Readers Sound Off: Are Leases Debt?

With the world’s leading accounting standards setters on the verge of voting in a new lease accounting regime beginning at a meeting on Tuesday, questions remain about whether all leases can be regarded as debt.Regardless of how that question is answered, it’s most likely that at long last the Fi...

By David Katz • March 18, 2014

‘Small’ Companies May Be Free of XBRL

It’s only an early step in the legislative process, but it’s looking good that “small” public companies won’t have to file financial statements in the XBRL format for at least a five-year period.The bipartisan Small Company Disclosure Simplification Act passed the House Financial Services Committ...

By David McCann • March 17, 2014

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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

Foreign-Entity Reconciliation Strategies

It goes without saying that CFOs are responsible for ensuring that their companies are on a sound financial track, have clear strategic plans and that they apply the necessary financial tools and resources to execute. As CFOs, we must remain on course and focus on where the company is headed, be ...

By John Sullivan • March 17, 2014

CFOs on the Move: Week Ending March 14

Adara Global has named Liz Coddington to lead the finance function. Most recently, she was CFO and vice president of finance at Walmart.com.Consumer-products provider Jarden has promoted CFO and vice chairman Ian Ashken to president; he will remain vice chairman. Ashken, a co-founder of the firm,...

By Joan Urdang • March 14, 2014

Revenue Accounting Could Hit Loans, Bonuses

With the accounting for revenues seemingly set to undergo a sea-change, CFOs will likely soon have a heads-down focus on the ways companies calculate the top lines of income statements.But taking such a narrow view might be a mistake, causing them to ignore the ripple effects of the change on deb...

By David Katz • March 13, 2014

Don’t Neglect Your Tax Department

As the leader of the largest tax practice in the U.S., I often speak to chief financial officers. And — no surprise — they ask for my opinion on improving their tax department. My answer: Don’t just look at your tax function with an eye toward minimizing risk; look at it as a place where you can ...

By Mark Mendola • March 13, 2014

Telecommuting Saves Company After Hailstorm

On April 28, 2012, a freakish series of hailstorms savaged St. Louis. Ice boulders as big as baseballs pounded the area, resulting in about 100,000 insurance claims. An estimated $1.6 billion in insured losses made it perhaps the second-costliest hailstorm in U.S. history.Costabile: “There are ti...

By David McCann • March 12, 2014

Cyber Specter Mandates New CFO-IT Dynamic

For many finance executives, information technology has often felt like another world. To some, the best IT-related role for CFOs over the last decade has entailed managing the nexus between IT costs and benefits, as new — and sometimes costly — systems came to market. Do the advantages of a new ...

By Frank Friedman • March 11, 2014

A CFO Learns to Fly: Video

Back in the dark days of late 2008, the CEOs of the Big Three auto companies flew in their private jets to Washington to appear at a hearing of the House Financial Services Committee. The topic of the day: a possible $25 billion loan bailout for the faltering industry.Some in Congress were none t...

By David McCann • March 11, 2014

Reliance on Windows XP Poses Threat to the Grid

Last Friday, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued an order requiring physical protection of major substations and other facilities of electric utility companies, in the wake of a sniper attack on a San Jose, Calif., PG&E Corp. substation. Regulators are trying to identify serious t...

By Vincent Ryan • March 10, 2014

View from the Top: CFO-turned-CEO Shares His Wisdom

The past few months have been a bit of a whirlwind. Three years in as CFO at a publicly traded company, Absolute Software, I was working hard, meeting with shareholders and financial analysts, and shepherding the growth that will take our company past the $100-million-mark.Today – after some lead...

By Errol Olsen • March 10, 2014

Health-Care Cost Hikes Stay Modest for Big Companies

The rate of increase in large employers’ health-care costs is expected to tick up slightly in 2014, ending a four-year slowdown in cost growth.So say the results of a closely watched annual survey released Thursday by the National Business Group on Health (NBGH) and Towers Watson. For large compa...

By David McCann • March 7, 2014

CFOs on the Move: Week Ending March 7

Peter Oppenheimer will retire as finance chief of Apple at the end of September, but he will be succeeded in June by Luca Maestri, currently vice president of finance and corporate controller. Before joining Apple last year, Maestri headed finance at Xerox and at Nokia Siemens Networks.Salesforce...

