Three nonprofit-focused firms modernize audits with CoCounsel and Audit Intelligence

Key results:

• Headcount efficiency. "We are down two people from this time last year, yet our output as far as revenue is the same," showing technology-driven margin protection without backfilling departures. — Donald Wells, Wells, CPA
• Faster sample selection. "When they're taking three hours to pick a sample and the darn software can do it in like 5 minutes," the team gains back time on every engagement. — Linda Forde
• Document review time cut. "CoCounsel gave me a response in a couple of minutes versus taking me an hour to do," enabling quicker, defensible analysis of internal control documentation. — Linda Forde
• Peer-review-ready documentation. “The output in and of itself is a time saver” – and the documentation Analyze generates meets the standard that would otherwise take “a full day and tons of review comments” to produce manually. — Donald Wells, Wells CPA

Executive summary

Located in Troy, Ohio, Sam Brown CPA, Inc. serves hundreds of nonprofits and HUD properties. In Columbus, Ohio, Wells CPA, LLC  focuses exclusively on nonprofit audits and attest services. Down in Jacksonville, Florida, The Forde Firm  specializes in nonprofit accounting and assurance. Each firm adopted a mix of Thomson Reuters AI solutions, including CoCounsel Audit and Audit Intelligence to address staffing constraints, thin margins, and rising audit quality expectations. The firms use Analyze to automate population-level analysis and risk-focused sampling, and CoCounsel Audit to accelerate research and document analysis with authoritative support. Collectively, they report shorter cycle times on sampling and documentation, stronger linkage to risks, and better knowledge transfer to junior staff and peer-review-ready workpapers — while maintaining or improving margins through efficiency gains.

The opportunity: Keeping audit quality high with fewer hands

Auditors are navigating persistent staffing shortages, compressed budgets, and heightened scrutiny from peer reviewers. As Sam Brown noted, "Our area has been hit a little bit harder with the rapidly shrinking talent pool," with many nearby firms closing and "nobody stepping up to take over." He needed to stay efficient for smaller nonprofits that "just can't afford to pay the large audit fee," without compromising quality. 

This is not a temporary staffing gap that more hiring solves. Across small and mid-size CPA firms, the talent pipeline is structurally shrinking — and firms can no longer rely on headcounts as the primary lever for maintaining audit output. AI augmentation helps ensure that existing staff can do the work that previously required a larger team. 

Donald Wells saw similar pressures on quality and profitability. "If we can use it well, it improves our audit product," he said, adding that Analyze "almost tricks the staff into doing statistical sampling" in a way that keeps the product "on par" despite a leaner team. Thin margins in the nonprofit niche intensified the need. "We needed to be able to make sufficient money," he explained.

For Linda Forde, risk assessment rigor and staff development were paramount. "Risk assessment is so key and so critical," and Analyze helps "bifurcate the population down into smaller chunks," driving statistical sampling and sharper risk focus. CoCounsel Audit lowered the barrier to complex concepts for newer staff. "If I tell them they have to assess the inherent risk of material misstatement, I say go put it in CoCounsel. It will give you an answer - you still have to read it, but it will tell you the inherent risk down to the assertion level."