Beyond ERP and Excel

Excel, along with its extensions, provides a formidably featured data analysis product. Coupled with the functionality that comes pre-packaged in ERP and accounting applications, enterprises have access to a collection of analytical resources that can help inform their operations.An honest apprai...

By Scott Pezza and James Haight • Jan. 29, 2015

Western Union Offers Apple Pay Transfers

Western Union is now letting customers transfer money via Apple Pay, a move analysts believe will spur banks to rethink how they would also use the new payment method.Consumers can use Apple Pay either at Western Union’s locations or at kiosks in more than 7,600 Walgreens and Duane Reade stores n...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • Jan. 29, 2015

Explore the Trendline➔

Top 5 stories from CFO.com

From CPA licensure changes to undergoing a digital transformation, these are the most popular stories CFOs are reading. 

By CFO.com staff

FASB Nearing Decision on Delaying Revenue Rule

The Financial Accounting Standards Board could decide early in the second quarter of this year whether to propose a delay in implementation of the new standard on recognizing revenue from contracts with customers.FASB and the International Accounting Standards Board have set a Jan. 1, 2017, imple...

By Matthew Heller • Jan. 29, 2015

Alibaba Enters Credit-Scoring Biz

Alibaba’s China affiliate Ant Financial Tuesday launched Sesame Credit, a credit-scoring service powered by Alibaba’s “vast online ecosystem” of more than 300 million users and 37 million small businesses.In a press release Tuesday, Ant Financial said that Sesame Credit would be the first Chinese...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • Jan. 28, 2015

What Should Every CFO Be Reading? Tell Us Your #CFOMustRead

Finance professionals know that making their companies run properly takes more than just complying with the latest accounting guidance. Many things will affect corporate finance throughout the year, some of them less directly related to pure finance than anyone would expect.To help you in your ch...

By Vincent Ryan • Jan. 28, 2015

Data Security Fight Requires Alliances

Protecting one’s own organization just “doesn’t cut it anymore” — executives in charge of security need to look after entire “ecosystems” rather than just their own outfits.So says Kristin Lovejoy, IBM’s general manager of security systems, who penned a Forbes column Monday on what security leade...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • Jan. 26, 2015

Leftists’ Win in Greece Stirs Fears of Instability

A far-left party that ran against painful austerity measures imposed as part of Greece’s $270-billion international bailout deal has won parliamentary elections, potentially putting the country on a collision course with the euro zone.The Syriza party’s victory is “a damning popular verdict on Eu...

By Matthew Heller • Jan. 26, 2015

Coinbase Opens First Licensed U.S. Bitcoin Exchange

The virtual currency bitcoin reached a milestone Monday as startup Coinbase opened the first regulated exchange based in the United States, a move that could boost the currency’s credibility and ease concerns over volatility.The exchange opened to individuals and institutional investors in the tw...

By Matthew Heller • Jan. 26, 2015

Floodgates Opening?

Corporate treasurers are set to spend their cash this quarter, buoyed by expectations of further U.S. economic growth, according to the Association for Financial Professionals’ Corporate Cash Indicators released Monday.The indicator that measures expectations in the change of cash holdings by AFP...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • Jan. 26, 2015

Engineering Firm Settles Qatari Bribery Charge

A Tampa, Fla., engineering firm has agreed to pay $3.4 million in penalties to settle U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charges that a former executive offered bribes to foreign officials to secure $60 million in Qatari government contracts.The SEC accused the firm, PBSJ, of ignoring “multi...

By Matthew Heller • Jan. 23, 2015

Out of the Frying Pan …

Activist investor Carl Icahn this week furthered his efforts to jump on two upcoming spinoff companies once they separate from their parents.According a Wall Street Journal article Thursday, Icahn and eBay hammered out governance rules for PayPal after the San Jose, Calif., company spins off the ...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • Jan. 23, 2015

Stress Reducer: Ignore Your Inbox

New research backs up what many already know intuitively: checking emails less frequently lowers stress.In a paper to be published next month in Computers in Human Behavior, University of British Columbia, Vancouver researchers Kostadin Kushlev and Elizabeth W. Dunn detailed their investigation i...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • Jan. 23, 2015

OnDeck Capital Lets Institutional Investors Buy SMB Loans

OnDeck Capital has opened its OnDeck Marketplace platform to more institutional investors so that they can buy small business loans originated by the New York-based online lender.OnDeck has been piloting its online lending platform for a year with a group of “inaugural” institutional investors, i...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • Jan. 23, 2015

CFOs on the Move: Week Ending Jan. 23

Tribune Publishing has named Sandra Martin interim CFO. Martin, senior vice president of corporate finance and investor relations, takes over for John Bode, who is leaving the company. A search for his permanent successor is under way.Billy Moore Billy Moore has been promoted to the top finance s...