By Joan Urdang • March 7, 2014

Employees Seek Cost Savings from Private Health Insurance Exchanges

Judging by newly released data on health-care choices made by employees at companies offering insurance through private exchanges, most people would rather save money than have better insurance.Aon Hewitt, one of four large human-capital consulting firms that offer private exchanges for active em...

By David McCann • March 6, 2014

NASDAQ Market for Privately Held Companies Opens

Private companies now have another means of reaching beyond traditional venture capital firms to a broader audience of investors. Exchange provider NASDAQ has launched its market for privately held companies, dubbed NASDAQ Private Market.The platform will allow “growth-stage companies to tap inst...

By Vincent Ryan • March 5, 2014

Declining Audit Fees Raise Risk of Restatements

In the last few years, publicly held companies have pressured their accounting firms to lower their audit fees. CFO even introduced a tool for a company to benchmark its audit fees against its peer group. In many cases, this has worked, helped by the recession: Audit fees peaked at $592 per $1 mi...

By Vincent Ryan • March 3, 2014

The Path of Lease Resistance

The latest chapter in the long-running saga on lease accounting began in January, when the Financial Accounting Standards Board started to mull the proposals in its May 2013 exposure draft, Leases (Topic 842). If approved, the new rules could add hundreds of billions of dollars to the liabilities...

By David Katz • March 1, 2014

Mind the Non-GAAP

Normalized adjusted EBITDA less capex. Adjusted consolidated segment operating income. Adjusted EBITDA (as adjusted).The practice of using financial reporting measures that do not comply with generally accepted accounting principles is as popular, and controversial, as ever. Of course, a small nu...

By Marielle Segarra • March 1, 2014

Another Job for the CFO: Lobbyist

There are several jobs the average finance chief is not suited to, and we’re pretty sure that one of them is lobbyist. When psychologists break down occupations by personality type, CFOs generally fall in the “intellectual/investigative” category, while political lobbyists come under “social/pers...

By Vincent Ryan • Feb. 28, 2014

Fraud on the Market: Pay on Say

Of the numerous controversial theories about the workings of stock markets, few have had a bigger pecuniary impact than a marriage between the notion of efficient markets and a legal principle known as “fraud-on-the-market.” This pairing has provided grounds for sweeping claims for damages whenev...

By Economist Staff • Feb. 28, 2014

PCAOB’s ‘Audit Failure’ Rate Is Highly Suspect

Investor confidence is fragile but vital to healthy markets. So, when it comes to the issue of the quality of public company audits, we are troubled to see regulators make alarming assertions that are incomplete and potentially misleading.In a recent article, the Public Company Accounting Oversig...

By Mark Peecher and Ira Solomon • Feb. 27, 2014

Change Shapes the CFO Role (Video)

It’s the centennial year for Edlong Dairy Technologies, although the business evolved over the years and today it is not a very close facsimile of the one that launched in 1914 as Edward Long Chemical Company.The CFO role and title came into being more recently than that, but finance chiefs today...

By David McCann • Feb. 24, 2014

CFOs on the Move: Week Ending Feb. 21

The Coca-Cola Co. has announced that Gary Fayard, who has been finance chief since 1999, will retire in May. Kathy Waller, controller and vice president, finance, has been selected to take over for Fayard at that time.James Ropella plans to retire from the top finance spot at holding company Firs...

By Joan Urdang • Feb. 21, 2014

What Do CFOs Do for Fun?

This is the first of two articles on CFOs and their hobbies. Read the second here.Tim Hudson’s favorite non-work activity can actually be like another full-time engagement.Hudson, who runs finance for CoreRx, a growth company that does research and development work for pharmaceutical manufacturer...

By David McCann • Feb. 20, 2014

CFOs on the Move: Week Ending Feb. 14

Edward Record has been appointed to the top finance spot at J.C. Penney, effective March 24, replacing Ken Hannah. Record is a former chief operating officer and CFO of Stage Stores, as well as a former senior vice president of finance at Kohl’s.Revenue and payment cycle management provider Emdeo...

By Joan Urdang • Feb. 14, 2014