I saw today that the “National MAP Survey” is underway. I had never heard of it before, so I thought I would investigate.

MAP stands for “Management of an Accounting Practice.” Basically, it is a survey of accounting practices throughout the country, sponsored by the Private Company Practice Section (PCPS) of  the AICPA and the Texas Society of CPAs. It asks about growth, services, billing rates, etc. You can find out more here.

Limited results of the survey are available for free. Other results, including fees and billing rates by region are available with PCPS or TXCPA membership or are available for purchase.

So, why am I so excited about it? First, I think the survey results could be fun for students to take a look at. For example,  students could compare billing rates, earnings, and revenue growth over time. It also talks about partner compensation at different firm sizes.

Second, I think it could lead to some fun research ideas and/or data. Why have billing rates for managers been increasing so much faster than billing rates for both staff and partners? How did SOX (or other regulation) affect billing rates? Perhaps billing rates by region could be used to provide a baseline for calculating excess audit fees by region instead of on a national level. To me it looks like a data source that hasn’t really been tapped into. With audit data so scarce, this could be a valuable resource.