shirley Koss, is “go where you’re celebrated, not where you’re tolerated.” Rather than enduring professional environments that don’t support them, they encourage women to actively seek and create spaces where authenticity is valued.

“If you’ve ever felt like you’re the only one, you’re not. And you shouldn’t have to figure this all out alone,” Questian states. This isn’t just their tagline—it’s their mission.

The podcast is supported by sponsors who understand this mission: Forwardly, Ignition, and Keeper. Nancy gives special recognition to Ignition, where she was a Top 50 Women in Accounting awardee. Their new grant program for past awardees helped make this podcast possible.

Where We Go From Here

Nancy and Questian’s journey from that initial “No, I don’t have time for that” to launching “She Counts” proves something important: the conversations women in accounting need most aren’t happening in formal training sessions or networking events. They’re happening in coffee shops, text messages, and Zoom calls between women who understand each other’s reality.

Now, they’re making those conversations accessible to everyone who needs them. Their next episode is called “She Believed in Me Before I Did,” and it’s about mentorship and the people who see potential in us before we see it ourselves.

“It’s not just you count or I count. It’s “She Counts.” It’s like the voices of women in accounting, working together to try to figure it out and to try to be better than we already are,” Nancy explains.

For women in accounting who have felt alone in their professional struggles, this podcast represents both validation and hope. It’s proof that the challenges are real, shared, and manageable when approached with community support and honest conversation.

The question now isn’t whether you have time for authentic professional community—it’s whether you can afford not to make time for it. Because, as Nancy and Questian discovered, the right conversations don’t just change individual careers. They transform entire professions.

Ready to join the conversation? Follow She Counts on LinkedIn, subscribe to the podcast, and help them brainstorm topics for future episodes. After all, this isn’t just their podcast—it belongs to every woman in accounting who’s ready to stop figuring it out alone.

Hidden in Plain Sight: How Yale Missed a $40 Million Procurement Fraud

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For years, Yale University School of Medicine administrator Jamie Petrone lived a lifestyle far beyond what her job title suggested. She drove a Mercedes-Benz G550, a Range Rover Autobiography edition, and other luxury cars. She owned three houses in Connecticut and another in Georgia. Her social media accounts showed off her wealth for everyone to see. Yet it took nearly a decade before anyone at the prestigious Ivy League school asked how she could afford it.

The shocking truth: Jamie was orchestrating a massive fraud from inside Yale. She secretly ordered thousands of tablet computers—mostly Microsoft Surface Pros—and shipped them to an out-of-state business. That business paid her personally through her own company’s bank account. By the time an anonymous tip finally exposed the scheme in 2021, Yale had lost more than $40 million.

As told in an episode of Oh My Fraud, this case represents one of the most significant procurement fraud schemes ever perpetrated against an academic institution.

A Trusted Employee Exploits the System

Jamie joined the Yale School of Medicine’s Department of Emergency Medicine in 2008 and rose to become Director of Finance and Administration by 2019. With years of experience, she knew Yale’s procurement procedures inside and out, giving her the perfect roadmap to commit fraud.

In 2020, Jamie’s supervisors questioned why her department’s budget showed a big spike in computer purchases. She claimed the department was updating equipment and collaborating on a new project with Yale New Haven Health. No one pressed her further.

The $10,000 Threshold Trick

One simple rule made Jamie’s fraud possible: She could approve any purchase under $10,000 without extra oversight. Rather than submitting big orders for 50 or 100 tablets at once, she broke them into smaller requests—each one kept below the $10,000 limit. With no second approval required, her orders sailed through accounting.

According to the FBI, Jamie placed thousands of these small orders. In one case, she directed a coworker to purchase 100 Surface Pro tablets in 13 separate purchase orders. Twelve orders were for 8 tablets each, totaling about $9,100 each, and one order was for 4 tablets at $4,551. By splitting them up, she avoided the automated controls meant to detect high-value purchases.

Jamie then claimed the tablets were for department research or other official projects. Instead, she shipped them straight to a third-party reseller in New York, which sent payments to her company, Maziv Entertainment LLC. This arrangement racked up millions of dollars of profit, all at Yale’s expense.

