Varney & Associates picks Fieldguide for audit platform

Varney & Associates has selected Fieldguide as its engagement platform across its audit and advisory practice, replacing software the Kansas accounting firm had used for 20 years.

The agreement covers audit and attest, tax, and client accounting services, bringing several parts of the firm onto a single system. Varney will keep the audit methodology it developed over the past three years while moving work onto Fieldguide.

Based in Manhattan, Kansas, with another office in Emporia, the firm serves more than 2,500 clients. Its work spans audit, tax, accounting, and consulting, with a focus on agriculture, financial institutions, government, manufacturing, medical, and nonprofit organisations.

Implementation will take place in stages. Varney plans to move its audit and attest practice to the platform by the end of 2026, including employee benefit plan, government, nonprofit, and commercial audits, as well as reviews, compilations, preparations, Form 990 tax work, and bank tax work.

Its client accounting services and bank consulting teams are due to follow in January, while business tax and individual returns are scheduled to move after the 2027 tax season.

The change also affects how the firm handles client document requests. Its previous document-request platform had shut down, so Varney used an interim tool before deciding to place those requests within the same system used for engagements.

Clients will therefore see requests and engagement work in one real-time view rather than across separate tools. According to Fieldguide, its software applies the firm's existing audit methodology throughout the engagement process with human oversight and traceability.

Amanda VanKleeck explained the rationale for the switch.

"With every other platform we've used, we were the ones pushing it forward. Fieldguide is the first one pulling us along," said Amanda VanKleeck, CPA, Principal and Quality Control Director, Varney & Associates.

"We value an innovative partner with a clear vision for the future of AI in accounting and auditing. Our people's time is always at a premium, and this lets us give more of it to our clients," VanKleeck said.

Fieldguide presents the arrangement as an example of a mid-sized firm changing core systems without discarding its own way of working. The software can be used across the engagement lifecycle, from planning to close, while leaving practitioners in control of the work.

Jin Chang, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Fieldguide, said the project showed that firms did not have to replace their internal methods when adopting newer tools.

"Firms like Varney show what's possible when a firm of any size modernizes on its own terms," said Jin Chang, Co-Founder and CEO, Fieldguide.

"They're keeping the methodology they've built and giving clients a faster way to work with them, all in one move," Chang said.

Fieldguide said it already works with several large accounting firms, including eight of the 10 biggest globally. Varney, founded in 1959, is now replacing a long-standing desktop system with a platform intended to cover much of its practice in one environment.