Accounting Fraud Gets Sexy at the SEC

After a period in which the Securities and Exchange Commission turned most of its attention to misdeeds involving collateralized debt obligations, subprime mortgages and similar products of the financial crisis, the SEC appears to be focusing on accounting fraud and faulty financial reporting aga...

By David Katz • Nov. 18, 2013

The Lease Bad Solution

One of the world’s biggest accountants, PwC, breathlessly bills it as perhaps “the biggest-ever accounting change.” Businesses that lease property and equipment may soon have to start treating the leases as liabilities on their balance-sheets. All sorts of outfits that make heavy use of leasing —...

By Economist Staff • Nov. 18, 2013

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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

Building a Better Income Statement

A company’s annual income statement should be a transparent disclosure of its revenues and expenses that investors can readily interpret. Most aren’t, largely because income and expenses classified according to generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) can be difficult to interpret. In fact...

By Ajay Jagannath and Tim Koller • Nov. 15, 2013

CFOs on the Move: Week Ending Nov. 15

IBM’s CFO, Mark Loughridge, will retire at the end of the year. Loughridge, who has headed finance for Big Blue since 2004, will be replaced on Jan. 1 by Martin Schroeter, now general manager, IBM global financing.Amtrak has appointed Gerald Sokol Jr. to lead the finance function. He comes to the...

By Joan Urdang • Nov. 15, 2013

Being All Things to Some People

In a hypercompetitive marketplace, a company can’t count on stealing market share from its bigger rivals by swooping in and undercutting their prices. And improving quality alone isn’t enough of a sustainable (or affordable) advantage to lure customers away. So how can a David wage a respectable ...

By Matt Surka and Josh Hyatt • Nov. 13, 2013

Staying Entrepreneurial While Growing: Video

During the spring and summer, Newport, Rhode Island, is one of the most beautiful ocean towns in the world. The restaurants owned by the Newport Harbor Corp., an employee-owned hospitality firm, have no trouble bringing in business when the sun is out. Attracting visitors to the seaside during th...

By Marielle Segarra • Nov. 11, 2013

CFOs on the Move: Week Ending Nov. 8

Waddell & Reed Financial has said that CFO Daniel Connealy will retire when the company files its 10-K for the year ended Dec. 31. The board of directors plans to name Brent Bloss, now senior vice president-finance, principal accounting officer and treasurer, to succeed him.John Sobchak has r...

By Joan Urdang • Nov. 8, 2013

CFOs Need to Learn About Tax Credits

The C-suite should listen more to tax executives, particularly when it comes to finding out what incentives and credits can help businesses save money, according to findings from an Ernst & Young survey expected to be released next week.Conducted in July, the survey of 797 tax and finance exe...

By Kathy Hoffelder • Nov. 7, 2013

IRS Needs Help to Improve Small-Business Audits, Official Says

Contrary to what many small-business owners and CFOs may think, the Internal Revenue Service’s audit programs are not designed to give “nightmares” but to create less of them, Faris Fink, an IRS commissioner, said at an American Institute of Certified Public Accountants tax conference Tuesday. Fi...

By Kathy Hoffelder • Nov. 5, 2013

How to Avoid Benefits Discrimination Penalties

Most corporate executives know that cafeteria plans, self-insured health plans and dependent care assistance programs (DCAPs) are subject to nondiscrimination requirements under the Internal Revenue Code. But executives are not necessarily up to speed on the details of the requirements or the con...

By Susan Monkmeyer • Nov. 5, 2013

Do Financial Incentives Spur Unneeded Medical Care?

In 2011, workers’ compensation cost employers more than $77 billion, with nearly half of that represented by the cost of medical care, according to the National Academy of Social Insurance. Because of the rise in the kinds of health-care costs that especially hit workers’ compensation, that propo...