Suspicious Spending Hiding in Plain Sight

While Jamie carefully hid the paper trail, she did not hide the results. She drove multiple luxury vehicles, including a Range Rover Autobiography and a Mercedes G550. She amassed four homes and flaunted her lifestyle on Instagram. Even without a full investigation, her lavish, conspicuous spending should have raised questions.

According to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), “living beyond one’s means” is the top behavioral red flag among fraudsters. Despite this common red flag, nobody at Yale confronted the glaring mismatch between her university administrator salary and her multimillion-dollar expenditures—until an anonymous whistleblower reported seeing her load stacks of computers into her Range Rover in 2021.

The Anonymous Tip and FBI Investigation

In August 2021, Yale received a tip about large quantities of computer equipment leaving its campus. After confirming that Jamie was ordering suspiciously high volumes of tablets, the university notified the FBI. Investigators got a search warrant and began tracking packages Jamie sent from a FedEx location in Orange, Connecticut, to a reseller in New York.

Within days, they intercepted several boxes containing 94 Surface Pro tablets. Records showed she had recently placed a $144,000 order for more hardware—far beyond any legitimate department need. Realizing the investigation was closing in, Jamie turned herself in on September 3, 2021.

Guilty Plea and Aftermath

Jamie eventually admitted to the scheme, telling investigators she had done it for years—perhaps as many as ten. In March 2022, she pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud and one count of filing a false tax return. She had not filed tax returns at all from 2017 through 2020, and earlier returns falsely claimed stolen equipment as business expenses.

In October 2022, Jamie was sentenced to nine years in prison. She forfeited six luxury vehicles, four houses, and more than $560,000 held in her company’s account. Yale’s official loss totaled $40,504,200. The U.S. Treasury was also shorted over $6 million in unpaid taxes.

Lessons for Every Organization

This fraud shows how easily a single employee can exploit weak procurement controls—even at an elite institution with a $41 billion endowment. Here are some key lessons:

  1. No One Is Above Suspicion: Long-term employees often have the trust and insider knowledge needed to commit major fraud. Familiarize yourself with employees’ roles and watch for unexplained changes in lifestyle.
  1. Monitor Repetitive Sub-Threshold Purchases: Splitting one large order into many small ones is a common trick. Regularly examine patterns of similar purchases under approval limits.
  1. Heed Behavioral Red Flags: Living beyond means, unusual personal expenditures, or unexplained wealth should prompt further review.
  1. Take Every Tip Seriously: The ACFE’s research shows that most frauds are uncovered by tips. Encourage a culture that supports whistleblowers and investigates promptly.
  1. Don’t Overlook Tax Implications: Illicit income is still taxable. Filing false returns or failing to file can lead to extra penalties and charges.

Hear the Whole Story and Earn CPE

For more details on this case—along with expert insights on fraud and ethics—listen to the full “Oh My Fraud” podcast episode. You can also earn free CPE credit by enrolling in the course on Earmark. 

The story of how such a large-scale fraud remained hidden for so long offers valuable lessons about the power of small gaps in oversight—and the big price organizations pay when those gaps go unaddressed.

When Trust Isn’t Enough: The $17 Million Betrayal of Baseball’s Biggest Star

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In the world of professional baseball, Shohei Ohtani stands as a once-in-a-century talent. Four-time all-star Justin Upton called him “the most talented player I’ve ever seen.” Derek Jeter put it simply: “It’s tough enough to just be a great hitter or an offensive player, or to be a great pitcher. For him to be able to do both is pretty remarkable.”

Yet in March 2024, this modern-day Babe Ruth made headlines for something far removed from his athletic prowess. Federal investigators uncovered a shocking betrayal: Ohtani’s personal interpreter and closest confidant, Ippei Mizuhara, had stolen $17 million from the superstar’s accounts to fuel a devastating gambling addiction.

The Oh My Fraud podcast episode “Sho Me the Money” dives into this extraordinary case of violated trust and circumvented financial safeguards. What began as casual $50 wagers for Mizuhara spiraled into an all-consuming addiction that saw him placing an average of 21 bets per day—a staggering 19,000 wagers over just 29 months—while chasing losses that eventually totaled $40 million.

From Trusted Interpreter to Master Manipulator

When Shohei Ohtani arrived in America in 2018, he faced the challenge that confronts many international athletes—navigating a new culture and language under intense scrutiny. Ippei Mizuhara wasn’t just an interpreter; he became Ohtani’s lifeline in America.

