The North Carolina State Board of Certified Public Accountant Examiners protects the public by regulating the CPA title and ensuring that licensed CPAs and CPA firms meet professional standards. The Board administers CPA exams and licensures, oversees renewals, continuing education, firm registrations, and peer review compliance, and enforces state accountancy laws.
Agency Transformation Phase: 4, Integrated Service
During the Integrated Service phase, regulatory boards integrate work done in previous phases into a holistic system, free of information silos and manual steps.
Opportunity: The NC Board of CPA Examiners relied on manual, paper-based processes, creating fragmented workflows across license renewals, applications, exams, transactions and communications. Regulatory agency staff processed paper forms, performed repetitive handoffs, and handled exceptions inconsistently. Limited online validation meant staff frequently needed to follow up with license applicants to correct missing or inaccurate information. At the same time, automations and integrations lagged behind operational needs, especially for tracking requirements. These disconnected workflows resulted in slower processing, along with more effort to support oversight and audits.
Solution: The NC Board of CPA Examiners shifted from paper to automation for end-to-end workflows for license renewals, applications, exams, payments, and communications, enabling applicants and regulatory staff to complete work consistently through an online experience. Now, improved data quality at the onset, reduces back-and-forth, preventing incomplete submissions from entering the process. Role-based security supports secure, compliant processing. And automated workflow rules and tracking reduce manual intervention by managing the progression of multiple exams. The Board also uses interfaces to import and export exam scores for NASBA-related milestones.
Challenge: The NC Board of CPA Examiners needed stronger system support for license applications and renewals that require manual review—especially when applicants’ responses triggered regulatory exceptions or additional scrutiny. Under the previous approach, staff monitored submissions and identified exceptions, outside a fully automated workflow. With paper processes and uneven procedures, exception handling and documentation varied. This made regulatory oversight harder to scale, and reduced visibility for auditors who needed to review records efficiently.
Solution: The Board moved to a fully online operating model with standardized workflows designed to automate routing, tracking and documentation for conditional reviews. Digital license applications and renewals now incorporate user-experience validations to ensure applicants answer required questions. When responses trigger exceptions, configured workflow rules support consistent handling by routing to appropriate reviewers and maintaining an audit trail. Role-based security ensures reviewers and regulatory agency staff gain appropriate access to sensitive records. With processes automated and performed uniformly, the Board applies rules consistently, making regulatory oversight easier.
Regulatory Agency Modernization
