All Accounting & Auditing articles – Page 94
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Blog
FASB Plans to Drop Step 2 of Goodwill Impairment Test
Image: FASB plans to drop the second step in the current two-part test to determine goodwill impairment, a nod to public companies eager for a simpler approach to deciding writedowns. Greg Franceschi, managing director at valuation firm Duff & Phelps, says, “By removing the second step of the test when ...
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Blog
SEC Expects Year-End Disclosures on Revenue Rule Plans
Image: SEC Chief Accountant Jim Schnurr has advised audit committees to get involved in overseeing implementation of the new revenue standard, which takes effect in 2018. Schnurr said that should include disclosures about how the standard will affect financial statements. “We expect the level of these disclosures to increase and ...
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Blog
SEC Expects Year-End Disclosures on Revenue Rule Plans
Image: SEC Chief Accountant Jim Schnurr has advised audit committees to get involved in overseeing implementation of the new revenue standard, which takes effect in 2018. Schnurr said that should include disclosures about how the standard will affect financial statements. “We expect the level of these disclosures to increase and ...
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Blog
Companies Lag in Assessing New Revenue Rules, Survey Shows
Image: A recent survey of 335 finance executives by PwC and Financial Executives Research Foundation found that 27 percent of executives said their companies had not yet started an initial impact assessment of the new revenue standard as of summer 2015, and 48 percent had started but not completed it ...
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Article
How to Worry About M&A Accounting in This Year’s Audit
Image: Merger activity is booming this year. That means plenty of scrutiny from audit firms in the coming year-end audit, since the firms themselves are under PCAOB pressure to be more skeptical of fair value, provisional figures in financial statements, and the like—all crucial to accounting for M&A deals. “Audit ...
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Blog
The U.S. Financial Reporting System, Circa 2015: Are We OK?
Not long ago a foreign student in financial reporting put a question to columnist Robert Herz: Why is the United States falling behind in financial reporting? The questioner cited three points—accounting standards, expanded audit reports, and sustainability reporting—as reason for his position. This week, Herz re-examines U.S. performance on those ...
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Blog
Axway Launches New 'Analytics for Industries' Initiative
Software company Axway this month announced a new initiative to deliver "Analytics for Industries," a combination of analytics powered by Axway Decision Insight and expert best practices, to provide packaged dashboards tailored for specific industry processes, making it faster and easier for operations teams to make data-driven decisions to help ...
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Blog
Ideagen Releases Latest Version of Auditing Software Pentana
Ideagen, a supplier of compliance-based information management software, has announced the latest release of its auditing software, Ideagen Pentana. Ideagen Pentana 4.1 brings with it a series of functional enhancements that will help internal audit and risk departments save time, increase efficiency, and maximize the power of collaborative working.
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Blog
IASB Sets 2019 Effective Date for Lease Accounting Standard
The International Accounting Standards Board says its updated lease accounting standard will take effect on Jan. 1, 2019, for companies following International Financial Reporting Standards. FASB is expected to issue its lease accounting standard by year’s end. The boards concur on how to define a lease and how leased assets ...
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Blog
PCAOB Issues Crowe Horwath Inspection Report
Image: The PCAOB found fault with five of 14 audits inspected at Crowe Horwath in 2014, a slight improvement for the firm over its 2013 results. The board’s 2014 inspection report revealed an audit deficiency rate of 36 percent, compared with 38 percent in 2013 and 50 percent in 2012. ...
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Article
Hosting a Related-Party Transaction About to Get Much Harder
Image: Companies preparing year-end financial disclosures, beware: Auditors will be poring over related-party transactions to make sure those parties don’t get too wild. The new Audit Standard 18 pushed auditors to be more skeptical about transactions, so expect them to push you (and your audit committee) to be more diligent ...
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Article
Hosting a Related-Party Transaction About to Get Much Harder
Image: Companies preparing year-end financial disclosures, beware: Auditors will be poring over related-party transactions to make sure those parties don’t get too wild. The new Audit Standard 18 pushed auditors to be more skeptical about transactions, so expect them to push you (and your audit committee) to be more diligent ...
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Blog
Countering the Effects of Unconscious Bias in Audits
Audits go wrong for many reasons, so let’s not deny one of them: because auditors sometimes unconsciously give the benefit of the doubt to a client when they should not. What unconscious biases put effective auditing at risk? How can an auditor train himself to find them, or construct practices ...
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Blog
COSO Expects First-Quarter Release of ERM Update Draft
Image: COSO expects to publish a draft of its Enterprise Risk Management Integrated Framework in the first quarter of 2016. First released more than a decade ago, COSO opted to make updates in light of modern business conventions and practices. COSO Chairman Bob Hirth says, “It will be ...
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Blog
PCAOB Issues Fresh Warnings on Risk
Image: The PCAOB has issued a report describing the deficiencies it sees in how audit firms implement and comply with risk assessment standards. “Because risk assessment underlies the entire audit process, it is critical that audit firms address these findings of weaknesses in compliance with the risk assessment standards,” said ...
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Blog
Pro Forma Reporting Tasked in Brisk M&A Market
A robust M&A market along with pro forma financial reporting rules have made it challenging for companies to comply with reporting requirements. New guidance from EY is meant to help companies know what pro forma financial information to present in SEC filings, which SEC forms require pro forma financial information, ...
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Article
Year-End Audits: Start Prepping for the Pain
As public companies and their external auditors gear up for the year-end audit cycle, it will likely include some familiar, yet still uncomfortable, conversations. Be ready for close looks at internal control over financial reporting, accounting estimates, and related-party transactions. “You can rest assured auditors are going to be really ...
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Blog
CAQ Echoes Regulatory Warnings for Year-End Audits
Image: The Center for Audit Quality has issued an alert to auditors advising where they should focus their audit attention this year. First up is professional skepticism and internal control over financial reporting, followed closely by risk assessments, cyber-security, revenue recognition, and related parties. “These alerts reflect the public company ...
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Blog
Calcbench to Provide XBRL based Financial Data to SEC Analysts
The Security and Exchange Commission has selected financial data provider Calcbench, through a competitive bid, to deliver subscription services to the agency. The award will allow a significant number of the SEC’s analysts to have access to Calcbench’s financial analytics platform, powered by eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL). More inside.
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Blog
More Data Show Audit Fees Rising for Public Companies
A recent study from Financial Executives International of 7,000 public companies revealed that 20.6 percent reported ineffective internal controls over financial reporting, and the median audit fee increase for those companies was 3 percentage points higher than for public companies as a whole. The companies cited two primary reasons for ...