All Accounting & Auditing articles – Page 103
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Blog
KPMG Launches Alliance With SailPoint
Audit, tax, and advisory firm, KPMG, and SailPoint, an identity and access management firm, today announced an alliance that will provide information protection solutions to help clients manage and protect their critical information. Details inside.
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Blog
Applying the Three Lines to Cyber-Security
Managing cyber-security risks is one of the most pressing problems facing businesses today. Absent some technological magic bullet (which won’t be found any time soon), that leaves companies forced to protect cyber-security through better process. What does that mean? How can privacy, compliance, and internal audit band together to lead ...
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Article
Audit Litigation Risk Down, but Not Out
The respite from litigation that audit firms have enjoyed the past few years may be ending. A recent study found class-action lawsuits alleging accounting improprieties rose in 2014 after two of the lightest years in the past decade. While only a tiny fraction of those class-action filings are directed at ...
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Blog
SEC Ponders Tension Over Management Review Controls
Image: Amid continued tension over what it takes to satisfy auditors and regulators with respect to management review controls, the SEC is pondering whether some kind of new guidance might be in order. Deputy Chief Accountant Brian Croteau said recently, “It’s not an area that seems to be improving. So ...
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Blog
FASB Proposal May Foreshadow Changes to Cash Flow Rules
A proposal to change the presentation of financial information for not-for-profit entities, especially cash-flow classifications, could be a preview of what public companies might face down the line. The proposal would require entities to classify cash flows in ways more consistent with classifications in the statement of activities. More inside.
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Blog
2014 Restatements Show Further Declines
Restatement data for 2014 suggest companies are getting better at financial reporting—producing fewer erroneous reports, with less damaging effects, and correcting mistakes more quickly when they find them, the latest report from Audit Analytics shows. Contrary to all the good news, however, restatements among accelerated filers are not falling. More ...
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Blog
KPMG Elects New Chairman and CEO
KPMG has elected Lynne Doughtie to serve as its next chairman and chief executive officer, for a five-year term starting July 1. Doughtie currently leads KPMG’s Advisory business. Details inside.
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Article
Buying Time With Revenue Standard Delay
Image: FASB might delay implementation of the new revenue recognition standard; corporate financial reporting executives should not. Despite uncertainty on fine points of the standard and business software yet to digest FASB’s seachange in reporting revenue, businesses can do plenty now. “The deferral is telling companies don’t delay in assessing ...
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Blog
Tilting Toward IFRS Experiments in the U.S.
Last December, SEC officials raised yet again the idea of letting U.S. companies file financial data—just a bit, on a voluntary basis—according to International Financial Reporting Standards. The proposal was the latest in a long discussion about whether to let U.S. businesses adopt IFRS. This week, Compliance Week columnist Robert ...
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Blog
IASB Considers Deferral for Revenue Recognition Standard
Now that the new revenue recognition standard is likely to be delayed by a year in the United States, the International Accounting Standards Board is recommending a delay until Jan. 1, 2018, for those who file under International Financial Reporting Standards. “We think that it is less confusing for the ...
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Blog
EY Settles Lehman Allegations for $10 Million
Image: New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has announced a $10 million settlement with EY over its role in auditing Lehman Brothers financial statements, which hid tens of billions in leverage before collapsing in 2008. Schneiderman says the $10 million will be distributed as restitution to Lehman Brothers investors. More ...
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Blog
FERF Updates Latest Fraud Defense Tactics
The Financial Executives Research Foundation has put some fresh research and analysis to the fraud conundrum, offering companies some new insights on how to address an old problem. FERF says fraud risk is growing rather than declining for companies, despite plenty of regulatory and legislative efforts to the contrary. More ...
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Article
Audit Inspections: Improvement? Maybe. Costs? Yes.
Image: Five years of increasingly rigorous PCAOB inspections have driven audit firms to improve their efforts at scrutinizing corporate financial statements and internal control. Companies receiving that pressure say the heightened scrutiny is clear; the question is whether it is making audits better, or just bigger and more expensive. “Companies ...
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Blog
Podcast: How Falling Oil Prices Affect MD&A, Accounting
In our latest podcast, we talk to Elizabeth Paul at PwC about what companies affected by falling fuel prices must consider. That includes ensuring the adequacy of Management Discussion & Analysis disclosures; explaining the extent that increased profits are due to better margins rather than higher revenue; and, for the ...
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Blog
Report: Majority Adopt New COSO Framework
With more than 3,000 filings collected through early April, three-fourths of publicly traded companies have disclosed that they have adopted the 2013 COSO internal control framework, with the rest either remaining on the 1992 framework or not disclosing what framework they followed, according to a study published by Protiviti.
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Blog
Study Shows No Better Reporting After Auditors Cut Tax Services
U.S. auditor independence rules targeted at tax work have done nothing to improve financial reporting quality, according to new academic research out of Singapore. The study found a big shift in non-audit services provided by audit firms, leading to a significant drop in auditor-provided tax services, especially among firms that ...
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Blog
PCC Seeks Nominations for New Chair; Members
Private Company Council Chairman Billy Atkinson this week announced that he will not seek a second term as head of the group. As a result, the Financial Accounting Foundation Board of Trustees issued a request for nominations for candidates to succeed Atkinson next January and to fill other potential vacancies ...
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Blog
FASB Simplifies Presentation of Debt Issuance Costs
FASB has approved a measure to revise the presentation of debt issuance costs. Financial statement preparers told the board that existing rules establishing different balance sheet presentation requirements were unnecessarily complicated. FASB now says companies should treat debt issuance costs as they do debt discounts in the balance sheet, deducting ...
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Blog
FASB Shifts Gears on Cash-Flow Classification Issues
Image: FASB has asked its Emerging Issues Task Force to dig into nine specific cash-flow issues to see if it can suggest some changes to existing guidance to make this area of accounting more straightforward. “We’re going to continue with the project, but change the dynamic,” said FASB Chairman Russ ...
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Article
PCAOB Inspection Data: Shifting Standards, Shifting Insights
Image: If you want to be panicky or cynical about audit firms’ performance, citing failure rates in PCAOB inspection reports is a great way to do it. The truth is more complex. In Part II of our series looking at PCAOB inspection data, we delve into how inspections have changed ...