AI BUDGETING

Greg Henry

A surprise AI bill is a seemingly common experience for finance leaders, including Greg Henry, CFO of password management company 1Password. Henry described an “unpleasant surprise” in a recent blog post: an AI bill five times higher than the original contract.

Henry told CFO Brew the contract was for a few hundred thousand dollars, but as employees were let loose to use the tool, “consumption took off” and the company blew through the initial contract amount “pretty quickly.” He was soon handed “another procurement request for a million dollars.” Per his blog post, the incident “revealed a structural gap between IT, Finance, and end users.”

“We weren’t probably set up the way we should have been to capture consumption vendors,” Henry told us.

The experience offered an important, albeit expensive, lesson that can apply to any CFO navigating AI vendor contracts. 1Password now has procurement triggers and greater visibility into consumption.

Henry said companies faced a similar learning experience with cloud technology, since some cloud vendors use consumption pricing. Back then, a company may have ended up with a surprise $10,000 bill if an employee left “an instance running over the weekend.” But Henry also made an important distinction between cloud and AI spending.

Educating employees on the most cost-efficient AI model to use is the next step.—AZ

      

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ACCOUNTING

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Salaries at accounting firms have gone up this year—but perhaps not at the level where it matters most.

According to Accounting Today’s third annual salary survey, median base salaries at accounting firms crept upward in 2026. For senior accountants, they reached a median of $98,500, and for managers, around $142,000. Partners at small firms—defined in this survey as those with fewer than 10 employees—brought home a median salary of $150,000, while those at firms with 10 or more employees made median salaries of $260,000.

The median salary at the staff level though, went down slightly: from $75,000 last year to $73,000 this year. That’s a somewhat concerning trend, as lower starting salaries are one reason young people often cite for not entering the accounting profession.

The survey polled 715 people in June 2026. About three-quarters of them (74%) worked at CPA firms, while the rest worked at non-CPA accounting, tax, and other professional services firms. Accounting Today chose not to include salary data from billion-dollar-plus firms, as it only received a few of these responses and they skewed the results.

Private equity-backed firms rewarded employees with the highest average salaries: $219,000, compared with $184,000 at CPA firms. “This is significant as private equity’s infusion into the accounting profession has supercharged growth through acquisitions and investments in technology and talent,” Accounting Today said.

Still, only 5% indicated they were actively looking for a new job.—CV

      

IPOs

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If at first you don’t succeed, try again. And then try a third time, too. That’s how Shein has approached its seemingly ill-fated IPO.

The Chinese-founded, now Singapore-based, fashion colossus initially attempted to go public in New York in 2023, but lawmakers essentially blocked the company from doing so in the US amid allegations of using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. Then, it was full steam ahead on London in 2025, though roadblocks emerged in the form of lawmaker opposition, the growing impact of tariffs, and a lack of approval from regulators in China, where the brand’s clothing is manufactured.

Now, its IPO will happen on September 1 in Hong Kong, which Chinese regulators have already signed off on—the “friendliest” location for the company, but also its “market of last resort,” Sky Canaves, principal retail analyst at Emarketer, told Morning Brew.

And more than just the location of the company’s IPO has changed since it was initially valued at $100 billion in 2022. For one, the company is now valued at $27 billion.

“Shein hasn’t quite lived up to some of its promises of evolving its business model,” one analyst told Morning Brew.—TC

      

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market forces

Francis Scialabba

Today’s top finance reads

Stat: $100 million. That’s how much Ernst & Young’s US division is investing in employee rewards for…people skills. (the Wall Street Journal)

Quote: “If timing is everything in love, the bromance between Bessent and Warsh may be coming to an end.”—Tim Mahedy, a former San Francisco Fed economist, on Kevin Warsh and Scott Bessent’s conflicting visions (CNN Business)

Read: A timeout on Pennsylvania’s AI “gold rush.” (the New York Times)

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