Born in Japan but raised in the Los Angeles area since age seven, Mizuhara was well-positioned to bridge two cultures. He first met Ohtani in 2013 while working for the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters in Japan. When Ohtani signed with the Los Angeles Angels in 2017, Mizuhara came along as his personal interpreter.

Their relationship moved beyond professional boundaries. Wherever Ohtani went, Mizuhara was by his side—at the ballpark, at restaurants, even during high-profile events. Mizuhara wasn’t just Ohtani’s voice in interviews, he was his closest confidant, personal assistant, and in many ways, his best friend in America.

This extraordinary access created the perfect conditions for fraud. During Ohtani’s rookie season, Mizuhara helped him open a Bank of America account, acting as the interpreter during the setup process. By 2021, Mizuhara had consolidated control by intentionally excluding Ohtani’s agent, accountant, and financial planner from accessing the account—claiming it was due to “Ohtani’s desire for privacy.”

With exclusive access established, Mizuhara replaced Ohtani’s contact information with his own anonymous email and phone number in the banking system. When banks flagged suspicious transfers, Mizuhara took an even bolder step—he impersonated Ohtani himself on calls with bank representatives.

The Addiction that Consumed Everything

Behind Mizuhara’s elaborate fraud stood a gambling addiction that had spiraled out of control. What began as modest $50 wagers evolved into bets worth hundreds of thousands of dollars at a time.

Between September 2021 and January 2024, Mizuhara placed a staggering 19,000 bets. That’s an average of 21 bets per day. Every day. That’s one bet per hour for 882 days…betting all day, every day.

During his 29-month betting spree, Mizuhara won approximately $142 million—an enormous sum that might seem like success. But those winnings were overwhelmed by losses totaling $182 million, leaving him with a catastrophic $40 million hole he had no legitimate way to fill.

His bookie was Matthew Bowyer, an illegal bookmaker with his own troubled past. Bowyer had filed for bankruptcy in 2011, claiming he had lost $425,000 gambling in Las Vegas over the previous two years. His extermination business had collapsed, leaving him with over $2 million in liabilities. But Bowyer transformed himself from a bankrupt bettor into a gambling kingpin, running his operation through offshore websites and call centers in Costa Rica.

As Mizuhara sank deeper into addiction, his communications with Bowyer revealed classic desperation. “Can I get one last bump? This one is for real, last one for real,” he texted Bowyer in June 2023, only to ask again the next day. He assured the bookmaker, “You don’t have to worry about me not paying,” even swearing on his mother that his next request for credit would be his last. Of course, it wasn’t.

By late 2023, Bowyer was demanding a $2 million payment, but Mizuhara was in too deep: “I’m trying my best, but I just don’t have it right now,” he admitted.

The Betrayal Uncovered

The scheme began unraveling in March 2024, just as the Dodgers were preparing to open their season in South Korea. The Los Angeles Times reported that Ohtani’s name had surfaced in a federal investigation into an illegal gambling ring, sending shockwaves through the sports world.

Before the full story was known, Mizuhara gave an interview to ESPN, trying to control the narrative. He claimed Ohtani had willingly paid off his gambling debts: “Obviously, he wasn’t happy about it and said he would help me out to make sure I never do this again,” Mizuhara claimed. “He decided to pay it off for me.”

The statement raised more questions than answers. Soon after, Ohtani’s camp denied the claim, and the truth emerged—Mizuhara had been lying. The money transfers weren’t a favor from Ohtani. They were theft.

The theft wasn’t limited to direct payments to bookmakers. In a secondary scheme, Mizuhara used Ohtani’s account to purchase approximately 1,000 baseball cards worth $325,000 through eBay and Whatnot (a live shopping marketplace). He had these cards shipped to the Dodgers clubhouse under the alias “Jay Min”—possibly to monetize some of the stolen funds or create deniability for missing money.

Baseball’s Gambling Demons Return

For baseball, the scandal reopened old wounds concerning the sport’s complicated relationship with gambling. When the Ohtani-Mizuhara story broke, it echoed baseball’s darkest chapters.

In 1919, eight Chicago White Sox players conspired with gamblers to throw the World Series. The “Black Sox” scandal nearly destroyed America’s pastime. Baseball’s first commissioner, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, banned all eight players for life. The message was carved into baseball’s bedrock: gambling meant permanent exile.

