July 2009 - Journal of Accountancy

One purpose of fixing a value on an interest in a closely held business is to determine gift and estate tax liability. CPAs called upon to provide such valuations know that this can be a painstaking task. It is not an exact science but an educated estimate when, as often

The AICPA’s Accounting and Review Services Committee (ARSC) has proposed the most significant changes to the professional literature for compilation and review engagements since the December 1978 issuance of SSARS no. 1, Compilation and Review of Financial Statements. The proposed Statements on Standards for Accounting and Review Services (SSARSs), issued

At the AICPA’s national CFO Conference in May, Tom Ridge, former Pennsylvania governor and secretary of Homeland Security, spoke to CPA financial executives about risk management in the current economic environment. Ridge is CEO of Ridge Global, a Washington-based consulting firm that specializes in risk and crisis management. He also

Many CPAs, frustrated by rigid and inadequate reports from their general ledger or other enterprise systems, turn to Microsoft Excel. Nimble but powerful, Excel often manipulates data faster and more effectively than less agile applications. But to perform certain tasks optimally, a CPA sometimes may have to bypass what apparently

All of your business systems’ users have confidential passwords. Does that mean your system and its contents are safe? Definitely not. As this article explains, organizations that don’t ensure the ongoing security of their passwords are exposing themselves to fraud and potential liability by failing to protect confidential information. Recent

Optimism about the U.S. economy’s prospects improved sharply in the second quarter, but compensation freezes, layoffs and capital spending cuts were still on the horizon for about half of companies, according to a survey of CPA financial executives. Nearly one-fifth of respondents were optimistic or very optimistic about the U.S.

Editor’s note: This article is a sidebar to “A Fresh Approach for Compilation and Review.” Based on concerns expressed by stakeholders in compilation and review engagements, the Accounting and Review Services Committee (ARSC) turned to the AICPA’s Private Companies Practice Section (PCPS) for help in its consideration of how to

For several decades, the environmental, economic and health effects from greenhouse gases (GHG) have been closely studied and debated by the scientific community, regulatory authorities and other diverse groups. GHGs are emitted into the atmosphere mainly as a by-product of waste disposal and the burning of fossil fuels by individuals,