June 2009 - Journal of Accountancy

Their widespread use sometimes makes relatively new technologies seem safer than they are. In fact, even popular and advantageous innovative devices may have significant risks. Prominent examples include data-filled laptops and flash drives. Recurrent headlines make it clear: Your laptop could become one of the thousands lost or stolen every

Spreadsheets contain many tools for analyzing and manipulating data. The trouble is much of the data CPAs need to analyze resides in company databases or on the Internet. So, after finding the required data, you may have to cut and paste them into a spreadsheet. This laborious and error-prone process

When it comes to technology, are you a leader or a laggard? Do you embrace technology or shun it? This article contains questions and explanations to help you determine how technology-savvy you really are, and identify where you could improve your technology performance. 1. Does your computer have more than

Editor’s note: This is a sidebar for “Protect Your Portable Data – Always and Everywhere.”   CPAs should understand their ethical, legal and regulatory responsibilities to safeguard data. The following listings direct you to primary sources: LAWS, REGULATIONS   Advertisement   Federal laws Federal Trade Commission, Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, Disclosure of

Every firm’s dream should be to have a free listing on a major search engine at the top of its first results page, allowing prospective clients to find the firm when they’re searching for accounting, tax or financial planning services. Imagine if this free listing also included the firm’s phone

A business is defined by the value it creates for its customers. Your price speaks volumes about your value proposition, more so than any other component of your firm’s marketing. The business world pricing revolution began in the 1980s, when many of the Fortune 500 companies began to employ professional

Editor’s note: This is a sidebar to “Pricing on Purpose: How to Implement Value Pricing in Your Firm.”   People tend to buy emotionally and justify intellectually, which makes the study of price psychology a worthwhile endeavor. Essentially, price psychology has two characteristics:   1. Price leverage 2. Pricing emotions

Editor’s note: This is a sidebar to “Executive Compensation: What’s Reasonable?“   A seminal case employing the independent investor test for reasonable compensation is the 1983 decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Elliotts Inc. v. Commissioner (716 F.2d 1241). In it, the Ninth Circuit (Alaska, Arizona, California,

When a corporate client seeks words of wisdom regarding tax planning, most CPAs go through the litany of suggestions related to acceleration of deductions and deferral of income. Yet one of the biggest and potentially most dangerous tax issues facing corporations is the compensation paid to the top executives and