Accounting Today articles from July 2008

Accounting Today archives from July 2008

Start spreading the word!: Your client base is the best place to sell planning services.
July 7, 2008... Looking for strong leads to grow your financial planning practice? Try scouring your tax clients. It may seem obvious, but internal marketing within your tax base is the best way to beef up your wealth management clientele, and is often a...

Tax Software: Bargain hunting: Tax vendors unveil summer product promotions.
July 7, 2008... Since most observers consider the tax prep market to be in a maturing mode, its important for software makers to offer their products for tryouts, early renewals and promotional pricing during the season when their customers have the time to...

PCAOB weighs feedback on EQR proposal.(Public Company Accounting Oversight Board on)
July 7, 2008... Washington, D.C. -- U.S. corporations and accountants concerned over rising audit costs due to Sarbanes-Oxley requirements may soon have more to worry about including another spike in audit charges as a result of the Public Company Accounting...

Clarification.(Correction notice)(Reprint)
July 7, 2008... In the Spirit of Accounting column in our June 2-15, 2008, issue (page 15), the text of an article by Paul Miller from The Journal of Accountancy should have been accompanied by the following: Reprinted with permission from The Journal of...

Deloitte audits faulted in inspection report.
July 7, 2008... Washington, D.C. -- The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board issued the latest inspection report of Big Four firm Deloitte & Touche, noting problems with nine audits performed by the firm last year. With two unidentified clients, the...

NFP nuptials: Blackbaud to acquire struggling Kintera.(not-for-profit)
July 7, 2008... Charleston, S.C. -- In a high-profile consolidation in the not-for-profit software arena, NFP vendor Blackbaud struck a deal to acquire struggling rival Kintera for roughly $46 million in cash, or $1.12 per share. The deal, which Blackbaud...

In Brief.
July 7, 2008... TAX EVASION PROSECUTIONS DECLINE SLIGHTLY Syracuse, N.Y. The number of tax evasion prosecutions fell 5.3 percent last year, continuing a steady decline for at least two decades, according to a new study. Tax Analysts and the...

Editor's Desk: Get proactive on IFRS.(International Financial Reporting Standards)
July 7, 2008... Last month, a survey released by Big Four Firm Deloitte revealed that U.S. companies require just a tad more preparation and training before International Financial Reporting Standards can be adopted. My guess as a more-than-casual observer of...

LETTER: No lack of ethics at big firms.
July 7, 2008... Edwin Kliegman is to be commended for analyzing the draft report of the Treasury Departments Advisory Committee on the Auditing Profession (Report on auditing should be a must-read, Accounting Today, May 19-June 1, 2008, page 6), but I must...

LETTER: A call to action.
July 7, 2008... Your May 19-June 1, 2008, issue raised several interesting points. Your editorial regarding the glacial pace of government reform; the IRS facing thinning ranks; and Edwin Kliegmans report on how the Treasury Committees report on the...

LETTER: Agreeing with Miller & Bahnson - again!
July 7, 2008... Once again the planets have aligned, and I find myself in agreement with Messrs. Miller and Bahnson in their column Comparability, schmomparability, (May 19-June 1, 2008, page 15). In discussing the Financial Accounting Standards Boards...

E-filing grows into e-services.
July 7, 2008... The state of e-services today can be compared to where e-filing was about five years ago. If you look back five years, what we were saying about e-filing would sound a lot like what were saying about e-services today, said Roger Harris,...

In Brief.
July 7, 2008... 2009 HSA LIMITS RELEASED Washington, D.C. The Internal Revenue Service has published the 2009 inflation-adjusted deduction limits for health savings accounts. For calendar-year 2009, the annual limitation on deductions for an...

Tax Strategy: Military and farm tax legislation clear Congress.
July 7, 2008... So far, 2008 has not been a year for major tax legislation. Nor, being an election year, are the remaining six months likely to offer major legislation. Two bills that did make it through Congress prior to Memorial Day included tax...

FASB updates insurance contract standard.(Financial Accounting Standards Board)
July 7, 2008... Norwalk, Conn. -- Financial guarantee insurance companies stand behind trillions of dollars in financial obligations including many of the mortgages that have recently fallen into default. So the Securities and Exchange Commission had good...

Change of Auditors.
July 7, 2008... CFOS LACK EXPERIENCE WITH IFRS Chicago Nearly 75 percent of CFOs and senior comptrollers have no experience using International Financial Reporting Standards, while 55 percent are unfamiliar with the Extensible Business Reporting Language,...

The Spirit of Accounting: Mythbusters: Values are neither hypothetical nor irrelevant.
July 7, 2008... Continuing a theme, this column is another Mythbuster that demonstrates the fallacy behind a couple of longstanding arguments against using values in financial statement reporting. In our prior column, we exploded the myth that an assets...

Debate spurs new trends in executive comp.(Executive compensation)
July 7, 2008... Never before has the issue of executive compensation garnered as much of the publics interest as it has in recent years, due in large part to several highly publicized corporate scandals. The backlash from incidents involving top executives...

