Litigation Services / Risk Management
As litigation costs continue to mount, businesses want to develop efficient strategies to identify and monitor vulnerabilities and avoid lawsuits. CPAs have the expertise to offer clients solutions to several corporate risk management problems.
Technology Workshop
Most e-mail is vulnerable to prying and alteration. Your password does not provide complete protection. However, available software products can add security, and this article tells you all about them.
Fraud
CPAs who understand the various forms of fraudulent billing can protect their employers and clients by designing effective internal controls to detect and even prevent costly deceptions such as shell company charges for goods and services never received.
Marketing / Practice Management
Acquiring a more visible and authoritative public image can help a CPA firm generate new business. CPAs who prepare and send informative news releases—or even invite a reporter to lunch—are taking important steps to establish their name in the marketplace, the authors say.
Tax
On several occasions in the last few years the IRS and the courts drew on the principles in a 1935 case to put an end to a corporate tax shelter scheme. CPAs need to warn their clients and employers that the simple concepts in Gregory are still a major weapon against such shelters.
Consulting / Practice Management
Entangled business and family agendas can breed dynamics that damage a privately held company, its advisers and the owner relatives. Practitioners should be aware of 10 important management issues that sometimes impede such entities and require CPA services.
Work / Life Issues
Few CPAs would deny that mission statements, strategic plans and goal setting are necessary to drive a business to success. But applying those concepts to our personal lives and using a mix of commonsense time-management strategies can help put us on the road to achieving more balance between work and home.
Internal Audit / Risk Management
Instead of just reviewing required controls, internal auditors can broaden their approach both within and outside the audit process to identify areas for risk management improvements. Here’s a case study on how the internal audit group at California Federal Bank redefined its role to add more value and become key advisers to the company.