DATA DRAFT

The CPA brand by the numbers

CPAs inspire confidence and remain the most

highly regarded and trusted business professionals among business decision-makers and investors — and there are stats to back it up.

In 2015, the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) commissioned its multi-constituency biennial research study to understand perceptions of the CPA brand, update insights from the 2013 brand study, measure progress against key brand metrics and guide strategy and plans. Here are some highlights:

>> Among finance and business professionals, CPAs are ranked

NO. 1 for high regard by business decision-makers and investors. Among all professionals, they are second only to physicians. This rank increased by 12 PERCENT over 2013 results.

>> Business decision-makers’ satisfaction (very satisfied and somewhat satisfied) ranks very high among both internal (93 PERCENT) and external CPAs (90 PERCENT). Investors who work with CPAs are 97 PERCENT satisfied with their performance.

>> Integrity and competency continue to be rated the top two CPA attributes by business decision-makers and investors.

Learn more about the research study in an AICPA blog post at tinyurl.com/CPABrandBlogPost. n

CANCELLED

Commit the spelling of “cancelled” to memory because Virginians have problems spelling it, according to search research released by Google to determine the most-misspelled words in each state. Hey, it could be worse: “diarrhea” tops the list in more than one state. Other troublesome culprits around the country? Desert, leprechaun, tongue and cousin, to name a few. n

CONSTRUCTING THE COMMONWEALTH

Virginia ranked NO. 9 nationally in 2015 for development for office, industrial, warehouse and retail real estate, according to NAIOP, the commercial real estate development association. Fast facts about Virginia’s real estate development:

>> New development supported 13,281 JOBS

>> Development overall supported 34,482 JOBS

>> Development contributed $2.5 BILLION to Virginia’s economy

Find the full study, with several appendices detailing development stats by state, at naiop.org. n

Affordable colleges in Virginia

According to the Forbes list of this year’s 300 Best Value universities, the Commonwealth is chock full of affordable educational opportunities. Eleven universities made the list of 300, and five made the top 50.

The Virginia universities among the top 50 were the University of Virginia (No. 19), the College of William and Mary (No. 22), Virginia Tech (No. 29), Washington and Lee University (No. 32) and Virginia Military Institute (No. 44). The other Virginia-based schools on the list were James Madison University (No. 99), the University of Richmond (No. 127), George Mason University (No. 180), the University of Mary Washington (No. 185), Hampden-Sydney College (No. 201) and Sweet Briar College (No. 298).

The No. 1 most-affordable school was the University of California, Berkeley. n