In Brief.
July 7, 2008... TOO MANY RAID NEST EGGS Roughly one quarter of adults who are actively planning for their retirement have prematurely withdrawn from their retirement investment products, according to a Wall Street Journal Online/Harris Interactive...

New standard makes execs rethink M&A.
July 7, 2008... Norwalk, Conn. -- Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 141 (R), Business Combinations, issued by the Financial Accounting Standards Board, promises to change how companies approach planning and reporting around mergers, acquisitions...

Entry-level software 2008: It's far more than basic.(Product/service evaluation)
July 7, 2008... Personal computers revolutionized a lot of things, including the way that bookkeeping and accounting is performed. Before the PC, bookkeeping was a manual process, and general ledgers were, for the most part, exactly that large, hard-covered...

In Brief.(Brief article)
July 7, 2008... SEC URGES XBRL ON MUTUAL FUNDS Shortly after proposing requirements for public companies to start filing their financial statements with interactive data tags, the Securities and Exchange Commission wants mutual fund companies to begin...

Boomer's Blueprint: Change management: A firm's strategic advantage.
July 7, 2008... Internal and external forces are driving change in the profession, with a host of new options and requirements surfacing almost every day. Uncertainty often lingers even among the most experienced partners and IT leaders. How a firm navigates...

It pays to be client-focused!
July 7, 2008... Profitability and being client-focused go hand in hand. Intellectually, all accountants believe this, but they have a hard time identifying specific actions they can take to maximize both profitability and client service. Over the years, Ive...

In Brief.(Marcum & Kliegman merges with RosenfarbWinters)(Brief article)
July 7, 2008... MARCUM & KLIEGMAN MERGES WITH ROSENFARBWINTERS Melville, N.Y. u CPA firm Marcum & Kliegman is expanding from New York to New Jersey by merging with RosenfarbWinters, a specialist in forensic accounting. The combined firm will operate under...

New Products.
July 7, 2008... Software SHARE A LITTLE Adaptive Planning has released Version 5.0 of its Web-based planning, budgeting and reporting software. In addition to major enhancements to multi-dimensional modeling, personnel and expense allocation, and...

People.
July 7, 2008... CALIFORNIA Joanna Schultz has become a shareholder in the San Jose office of Mayer Hoffman McCann PC.... Deanna Flores has joined the Washington National Tax Financial Institutions and Products Group of KPMG LLP as a principal in the...

Firms.(Brief article)
July 7, 2008... CALIFORNIA J.H. Cohn LLP announced that it will merge in Good Swartz Brown & Berns LLP, Woodland Hills, which will operate as Good Swartz Brown & Berns, a Division of J.H. Cohn, adding about 125 professionals to J.H. Cohn. FLORIDA ...

Coming Events.(Calendar)
July 7, 2008... JULY 7-8: Introduction to U.S. International Tax, Alliance for Tax, Legal and Accounting Seminars. Baltimore. Contact: www.atlas-sfi.com or (800) 207-4432. 8: Nonprofits, National Conference of CPA Practitioners, Westchester/Rockland...

Advertiser Index.(Table)(Brief article)
July 7, 2008... Advertiser Page 1st Global 15 AccountantsWorld 31 CCH, a Wolters Kluwer business 32 Christian Stanley 17 ...

Liability Insurance: Buy before it rains: It's a buyers' market for malpractice insurance - but carriers expect more claims soon.
July 21, 2008... The professional liability insurance marketplace for accountants is continuing to soften, according to most of the nations providers. Its very similar to where we were last year, explained Bill Thompson, chief executive of Alachua,...

It's not just for women anymore!: Mentoring, recruiting and work/life balance highlight women's confab.(The Forum for Women in Accounting)(Conference news)
July 21, 2008... Las Vegas -- The event may be have been billed as The Forum for Women in Accounting, but the issues and topics discussed at the three-day confab here were decidedly not just for one gender. That was the overriding sentiment during the...

The future will be simpler: Virtualization, doc management and security headline AICPA Tech agenda.(American Institute of Certified Public Accountants)(Conference notes)
July 21, 2008... Las Vegas -- In a venue where fantasy can often trump reality, some 500-plus attendees at Tech+, the American Institute of CPAs Information Technology Conference, were mostly all business as they crammed into sessions and various keynotes in...

EU banks soften opposition on fair value.(European Union)
July 21, 2008... Brussels -- After a storm of protest from banking interests against the principle of booking asset values at a forced exit price for fear of a potential downward spiral in asset values, bankers in the European Union have eased their position on...

Blackman Kallick mourns Fensin.(Dan Fensin)(Obituary)(Brief article)
July 21, 2008... Chicago -- Accounting firm Blackman Kallick announced the death of former managing partner Dan Fensin, who retired from the firm late last year after running it for 17 years. We are grateful for all that Dan has done for the community, his...

FASB proposes simpler hedging standard.(Financial Accounting Standards Board)
July 21, 2008... Norwalk, Conn. -- Accounting for hedging activities has never been easy, but by years end, if a proposal from the Financial Accounting Standards Board meets approval, it might get a little simpler. FASB has proposed an amendment to...

