Practice Management
The demands of growing a firm in an evolving CPA marketplace call for a strategic plan. Learn how to organize and implement one from a CPA who has experience in the trenches.
Case study: A destination needs a plan for how to get there.
Insurance Issues
As some CPA firms build insurance practices, success depends in large part on how they structure and operate the ventures and the kind of insurance business they do.
Consulting
The growth of Web-based services, complex financial instruments and contracts and untested emerging markets offers companies opportunities along with the potential for making huge mistakes. This article describes step-by-step integrated risk management procedures CPAs can apply to a variety of business situations.
Business & Industry / International
Twelve European nations are about to begin mandatory euro use, continuing their bold journey into uncharted financial waters. That means CPAs serving U.S. companies with customers in these countries should learn how to compare the costs and benefits of doing business in the new currency.
Business & Industry
Today’s forward-looking businesses are scrapping conventional, static once-a-year budgets in favor of rolling budgets—forecasts that are updated every few months. The result: Managers get a better handle on their operations.
Financial Reporting
FASB has changed the rules for how companies account for asset retirement obligations—removing assets from service through sale, abandonment, recycling or disposal. The new guidelines take a balance-sheet approach, requiring businesses to recognize a liability when they incur a retirement obligation.
Employee Benefits / Tax
The requirements for calculating minimum distributions from IRAs and qualified retirement plans are changing. CPAs should find them to be user-friendly, and clients are likely to pay less in taxes.
Fraud
Small companies, especially those that do not have routine and periodic audits, are at high risk for employee fraud. Asset misappropriation can go undetected for many years, which can precipitate huge writeoffs, sometimes causing bankruptcies. CPAs can help by suggesting periodic examinations of their unaudited clients’ cash accounts as an additional service.