Then came Pete Rose, baseball’s all-time hits leader. In 1989, an investigation revealed Rose had bet on baseball games, including ones he managed. Despite his legendary status, the punishment was absolute: permanent banishment from baseball. To this day, even after his death, the game’s hits king remains ineligible for the Hall of Fame.

When news broke that millions had moved from Ohtani’s account to a bookmaker, baseball held its collective breath. As the podcast explains: “The sport could handle murder scandals, doping scandals, even cheating scandals. But gambling—that was different, that was existential.”

There was a collective sigh of relief when Ohtani was cleared—he hadn’t bet on anything. He was a victim, not a perpetrator.

The Consequences and Lessons

In June 2024, Mizuhara pleaded guilty to bank and tax fraud. By February 2025, he received a 57-month prison sentence. The court ordered him to pay $16.7 million in restitution to Ohtani and $1.1 million to the IRS for unpaid taxes on the stolen funds.

Matthew Bowyer also pleaded guilty to operating an unlawful gambling business, money laundering, and subscribing to a false tax return. As of the podcast’s recording, he was still awaiting sentencing.

At its heart, this story isn’t just about gambling—it’s about the failure of financial controls at every level. The banking systems that should have detected suspicious transfers, the oversight that should have spotted irregular patterns, and the basic protections that should have prevented unauthorized access all failed.

The podcast distills the central lesson into four simple words: “Trust is not a control.” No matter how close the relationship, proper financial controls must always be maintained. As the host suggests, perhaps high-profile individuals like Ohtani need to consider an unusual role: “If you’re making that kind of money, shouldn’t the best paid person in your entourage be the person who keeps an eye on everyone else in the entourage?” While that might sound cynical, it could have saved Ohtani $17 million.

The Ippei Mizuhara saga joins a long list of gambling-driven frauds. Jonathan Schwartz stole millions from his clients. Amit Patel embezzled funds from the Jacksonville Jaguars. All three perpetrators convinced themselves that redemption lay just one lucky wager away—a delusion that drives the vicious cycle of addiction, loss, and escalating fraud.

The patterns are always the same: what starts as casual betting transforms into an obsession so powerful it destroys careers, relationships, and lives.

Listen to the full Oh My Fraud episode to learn more about this remarkable case, which blends America’s pastime with a powerful cautionary tale about addiction, trust, and financial controls.

QuickBooks Online Tags Retiring May 15: How to Migrate Your Data Now

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QuickBooks Online users who rely on the Tags feature are facing a critical deadline. After May 15th, 2025, you’ll no longer be able to add new tags to transactions. This underused but flexible feature is being replaced by a modified Custom Fields alternative that comes with both benefits and limitations.

In a recent episode of The Unofficial QuickBooks Accountants Podcast,  hosts Alicia Katz Pollock and Dan DeLong discussed this major transition and explained what you need to know and do before the deadline.

Why Tags Are Going Away (And Why Some Users Will Miss Them)

According to Alicia and Dan, about three-quarters of QuickBooks users never used Tags at all. As Dan explains, “When they roll out a new feature, if it doesn’t get used, it could stand to be discontinued. When I worked there, typically we wouldn’t find out who used it until we stopped it… and then people would call in droves, like, ‘What are you doing? I was using that!’

But for those who discovered Tags’ flexibility, this retirement is a significant loss. Alicia shares several creative ways professionals used Tags:

  • Marking transactions that needed review: “I would use a tag that said ‘for review.’ And then I could pull up all the transactions that needed review, and boom, they were all right there.”
  • Weather tracking at a gas station: “They used tags to say what the weather was… Is it sunny? Is it raining? Because their business is lower on rainy days, and that helped them filter out weather anomalies.”
  • Animal categorization at a veterinary practice: “They would tag transactions with cats, dogs, birds, rodents and reptiles and then they could see who they were providing their services for.”

Tags were particularly valuable for users on lower-tier QuickBooks plans who didn’t have access to Classes or Locations features. “If you didn’t need any of the other features in Plus,” Alicia explains, “Tags allowed you to get flexible about it.”