In Brief.
July 21, 2008... SEC APPROVES SOX 404(B) EXTENSION Washington, D.C. The Securities and Exchange Commission has approved a one-year extension of the compliance date for smaller public companies to meet the Section 404(b) auditor attestation requirement of...

Editor's desk: The Bam and Mac tax revue.(Barack Obama and John McCain's tax policy plans)
July 21, 2008... In Smokey and the Bandit, the classic 1970s beer and muscle-car chase-fest, the outlaw Burt Reynolds character is asked a series of cultural literacy questions by a comely hitchhiker played by Sally Field. Failing to answer them, he responds...

COMMENTARY: Mobility is on the move, but there's still work to do.
July 21, 2008... As the chief executives of four state CPA societies from different regions of the country, we have seen firsthand the positive impact that has been made on the issue of improving mobility for qualified CPAs to practice across state lines...

PCAOB to require annual firm reports.(Public Company Accounting Oversight Board)
July 21, 2008... Washington, D.C. -- The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has adopted rules requiring audit firms to submit reports at least once a year on fees, disciplinary actions and other information that will be posted on its Web site. Each...

Experts weigh in on small biz tax reform.
July 21, 2008... Consideration of any tax reform for small business must take into account the difficulties small-business owners face when deciding how to structure their business and comply with the Tax Codes complex requirements, said Dewey Martin, a...

In Brief.
July 21, 2008... GAO SAYS IRS NEEDS TO IMPROVE INTERNAL CONTROLS Washington, D.C. The Government Accountability Office has issued a report containing dozens of recommendations for ways the Internal Revenue Service should improve its internal controls. ...

Tax Strategy: New preparer penalty regs: Still dangerous for tax strategies.
July 21, 2008... The proposed regulations on preparer penalties, released on June 17, are the latest iteration of rules that tax practitioners should consider carefully when recommending and executing tax strategies. Not heeding them can result in stiff...

FASB, IASB present docs on framework.(Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board )
July 21, 2008... Norwalk, Conn. -- In a significant step toward more solid and relevant accounting standards around the world, the International Accounting Standards Board and the Financial Accounting Standards Board have rolled out two joint discussion...

Change of Auditors.
July 21, 2008... INDEPENDENCE RULES BEEFED UP New York An international accounting standard-setter has issued a revised set of proposals designed to strengthen the independence requirements for accountants. The International Ethics Standards Board, an...

The spirit of accounting: Mythbusters: On values and volatility.
July 21, 2008... In this third installment in our Mythbusters series (with credit to the Discovery Channel show, MythBusters), we turn to the oft-repeated but seldom-scrutinized notion that reporting values in financial statements creates volatility. This...

What wealthy families really want: a trusted advisor.
July 21, 2008... While in India with an accountant and his client, I observed a classic trusted advisor moment. The client is the chief executive of one of the largest family-owned businesses in India. As an aside during our meeting, the CEO mentioned to his...

Software Review: Document management: Gateway to the paperless office?(Product/service evaluation)
July 21, 2008... It seems that there always has to be a killer application to justify our interest and efforts in using PCs. Spreadsheets were the first of these, and have been followed over the years by word processing, desktop publishing, customer...

In Brief.
July 21, 2008... MICROSOFT SHIPS LATEST DYNAMICS AX Microsoft has released Dynamics AX 2009, with upgraded features for compliance and multi-site organizations. The latest version of the enterprise resource planning software can run multiple legal entities...

Boomer's Blueprint: Declassify your firm's intelligence.
July 21, 2008... What a firm knows today may not be relevant in the future, and many risk a significant loss of knowledge when partners retire. Fostering a culture that efficiently transfers knowledge is crucial. Is your firms knowledge centered mostly in its...

Find the membership group that's right for your firm.(Reprint)
July 21, 2008... Going it alone is tough in the accounting profession. Better connections, improved ability to handle inter-regional and international business, better employee recruiting, and greater operating efficiencies are just a few of the elements needed...

New Products.
July 21, 2008... Software & Equipment MAS 90/200 AND 500 Sage Software has released new versions of its MAS 90/200 and 500 business management software. MAS 90 and 200 4.3, aimed at small and midsized businesses, includes new business intelligence,...

People.
July 21, 2008... CALIFORNIA Brenda Schowalter has joined the ethics and compliance practice of the Lyndon Group, Newport Beach.... Don Natenstedt has been named managing director of the Western Region for RSM McGladrey Inc., Los Angeles.... Brian Yacker...

Firms.
July 21, 2008... CALIFORNIA San Diego State University has received a $10 million gift to name the universitys school of accountancy the Charles W. Lamden School of Accountancy. The gift was made by Gertrude Lamden in honor of her late husband, Dr. Charles...

Coming Events.(Calendar)
July 21, 2008... JULY 21-25: Public Seminars, Institute of Internal Auditors. Las Vegas. Contact: www.theiia.org/iia-training. 22: Individual Tax Half-Day Conference, Illinois CPA Society. Metropolitan Chicago Healthcare Council, Chicago. Contact:...

Advertiser Index.
July 21, 2008... Advertiser Page 1st Global 19 Aon Insurance Services 23 AT&T Wired 39 CCH, a Wolters Kluwer business 40 Doc.IT ...