July 1997 - Journal of Accountancy

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY FOLLOW FIVE IMPORTANT writing principles and your clients will understand better what you do and why it benefits them. USE MANY VERBS. They give your language life. Use the active voice—the passive voice will rob your writing of its energy—and simplify your sentences by breaking them up into

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ONCE TOUTED AS THE INVESTMENT vehicle of the future, limited partnerships are seldom pitched to investors today. Instead, clients and the CPAs who advise them are looking back at the tax and financial factors that contributed to the downfall of LPs in areas such as oil and gas,

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY INVESTORS—AND THE CPAs WHO ADVISE them—need objective criteria so they can understand the risks inherent in mutual fund investing. Understanding the fundamental relationship between risk and return will make it easier for CPAs to provide their clients with responsible and informed investment recommendations. RISK ANALYSIS IS CENTRAL TO

Online Issues · Technical Resources HTML is often referred to as a computer “language,” but it isnt really. Especially at the basic level, its merely a series of code words surrounding text. For example: Smith & Jones, CPAs means that “Smith & Jones, CPAs” will be the highest level of

Online Issues · Exhibit 3 Exhibit 3: Limited Partnership Secondary Market Companies Company Telephone Number American Partnership Services 801-756-1166/800-736-9797 Bigelow Management, Inc. 212-697-5880/800-431-7811 Chicago Partnership Board 312-332-4100/800-272-6273 Cuyler & Associates 602-596-0120/800-274-9991 DCC Securities Corp. 212-370-1090/800-945-0440 Empire Securities 805-943-0950 Equity Resources Group 671-876-4800 Fox & Henry, Inc. 708-325-4445 Frain Asset Management

Online Issues · Exhibit 2 Exhibit 2: Real Estate and Oil and Gas LP Sales 1970 to 1995 (in millions of dollars) Real Estate LP Sales Oil and Gas LP Sales Year Public Private Total Public Private Total 1970 $14 $10 $24 $290 $193 $483 1971 68 45 113 343

Online Issues · Exhibit 1 Exhibit 1: Limited Partnership Sales 1970 to 1995 (in millions of dollars) Public Sales Year Nontraded MLPs Total Private Sales Total LP Sales 1970 $304 $ — $304 $203 $507 1971 411 — 411 274 685 1972 493 — 493 328 821 1973 487 —

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY IF YOU WANT TO CREATE a Web site for your firm, you have to offer something to attract visitors. ARTICLES, TAX TIPS AND checklists—changed frequently—give potential clients a reason to keep coming back. USE PHOTOS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. There are easy, inexpensive ways to find and upload these to

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY CONSIDERING THE PRICELESS NATURE of your information, safeguarding data should be high on your priority list. THE PROBLEM WITH SECURITY IS if its too loose, its useless. If its too tight, its not likely you will use it. The goal is to have a security system thats just

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY THE INITIAL STEP in identifying a new assurance service is to focus on user needs. For CPAs in public practice, the best place to look is at the existing client base. For CPAs in business and industry, it is the company executives, managers, supervisors and other employees. Other

Online Issues · Implications for Industry CPAs The same forces that should lead CPAs in public practice to reorder their priorities affect CPAs in business and industry. Management accountants already have demonstrated their flexibility with their intellectual ferment on performance measurement, which has paid off by increasing the value of

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY CORPORATE PURCHASE CARDS can save a company money and time and, as a bonus, can improve its procedures for budgeting, accounts payable, purchasing and general accounting. COMPANIES THAT USE purchase cards generally limit the purchases to low-dollar items that usually are not stockpiled. They are referred to as

Online Issues · CASE STUDY Benchmarking at Moss Adams Neal Wests firm, Moss Adams LLP, began doing benchmarking engagements some 10 years ago, with a pick up in frequency over the last few. West, the firms director of business assurance, is a member of the performance measurement task force of

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY DENNIS BERESFORD CONTINUES to see a role for a strong, independent FASB that maintains a balance between prescriptive rules and CPAs judgment. HE BELIEVES THE FASB WILL address issues raised by the AICPA special committee on financial accounting—but slowly. ALTHOUGH TECHNOLOGY IS changing how financial information is used,