EXECUTIVE SUMMARY WITH MORE STATES CONDUCTING AUDITS, CPAs need to encourage companies to pay greater attention to their unclaimed property liability. This includes both reporting unclaimed assets to the right state and making sure the company properly reflects the liability on its balance sheet. UNCLAIMED PROPERTY HOLDERS MUST exhaust all
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TOPICS / TAX
IRS practice & procedure
Accounting
For news from the AICPA and state societies, visit www.cpa2biz.com , which also offers online CPE, AICPA professional literature, practice management aids and links to state society Web sites. FASB issues four staff positions (FSPs) addressing FASB Statement no. 150, Accounting for Certain Financial Instruments with Characteristics of Both
Government Accounting
The Governmental Accounting Standards Board releases a publication, Reporting Performance Information: Suggested Criteria for Effective Communication, which offers 16 criteria state and local governments can use when preparing reports on the nature and results of services they’ve rendered. The report can be downloaded free online ( www.seagov.org/sea_gasb_project/suggested_criteria_report.pdf ) or ordered
Compliance
The SEC proposes two rules that would allow it to supervise broker-dealers and their affiliates on a consolidated basis ( www.sec.gov/news/press/2003-134.htm ). One proposal would create an alternative method for computing certain net capital charges for broker-dealers that are part of a holding company that manages risks—and consents to SEC
Stanley Person: 1934–2003
OBITUARY CPA Stanley Person, the founder and managing partner of Person and Co. in New York City, died on November 1, 2003, at the age of 69, after a long battle with heart disease. Person, who devoted much of his professional life to serving the accounting profession, was a tireless
Auditing
The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) issues a briefing paper describing its plans for overseeing—in cooperation with appropriate auditing regulators in other countries—the activities of U.S. accounting firms fully or partially responsible for auditing public companies in a foreign jurisdiction ( www.pcaobus.org/rules/Release2003-020.pdf ). The paper also described the board’s
Smart Stops on the Web
COMPLIANCE SITES Sarbanes-Oxley Act/PCAOB Implementation Central http://cpcaf.aicpa.org/Resources/Sarbanes+Oxley/ The+Changing+Regulatory+Landscape.htm Auditors and CPAs looking for background material and implementation guidance on the 2002 act will find documents including “How the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 Impacts the Accounting Profession” at the Institute’s Web site. Visitors also can download “Key Internal Controls for Management”
FYI
The Accounting Hall of Fame inducts Phillip W. Bell, Edgar O. Edwards and James J. Leisenring into its ranks. Bell served on many university faculties in the United States and has held visiting professorships throughout the world. He and Edwards, who taught at Princeton and Rice Universities, are coauthors of
International
The International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) publishes a proposed set of reforms ( www.ifac.org/Downloads/ReformProposals.doc ) to harmonize international auditing standards, strengthen the processes used to set them and ensure the international accounting profession serves the public interest. The proposal would establish a public interest oversight board to monitor IFAC’s standard-setting
AICPA Issues Nonattest Services Independence Rules
It is important to remember that regardless of which nonattest services a member provides to any attest client, he or she must comply with ethics Interpretation 101-3’s broad-based provisions, including the requirements discussed in this article. Of equal significance are the nonattest services provisions contained in the independence rules of
Investment Adviser Advertising
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY THE SEC REGULATES THE ADVERTISEMENTS investment advisers create to promote their services under rule 206(4)-1 of the Investment Adviser Act of 1940. The goal is to prevent advertisements that are false and misleading. RULE 206(4)-1(a) INCLUDES FIVE RESTRICTIONS advisers must follow. They can overcome two of these restrictions
CPAs as Audit Committee Members
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY WITH THE ADVENT OF SARBANES-OXLEY, CPAs ARE LIKELY to receive more invitations to serve on the audit committees of corporate boards of directors. Before accepting these offers, accountants should make sure they are ready for the time commitment and other responsibilities that come along with them. MANY CPAs
Sarbanes-Oxley Software: Ten Questions to Ask
Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 requires a company to document and periodically test its internal controls and the company’s external auditors to offer an opinion on those controls. While public companies are developing their project plans and evaluating software applications to help them manage this process, the
Investment Tax Planning for Retirement
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY FOR CLIENTS DREAMING OF A FINANCIALLY SECURE retirement, CPAs need to offer assistance on which savings vehicles—qualified and nonqualified—will help them reach their goal. This decision involves both tax and nontax considerations. CLIENTS PREPARING FOR RETIREMENT HAVE a wide variety of savings vehicles available to them including 401(k)
The New Accounting Environment
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY NEW ACCOUNTING REGULATIONS BROUGHT ABOUT by Sarbanes-Oxley and SAS no. 99 will force many companies to change how they do business. Compliance with these and other rule changes will expand the burden of corporate CPAs. ONE NEW REGULATION THAT WILL AFFECT ALL public companies is the proposed NYSE
Mom-and-Pop Shops
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY SMALL BUSINESSES ARE THE CORE of U.S. enterprise—70%—and the backbone of the small and local CPA firm market. Stresses caused by the rapidity and degree of change in the business world and the culture at large are putting pressure on CPAs to provide them with an ever-more-complex range
How to Profit by Safeguarding Privacy
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY PROTECTING THE PRIVACY of personal information is no longer optional for organizations that collect, use and distribute it. Federal law now requires entities to take responsibility for safeguarding the data they gather from customers and patients. ORGANIZATIONS THAT ACCEPT AND FULFILL their privacy-related obligations will find it easier
Ethics More Than Rules Compliance
The quiz, Test Your Knowledge of Professional Ethics ( JofA, Oct.02, page 110), gave the technically correct answer to question no. 4: Is the engagement partner independent if his mother-in-law is the controller of the client? But it would have been better if the answer reminded readers that professional ethics
Auditors Should Work Together
A New Accounting Culture ( JofA, Oct.02, page 27) was an important call to action for CPAs overall. In my more than two decades of experience as an internal auditor, I have witnessed too many times when CPAs took the expedient route over the proper one because of fees, friendships
Watch Your Appearance
In Test Your Knowledge of Professional Ethics ( JofA, Oct.02, page 110), the answer to question no. 4 indicated that the CPA firm would be independent because the engagement partners mother-in-law (also the clients controller) is not considered a close relative or immediate family under the new independence rules. The
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Create interactive dashboards with Excel PivotCharts and slicers
Leave the static spreadsheets behind. This JofA Technology Q&A article with video walkthrough provides a step-by-step guide for creating interactive dashboards in Excel that decision-makers can use.
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