In the last episode of 2025 of The Accounting Podcast, hosts Blake Oliver and David Leary kicked off the conversation with an unexpected problem: America is running out of pennies. David’s friend owns sandwich shops in Tucson and literally can’t get pennies from the bank anymore. Businesses are being forced to round to the nearest nickel, and point-of-sale systems are scrambling to adapt.
“Square admits one fifth of all the transactions on Square are still paid in cash,” David noted, highlighting how this seemingly small issue affects millions of daily transactions. The government claims there are 300 billion pennies in circulation, but as David pointed out, “Obviously this isn’t true because businesses all over America do not have pennies to use in transactions.”
But the penny shortage was just the warm-up. The hosts quickly moved to a much bigger story about missing money: $95 million vanished at Evolve Bank, yet the auditors still signed off on clean financial statements.
$95 Million Went Missing While Auditors Said Everything Was Fine
Blake followed the Evolve Bank story for years, and recent Freedom of Information Act requests uncovered stunning details about what the auditors knew and ignored.
Evolve Bank is a chartered bank that worked with Synapse, a “banking as a service” company that wasn’t a bank itself but managed the technology connecting consumer apps like Yotta and Juno to actual banks. When you used these apps, you’d see your balance, but you had no idea which bank actually held your money. Synapse managed all those details.
“Everything worked great until April 2024, when Synapse filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy and shut down operations,” Blake explained. Suddenly, the banks and the apps couldn’t figure out where customer money actually was. Evolve froze withdrawals from thousands of accounts, leaving people unable to access their own money for months.
When banks examined Synapse’s records, they found massive problems. Between $65 and $95 million in customer funds couldn’t be traced to any bank. “Your Juno account might say $10,000, and the bank that’s supposed to have the $10,000 says, ‘We don’t have it,’” Blake explained.
The most damaging revelation came from the 2023 audit. When Crowe, Evolve’s auditor at the time, asked Synapse to confirm cash balances, the response should have triggered immediate action. Evolve listed 113 accounts, but Synapse was missing 29 accounts from daily data feeds. Synapse’s general counsel asked to discuss the discrepancies with Evolve’s leadership.
Evolve never responded to that request, yet Crowe still issued a clean audit opinion.
“Ninety five million is a lot of money,” Blake observed. “It would be 6% to 7% of Evolve’s total assets, likely over 100% of their annual net income, a double digit percentage of equity capital in some years. And typically, materiality would be 1 or 2% of assets.”
Are SOC 2 Reports Worthless?
The Evolve disaster led the hosts to question other compliance frameworks, particularly SOC certifications that companies display as badges of trustworthiness.
“My guess is Synapse had their SOC 2, because it’s not that hard to get a SOC 2,” Blake said. “According to my understanding, it’s really just a lot of documentation of the controls. But there’s not necessarily any confirmation that those controls are being followed.”
“They paid the money and got the badge for their website,” David observed.
The hosts also discussed how a New Jersey accounting firm, Sax, took 18 months to inform nearly 250,000 people about a data breach. The firm claimed it followed standard procedures and saw no evidence the stolen data was misused, but for 18 months, affected individuals had no idea their personal information might be compromised.
“People could be using your stolen identity fraudulently 18 months before the accounting firm lets you know,” David said.
The problem is that while firms must have Written Information Security Plans (WISPs), they’re not necessarily legally required to execute them properly. “We focus on the wrong thing,” David argued. “We focus on having a WISP, not actually executing the WISP.”
Partners Don’t Know What Partners Make
In a lighter but equally revealing segment, Blake shared his favorite LinkedIn post of the year from Chase Birky, CEO and Co-founder of Dark Horse CPAs. Chase shared that almost a third of partners don’t know how much partners make at their own firms.
“How do CPAs not know how much they make? Isn’t that sort of what we do?” Chase wrote. The problem stems from a lack of transparency at many firms where partner compensation is calculated in a “black box” and communicated well after the fact. This secrecy is at least part of the reason talent leaves public accounting.
“I left because I got offered a job in tech that paid a lot more,” Blake said, sharing his own experience. “I didn’t know how much a partner made, and nobody could tell me what the path looked like.”
Should Companies Report Twice a Year Instead of Four Times?
The hosts also debated President Trump’s suggestion that U.S. companies should move from quarterly to semi-annual reporting, like much of the rest of the world.
Research from the UK showed that changing reporting frequency had “virtually no impact on companies’ internal investment decisions.” Studies also found that quarterly reporting creates “noisier data” that benefits sophisticated investors while hurting everyday investors.
“We’re always talking about how we have too much work to do in accounting and we’re pressed for time,” Blake said. “What better way to give ourselves more time than to make it two times a year instead of four?”
David wondered if less frequent reporting might reduce the pressure to play accounting games. “Monthly reporting probably puts pressure on people to sidestep the rules because it’s so fast and you have to perform.”
Looking Ahead to 2026
The hosts wrapped up with predictions for the coming year. David was skeptical about AI transforming bookkeeping. “I don’t see me doing bookkeeping at the end of 2026 any differently than I did in 2025, 2024, 2023, or 2022.”
Blake disagreed, pointing to new AI browsers that can actually navigate accounting software and complete tasks. “The time is doubling every seven months,” he explained. “Within the next year, we’re going to see AI able to complete tasks that take 15 to 20 minutes with 100% accuracy.”
David also predicted that OpenAI would strike a multi-million dollar deal with the AICPA, that at least two AI companies would fail, and, in his easiest prediction, “Intuit will tick off accountants in 2026.”
The episode covered far more ground than can be captured here, from the technical details of audit failures to the future of AI in accounting. For the complete discussion and all the insights Blake and David shared in their final episode of 2025, listen to the full episode of The Accounting Podcast.