The Migration Timeline: Act Now

The retirement process follows this timeline:

  • March 17, 2025: Custom Fields was expanded across all QuickBooks Online subscription levels
  • May 15, 2025: CRITICAL DEADLINE – After this date, Tags become read-only
  • May 16, 2025 – May 14, 2028: During this period, you can view historical Tags and run reports but can’t add new tags
  • May 15, 2028: Complete removal of Tags functionality and all historical data

How to Migrate Your Tags to Custom Fields

If you’re using Tags, here’s what you need to do before May 15th:

Step 1: Make sure all your transactions are properly tagged. Go to the gear icon, select Tags, and click “see all untagged transactions” to catch any missed items.

Step 2: Click the “migrate tags to custom fields” button in the Tags section.

Step 3: During migration, you’ll need to:

  • Choose which tags to include (uncheck any you don’t want to migrate)
  • Name your new Custom Field (it defaults to “Tags”)
  • Specify that the field applies to transactions (recommended)
  • Select which transaction types should display the field
  • Decide whether the field should print on customer-facing forms

Step 4: Complete the migration. Your Tags will convert to a dropdown Custom Field with up to 100 options. If you have grouped tags, they’ll appear as “Group Name: Tag Name” in the dropdown list.

Dan notes an important distinction: “The historical transactions still have the tags on them. The new transactions won’t have the tag field – they will have the custom field available to choose.”

Critical Step: Preserve Your Historical Data

This migration doesn’t transfer your historical tag data to the new Custom Field – it only creates the structure for future transactions. Your 2025 reports will be split between the two systems.

“Run your reports on all of your tags so that you have that history permanently,” Alicia emphasizes. “When you’re looking at the Tags list, every single tag group or ungroup tag has a ‘run report’ link to the right of it.”

Save these reports as PDFs with multiple date ranges. “This is the very last time you are ever going to see a P&L related to this data,” Alicia warns.

What’s Better and What’s Worse in the New System

Improvements:

  • Universal Availability: Custom Fields are now available across all subscription tiers.
  • Increased Fields: Simple Start and Essentials now have one custom field, Plus gets four, and Advanced continues with twelve.
  • Dropdown Functionality: The new custom field is a dropdown, which “helps eliminate data entry errors,” as Dan points out.
  • Form Flexibility: Unlike standard custom fields, this new one works on both sales forms AND expense forms.
  • Printing Options: You can choose whether to display the field on customer-facing documents.

Limitations:

  • No P&L Reporting: “The big heartache is that you cannot do a profit and loss report by custom field,” Alicia explains. This is a major functional loss for many users.
  • Banking Feed Limitations: “You cannot apply this new custom field from the banking feed,” notes Alicia. You’ll need to edit transactions after they’re created.
  • No Multiple Values: Unlike Tags, you can only select one value per Custom Field on a transaction.
  • No Bulk Assignment: Currently, there’s no way to apply Custom Fields to multiple transactions at once, though Intuit has said this feature is coming.

Recommendations for Moving Forward

If the Custom Fields approach doesn’t meet your needs, consider these options:

Consider Upgrading: “If you’re angry because your tags are gone, you probably need to be using the right tool for the job anyway,” suggests Alicia. “Classes are way more reportable… It might be worth upgrading to Plus.”

Use Multiple Custom Fields: If you’re on Plus or Advanced, you have access to more custom fields and can create separate fields for different tracking needs.

Spreadsheet Sync: Advanced users can leverage Spreadsheet Sync to manage custom field data, including retroactively applying values to past transactions.

Stay Alert for Improvements: Intuit has already announced that bulk assignment and adding Custom Fields to deposits are on their roadmap.

The Reality Check

As Dan puts it, “If you don’t use something, it is in jeopardy of going away,” bringing new meaning to “use it or lose it” in the software world.

For many users, Tags weren’t even on their radar. But for those who built creative workflows around them, this transition requires immediate action to preserve historical data and adapt to the new system.

If you need help with the migration process or want to discuss this change, you can reach out to Alicia and Dan at unofficialquickbookspodcast@gmail.com.

Listen to the full episode for more details and insights about this important transition in QuickBooks Online.

Alicia Katz Pollock’s Royalwise OWLS (On-Demand Web-based Learning Solutions) is the industry’s premier portal for top-notch QuickBooks Online training with CPE for accounting firms, bookkeepers, and small business owners. Visit Royalwise OWLS, where learning QBO is a HOOT!