The National Association of State Boards of Accountancy has launched a new Web site,CPAverify.org,that provides a central database of state licensee information about CPAs practicing across the U.S.

The site includes official state regulatory data received from state boards of accountancy,and is free and open to the public.At launch time,CPAverify.org website includes licensee data for 22 states.Additional states will be added regularly until all 55 U.S.CPA licensing jurisdictions are included.

A national database of this kind has been long awaited.Corporations,individuals,CPA firms and organizations such as the Internal Revenue Service and the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board have expressed a need for up-to-date access to CPA records across multiple jurisdictions.

To address this need,CPAverify was designed as an outward-facing version of an internal CPA database that has been in operation by NASBA for several years.Up to now,however,the database has only been available for use by authorized state board personnel.

"With database platforms,data processes,privacy policies and freedom of information laws varying from state to state,it is quite an undertaking to synchronize all those various data feeds into one useful tool that can be available to help support the state boards with public protection and enforcement efforts," said NASBA president and CEO David Costello in a statement."For this reason,NASBA and the state boards are very proud to be launching the service for public consumption and additional states’ data will be added regularly until all 55 CPA licensing jurisdictions are included."

CPAverify.org will provide individuals and organizations with a way to research whether a CPA is officially licensed in a particular state without having to search each state board Web site individually.The tool also goes one step further by providing general license history for CPAs.