August 2002 - Journal of Accountancy

    EXECUTIVE SUMMARY WITH INCREASING NUMBERS OF CPAs OFFERING investment services, more are registering with the SEC as investment advisers and facing field examinations from the SEC Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations (OCIE). These investigations determine whether the adviser is complying with the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, protect

  EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OUTSOURCING IS REVOLUTIONIZING the way business is being conducted around the world, and that means CPAs will have to rethink how they establish the value of a business and the metrics they traditionally monitor. If they fail to do this, they will be left in a place

  EXECUTIVE SUMMARY COMPANIES REQUIRE HELP understanding and complying with the confusing array of privacy rules, and CPAs can meet that need. HIGHLY PUBLICIZED CORPORATE FAILURES to protect confidential data have heightened consumers’ awareness of threats to their privacy. CONSUMERS SURVEYED SAID they would rather do business with companies that

  EXECUTIVE SUMMARY RUMORS OF THE DEATH OF MUTUAL FUNDS ARE GREATLY exaggerated. Funds have grown and adapted over their 80-year history and continue to meet investors’ needs for diversification and professional management. Better tools to analyze and select funds mean CPA/financial planners can make better use of them in

  EXECUTIVE SUMMARY CONTRARY TO WHAT IS REQUIRED IN AUDITED financial statements, the only SEC regulation governing what companies put in their earnings releases is that the information should not be misleading. There are currently no substantive authoritative guidelines that determine when pro forma information is deceptive. BOTH CORPORATE CPAs

   t one time or another it happens to nearly every spreadsheet user: In an instant a perfectly good spreadsheet disintegrates right before your eyes, leaving a wasteland of #VALUE! error cells. What triggered the problem? Someone mistyped a value into one cell, causing the #VALUE! error message to be

  This is the second article in a four-part series on identifying false invoices and their issuers. July’s and August’s columns focus on billing schemes involving shell companies criminals set up to facilitate fraud. Articles in the September and October issues will explain how to detect and prevent two scams

  EXECUTIVE SUMMARY CPAs NEED TO BE MINDFUL of ethical issues in performing client services. They must be sensitive to public perceptions and expectations and must use informed judgment as well as adhere to professional standards. THREE OF THE MOST COMMON COMPLAINTS made against small to midsize CPA firms involve