Accountants Round Up

"Best of 2007: Accounting"

By CFO.com: There can be little doubt that in terms of accounting, the biggest stories of the year were the huge rise in momentum in the move toward the international convergence of financial reporting standards and the rise of fair-value accounting. But the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board's replacement of its existing internal-controls assessment standard in favor of a new, maybe improved version — AS5 — was getting a great deal of attention around the middle of 2007. For its part, too, the Securities and Exchange Commission was making news, exerting its fiscal power over the Financial Accounting Standards Board.

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Source: CFO.com, 21 December 2007. © CFO Publishing Corporation 2007. All rights reserved.

"Survey: Accounting, Finance Salaries on the Rise"

By Portland Business Journal: Many accounting and finance professionals will have something to smile about when the new year arrives, according to a job-growth survey.

Robert Half International (NYSE:RHI) said in its latest salary guide that five of the most in-demand positions for 2008 are:

Read complete article Survey: Accounting, Finance Salaries on the Rise
Source: Portland Business Journal, 21 December 2007.  2007 American City Business Journals, Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved.

"Meagre Pickings Outside Big Fifty"

By AccountancyAge: A benchmarking survey by accountancy network AVN of about 200 independent practices outside the top 50 biggest firms found that, although the average practice earned about £77,000 for each partner, after adjusting for arms length partner salary costs, the average partner actually made a loss.

Unlike the Big Four, the exception to the rule were some independent practices where the profit per partner was more than £200,000.

Read complete article Meagre Pickings Outside Big Fifty
Source: AccountancyAge, 21 December 2007. © Incisive Media Ltd. 2007. All rights reserved.

"House Passes AMT Legislation - Bush Says He Will Sign"

By AccountingWEB: Late Wednesday afternoon, the House of Representatives voted 352-64 to approve a bill that will patch the Alternative Minimum Tax for one more year, protecting more than 20 million taxpayers from an estimated average tax increase of $2,000 next spring when they file their 2007 individual income tax returns.

House Democrats who were holding out for a revenue neutral plan that would reimburse the government for taxes lost through the AMT fix by raising taxes elsewhere finally gave in, recognizing that a simple AMT patch with no offsetting tax increase was the only alternative that would be signed into law in 2007.

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Source: AccountingWEB, 20 December 2007. Copyright © 2007 AccountingWEB, Inc. All rights reserved.

"Five Great Times to Ask for Referrals"

By Miriam Lawrence: One of the referral questions we hear most often from advisors is, "When should I bring up the subject?" Referral expert Matt Anderson tackled this topic in a recent Horsesmouth article, suggesting these five excellent times to talk about referrals:

1. During a formal client meeting, after you've confirmed the value that you've brought to the client thus far.

Read complete post Five Great Times to Ask for Referrals
Source: Automatic Referrals, 13 December 2007. Copyright © 2006 By Horsesmouth LLC.

"More Liabilities Will Be Recorded Under Proposed Accounting Rules"

By Fulcrum Inquiry: The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) proposed significant revisions to the classification of debt and equity in financial statements. The proposal would limit the transactions that could be classified as equity.

Absent modification of underlying loan agreements, the proposed rules will make it difficult for some companies to meet debt to equity restrictions.

Read complete article More Liabilities Will Be Recorded Under Proposed Accounting Rules
Source: Fulcrum Inquiry, December 2007. Copyright 2007 Fulcrum Inquiry® LLP.

"Executives Say Their Companies Still Grapple With Risk and Controls Management"

By SmartPros: While the Sarbanes-Oxley Act required a focus on internal controls over financial reporting -- led mainly by the CFO's team -- research from KPMG International indicates that the "risk and controls" mindset has yet to fully penetrate other areas of the company, particularly executives in operating units.

"Even after the recent regulatory upheaval, many companies are not significantly better prepared to manage enterprise-wide risks to their organization than they were before Sarbanes-Oxley was passed in 2001," said Michael J. Nolan, global head of Internal Audit Services at KPMG.

Read complete article Executives Say Their Companies Still Grapple With Risk and Controls Management
Source: SmartPros, 19 December 2007. © Copyright 2007 SmartPros Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

"Project Management Trumps Time, Again!"

By Ed Kless: A recent article by Roger Russell (November 5, 2007) in Accounting Today and also appearing on the webcpa site proves that just a focus on project management, rather than time, is sufficient to increase effectiveness, no matter how you price. 

A quote from Mark Robinson of KAF Financial Group really summarizes it quite nicely, “We also became a project-based firm,” he said.

Read complete post Project Management Trumps Time, Again!
Source: VeraSage, 18 December 2007. 2006 © Verasage Institute.

"Could You Switch to IFRS in 3 Years?"

By Sarah Johnson: Following a 2002 mandate from the European Commission, European companies took three years to change over their financial reporting systems from their home-country GAAP to International Financial Reporting Standards. By most public accounts, the change generally went smoothly for the companies that made the switch and the European securities market as a whole.

"We could have had 7,000 [companies] produce complete garbage but we didn't," said Richard Thorpe, head of accounting, auditing, and capital and groups policy at the U.K. Financial Services Authority.

Read complete article Could You Switch to IFRS in 3 Years?
Source: CFO.com, 18 December 2007. © CFO Publishing Corporation 2007. All rights reserved.

"SEC Allows Foreign Reporting Standards in the U.S."

By Fulcrum Inquiry: Last week, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) eliminated its requirement for international companies to reconcile financial statements prepared under the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) to generally accepted accounting principles in the United States. This creates an unprecedented situation of two co-existing financial reporting standards in the U.S.

The move is likely the first step in an inevitable change to the SEC allowing all public companies (including those based in the U.S.) to report using either standard, and eventually allowing only IFRS.

Read complete article SEC Allows Foreign Reporting Standards in the U.S.
Source: Fulcrum Inquiry, November 2007. Copyright 2007 Fulcrum Inquiry® LLP.