By Joan Urdang • Jan. 23, 2015

More Slice and Dice for eBay

From one into three.EBay plans to further simply its organizational structure this year by either selling or splitting off its eBay Enterprise unit with an initial public offering, after having already announced last autumn its plan to jettison the PayPal unit.EBay enterprise manages online sales...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • Jan. 22, 2015

The Struggle to Simplify Accounting

Complexity in accounting is sometimes necessary when the transaction or economic event is complex. Some measurements will always be complex when there is the lack of significant observable data with which to make an estimate.Edward W. Trott But much of the current complexity in accounting standar...

By Edward W. Trott • Jan. 22, 2015

SEC About-Face in Whole Foods Case May Empower Investors

In a reversal of an earlier decision, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has announced that Whole Foods cannot avoid a vote on a shareholder proposal at its next annual meeting, possibly giving a boost to activist investors in other corporate governance battles.SEC Chair Mary Jo White sa...

By Matthew Heller • Jan. 20, 2015

China Growth Weakest in 24 Years

China investors will have to wait a bit longer for that country’s economic rebound, contributor Kenneth Rapoza wrote in Forbes Monday.After China’s National Bureau of Statistics Monday announced that the country’s economy grew 7.4% in 2014 — its weakest annual growth rate in 24 years — Rapoza wri...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • Jan. 20, 2015

Cyber Crime: Think of A Number and Double It

Chick-fil-A, a fast-food chain, and Morgan Stanley, a bank, have in recent days joined a long list of big American companies to admit that their systems have been hacked into, putting customers’ financial information at risk. But how many businesses suffer from cyber crime, and how much it ultima...

By Economist Staff • Jan. 20, 2015

Narrowed Negligence Cuts Cost of BP Spill

BP Plc will reportedly face lower-than-expected fines for damages stemming its Gulf of Mexico oil spill under a Thursday ruling by federal magistrate Carl Barbier.Barbier’s ruling, issued by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, said that BP and others involved with the 2...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • Jan. 19, 2015

The Most Exceptional Company in America — But Why?

If you were in a room with 6,000 people and were told you were better than any of them at something important, how would you feel? Happy? Surprised?The CFO of the most financially exceptional public company in the United States (according to a Deloitte analysis released on Tuesday) allows that be...

By David McCann • Jan. 16, 2015

New Rules on Drugs Not Curbing Workers’ Comp Costs

In a trend that may perplex self-insured companies trying to rein in workers’ compensation costs, doctors who prescribe drugs from their offices are exploiting a loophole in new regulations designed to limit what they can charge for prescriptions, according to a new study.Eighteen states have ado...

By Matthew Heller • Jan. 16, 2015

CFOs on the Move: Week Ending Jan. 16

Anthony O’Brien Anthony O’Brien has been promoted to the top finance spot at Raytheon, effective March 2. He will replace David Wajsgras, who has been promoted to president of the company’s intelligence, information and services business. O’Brien, who has been at the firm since 1986, is currently...

By Joan Urdang • Jan. 16, 2015

Finance Should Hurry to the Big Data Party

More businesses today are learning to leverage large sets of fresh data — Big Data — to better understand customer needs, desires and influences. But some observers contend that finance has been late to the party. That’s a problem. Leveraging Big Data without getting finance involved to analyze t...

By Mary C. Driscoll • Jan. 15, 2015

Tech Giants Reach Deal to Settle ‘No Poaching’ Suit

In another bid to avoid a trial in a potentially embarrassing antitrust suit, four Silicon Valley giants accused of conspiring not to hire each other’s employees have reached a new $415 million settlement, The New York Times reports.A federal judge in August had rejected an earlier $324.5 million...

By Matthew Heller • Jan. 14, 2015