All articles by Tammy Whitehouse – Page 51
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Blog
Shake-up in T&E Providers Leads Companies to New Solutions
Image: Big changes for expense management system providers, such as the acquisition of Concur Technologies by SAP and the earlier IBM move of cutting its Global Expense Reporting Solutions as a standalone product, has led to more business for up-and-comers like Chrome River. Chrome cofounder Alan Rich says, “The companies ...
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Article
The Slog Begins for New Revenue Standard
Image: FASB’s effort to implement its new standard for revenue recognition by 2017 is bumping against business reality, as different parts of Corporate America grow vocal about their ability—or lack thereof—to manage the task. “A lot of companies are trying to correlate the messaging around a potential deferral and potential ...
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Blog
Study: Companies Taking Own Action on Clawbacks
Even ahead of any new clawback rules mandated by Congress or the SEC, companies are moving ahead themselves to add clawback provisions to executive compensation arrangements—and are swallowing some added accounting and financial reporting complexity to do so. PwC recently analyzed 100 large public companies and found 40 percent of ...
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Blog
SEC Ends Standoff With Big 4 China Affiliates
The SEC has settled its action against Big 4 affiliates in China that had stymied investigations into possible accounting fraud by refusing to hand over audit work papers. The SEC fined each of the Big 4 affiliates $500,000 while acknowledging that the firms eventually began providing documents.
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Blog
SEC Approves PCAOB Budget, Wants Improvements
Image: The SEC has approved a 2015 budget of $250.9 million for the PCAOB, 3 percent less than its 2014 budget but 8 percent more than the board actually spent in 2014. PCAOB Chairman James Doty said that the decrease “reflects an appropriate reassessment of assumptions relating to personnel and ...
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Article
More Hints on Audit Report 2.0
New international requirements for an expanded audit report are providing a teaser for what the United States should expect in coming years. The new international standard is modeled on an earlier U.K. version, and it’s similar to a proposal expected from the PCAOB this year. The details differ, but the ...
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Blog
FASB May Offer Deferral, Early Adoption on Revenue Rule
The Financial Accounting Standards Board is considering both a deferral of its sweeping new revenue recognition rule and early adoption for companies ready to proceed, a FASB spokesman said Monday. FASB will decide later this spring on those ideas, after hearing more input from companies preparing for the current 2017 ...
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Blog
Study Says Investors Need to Know About Audit Offshoring
Apparently doubting the quality of the audit, investors punish companies when they first learn that others from outside the principal audit firm had a hand in assuring the company’s financial statements.
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Blog
Ford Feels Venezuela Pinch With $800 Million Charge
Ford Motor Co. is taking a one-time $800 million charge to earnings in its 2014 fourth quarter because of continued currency problems with Venezuelan operations. In a filing with the SEC, the company said the currency woes have constrained parts availability, which makes normal production difficult to maintain. Details inside.
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Blog
FASB Proposes Simplifications to Income Tax Accounting
The Financial Accounting Standards Board has issued two proposed accounting standard updates to simplify the accounting for income taxes. One would simplify accounting for the tax effects of intra-entity asset transfers, while the other focuses on the classification of deferred tax assets and liabilities that are carried on the balance ...
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Article
COSO Tacks Toward Cyber-Security
As cyber-security works its way onto the corporate board agenda, COSO is suggesting ways that its frameworks for internal control and risk management can be a starting point for companies to anticipate fast-emerging risks. “Just as the board is responsible for enterprise risk management, this is very similar,” says Mike ...
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Blog
SEC Warns on Foreign Business vs. Joint Venture
Be careful what you call a “foreign business.” The Securities and Exchange Commission says it is seeing too many instances of companies trying to call their joint ventures “foreign businesses” for financial reporting purposes. Perhaps that’s because the reporting requirements might be easier to meet. See inside.
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Blog
FASB Wants Comment on Financial Instruments
Image: FASB wants public comment on one final aspect of its standard for financial instrument classification and measurement, focused on how entities should disclose hybrid financial instruments containing embedded derivatives that are separately recognized. FASB plans to get a proposal out soon so the comment period can be wrapped up ...
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Blog
Poll Finds Uncertainty on COSO, Revenue Recognition
Up to one-third of companies may not be implementing the new COSO framework for their 2014 financial reporting, and one-fourth don’t know when they will implement the framework.
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Article
Assessing Your Digital Marketing Risk
Internal auditors with not enough to do, cheer up: Digital marketing risk is emerging as a new headache to keep you busy. Data theft and fraud are rampant, and ways to find and seal up those weaknesses aren’t entirely clear. “It’s a newer area,” says Bill Michalisin of the Institute ...
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Blog
COSO Relates Frameworks to Cyber Risks
COSO is urging companies to look at its framework with not just financial controls in mind, but cyber-security as well. A paper from the Committee details how the five components of internal control apply to the assessment of cyber-risks, with discussion on how the principles underlying the risk assessment, control ...
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Blog
Houses Passes XBRL Exemption as Survey Reveals Costs
The House of Representatives passed legislation that includes an exemption for 60 percent of all public companies from the SEC requirement to submit interactive financial statement data using XBRL. Meanwhile, an American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and XBRL U.S. study showed that nearly 75 percent of the smallest public ...
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Blog
FASB Jettisons Extraordinary Items From Financial Statements
In its quest to simplify accounting standards, the Financial Accounting Standards Board has adopted a new provision in Generally Accepted Accounting Principles that spares companies the requirement to display extraordinary and unusual items in financial statements. FASB said stakeholders had expressed concerns that companies often faced uncertainty over when to ...
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Article
XBRL Filing Frustrations Tilting Toward Resolution
Image: Good news for companies weary of the unfulfilled promises around publishing financial data using XBRL: Events are looming that promise either to halt the march toward XBRL compliance or finally shove its usage forward. “XBRL is not working,” says Hudson Hollister of the Data Transparency Coalition. “Instead of getting ...
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Blog
Public Companies Could Win Same Exception Given to Privates on Intangible Assets
FASB is taking a fresh look at a method to account for intangible assets it just permitted for private companies, to see whether the rule should be granted to public companies as well. The new method allows private companies to bypass the current GAAP requirement to recognize separately from goodwill ...