FEATURED VIDEO Use the 2010 MAP Survey to Benchmark Your Firm The AICPA’s James Metzler, CPA, and Mark Koziel, CPA, discuss findings from the 2010 PCPS/TSCPA National MAP Survey, conducted by the AICPA’s Private Companies Practice Section and the Texas Society of Certified Public Accountants. The 2010 survey includes responses
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Information management and technology assurance
How to Stop, or At Least Make Less Annoying, Requests for Permission to Add or Change Software
Q: When I upgraded to Windows 7, I thought I wasn’t going to get any more of those little Microsoft messages that dim the screen and freeze the computer until I either approve or reject my effort to make a change in the operating system or to add some software.
Tip From a Reader: Link a Single Excel Cell Into a Word Document
Tom Glogau, a CPA with Grove, Mueller & Swank PC in Salem, Ore., wrote me that he has no trouble linking an Excel file to a Word document. But he was initially baffled when he tried to do the same thing with just a single cell from a worksheet. Copying
Make Your Accounting Department More Efficient
In today’s world, accounting departments run lean. Asked to do more with less, accountants are being pushed to the max. Since adding staff is usually not an option, here are seven ways to lighten accounting’s workload. Challenge every step, every piece of paper, every input and every output. Chances are
Featured Online Content for November 2010
FEATURED VIDEO Performance-Based Compensation Accounting firms are increasingly using pay-for-performance to compensate their high performers. Compensation experts August Aquila and Coral Rice discuss key aspects of a pay-for-performance system, how it can benefit your firm and mistakes to avoid when implementing it. Also on journalofaccountancy.com, read ideas from the
Excel Shortcuts
Ctrl+Shift+) unhides any hidden columns within the selection. Ctrl+Shift+( unhides any hidden rows. Ctrl+Shift+& applies the outline border to the selected cells. Ctrl+Shift+_ removes the outline border from the selected cells. Ctrl+Shift+~ applies the general number format. Ctrl+Shift+$ applies the currency format with two decimal places (negative numbers in parentheses).
Marcella LoCastro, CPA/CITP
I always tell people don’t forget your roots. I don’t care how successful you are, how much you’ve accomplished. Don’t forget to give back to people who have helped you along the way. I was supposed to be a teacher. I was always good at math. My father, Tony LoCastro,
How to Be a Better Mentor
A mentor’s job is to foster one-to-one relationships that challenge people to rise to higher levels of competence and responsibility. This article discusses three key characteristics of an effective mentor: 1. An effective mentor asks challenging questions that help people expand their scope of responsibilities. 2. An effective mentor is
Accounting Firm M&As: A Market Update
The market for mergers and acquisitions in the accounting profession has changed dramatically over the past 18 months. Before the financial crisis in 2008, M&As were viewed more as a tool for acquiring experienced talent and less as a means for growing the top line. The economic shift has contributed
Widen the Search Net When Hunting for an Old E-Mail
Q: I was searching frantically for an e-mail I received some weeks ago, and it never showed up in my search. I was about to give up when I decided to check my Deleted Items folder. And, sure enough, there it was. Why didn’t my search locate it there? A:
A Better Idea
An item in the August issue, “Averaging noncontiguous cells that contain some zero values” (page 73), generated several ideas from readers for a better way to address the problem. David M. Fogel, a CPA in Roseville, Calif., was the first to suggest this formula, noting it could be used in
Featured Online Content for October 2010
FEATURED VIDEO Tech Tips From Clarke Price Clarke Price, president and CEO of the Ohio Society of CPAs, is something of a techie. He has made it a habit to reach out to CPAs and other professionals for feedback on their favorite apps for everything from smartphones to the iPad.
JofA Website and Articles Win Business Publication Awards
The JofA’s website, journalofaccountancy.com, won the silver award for Best B2B Website in the 2010 Tabbie Awards competition, presented by Trade, Association and Business Publications International (TABPI). Two JofA articles were also honored in the How-To and Technical article categories. The awards, which recognize excellence in editorial content and design,
Vetting a Vendor: Questions to Ask Before Making an Investment
Editor’s note: Also read “Cloud Computing: What Accountants Need to Know” in the October 2010 issue of the JofA. Ample research must be done before selecting any vendor, but specific areas should be addressed when choosing to move your data to the cloud. The following are some questions to
Cloud Computing: What Accountants Need to Know
There’s no arguing that “cloud computing” is gaining a great deal of momentum. Worldwide, cloud services revenue is forecast to reach $68.3 billion in 2010, a 16.6% increase from 2009 revenue of $58.6 billion, according to analyst firm Gartner Inc. So what does this mean to the accounting profession? What
XBRL
The IFRS Foundation (formerly the IASC Foundation) published its first interim release for the IFRS Taxonomy 2010, which is a translation of IFRS as issued Jan. 1, 2010, into XBRL. This IFRS Taxonomy interim release reflects improvements to IFRS for the 2008–2010 project cycle, which was published in May 2010
Guard Against Cybertheft
A type of fraud has come into the public eye in the past year in which the criminal surreptitiously obtains financial banking credentials, hijacks a corporate computer, and steals money from the victim’s bank accounts. In this scenario, referred to as a fraudulent electronic funds transfer (EFT) transaction, a cybercriminal
Shortcut
In Word or Excel, if you use Find (Ctrl+F) to conduct a search in a very large file, you can save time by first highlighting the part of the worksheet or document you want to search. Then press Ctrl+F. In that way, Find will not waste time searching the entire
A Website Loaded With Free Business Templates
When you have a few minutes to spare, surf over to Microsoft’s Office at Work website. You may find that investing just a few minutes there may save you many hours in the future. The site is loaded with business templates (from analysis worksheets to Excel expense reports), software tips
Lynn Teuscher, CPA
If you were to observe one of our firm’s weekly staff meetings, you might wonder who owns the business. Legally, of course, there are three owners of AGT—my partners, Dorian Aiello and Steve Drageset, and I. But to listen to the staff, you would think they were the owners. They
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