By Richard A. Victor • Nov. 1, 2013

CFOs on the Move: Week Ending Nov. 1

Video-streaming site Hulu has named Elaine Paul to lead the finance function, succeeding Tom Fuelling. Previously, she was senior vice president of corporate strategy at Disney, one of the firm’s parent companies.Diebold said CFO Bradley Richardson will be leaving the firm. Vice president, global...

By David McCann • Nov. 1, 2013

Uncertainty Leads to Higher Corporate Cash Balances

While many institutional investors risk their cash buying increasingly expensive shares in corporations, the issuers are staying much more conservative. Once again, in the third quarter, more companies accumulated cash rather than investing or spending it, according to the Association for Financi...

By Vincent Ryan • Oct. 31, 2013

Poor Internal Control Tests Hurt Financial Statement Audits

A significant number of deficiencies occurred over the past three years in audits of internal controls, which can lead to inadequate disclosures in the financial statement audit, according to a practice alert issued last week by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB).Paperwork (Pho...

By Kathy Hoffelder • Oct. 30, 2013

How Allstate’s Internal Audit Chief Tackles Fraud

Reporting directly to the audit committee chair of Allstate Insurance Company’s board has its pros and cons, says Kathy Swain, head of the insurance giant’s 52-person internal-audit team. “The pro is that I can maintain this distance from the company,” she says. “It’s absolutely critical to the s...

By David Katz • Oct. 29, 2013

How the C-Suite Can Impact Internal Controls

CFOs and other members of the C-suite could be the reason their companies’ internal controls aren’t in better shape.“If the managers, the C-level and board have good demonstrative behavior, everybody down the line will mimic that,” said Yigal Rechtman, senior manager of forensics and litigation a...

By Kathy Hoffelder • Oct. 25, 2013

CFOs on the Move: Week Ending Oct. 25

Jeffrey Capello will step down from the top finance spot at Boston Scientific at the end of the year. He is expected to stay on as a senior adviser until May of next year. Corporate controller Daniel Brennan will take over as CFO on Jan. 1.Goodyear Tire & Rubber has appointed finance chief Da...

By David McCann • Oct. 25, 2013

On the Trail of Conflict Minerals

For the non-initiated, it might be hard to see the links between a Seattle-based, running shoe and apparel firm and brutality in the Congo.Yet when the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Conflict Minerals Rule went into effect in January, tracing  such connections is exactly what Berkshire-Hath...

By David Katz • Oct. 18, 2013

CFOs: Chief Stewards, Chief Strategists

CFOs today must be responsible for the day-to-day accounting, treasury, finance, risk management and internal-control functions. But not only that: they have to assist with company strategy, obtaining resources and delivering its strategic objectives sustainably, according to a discussion paper p...

By Kathy Hoffelder • Oct. 14, 2013

Detroit CFO Apologizes for Offending Co-workers

Detroit finance chief Jim Bonsall, who suggested in a CFO interview last August that he was a “pit bull,” apologized Thursday “for having offended coworkers over comments I made at a recent meeting,” according to a press release issued by the office of Kevyn Orr, the city’s emergency manager.Bons...

By David Katz • Oct. 11, 2013

Time for Treasurers to Sell Short-Term U.S. Debt?

Although the cost to insure against a U.S. government debt default is rising and short-term Treasury yields are climbing, asset managers are counseling CFOs and treasurers to avoid selling off short-term Treasury notes that they hold in cash investment portfolios.A failure of the U.S. Congress to...

By Vincent Ryan • Oct. 10, 2013

The Profits Prophet

Profits have been booming in America, reaching the highest proportion of GDP since the second world war. Given such buoyant conditions, you might imagine that businesses are investing like crazy to take advantage of all those great opportunities.Not a bit of it. The ratio of business investment t...

By Economist Staff • Oct. 9, 2013

Twitter IPO Comes at Hot Time for Listings

The market for initial public offerings in the United States is hopping, according to a quarterly survey by PwC. The firm’s third quarter IPO Watch found that overall IPO volume in the first nine months of this year surpassed total volume in 2012. Activity jumped by 110 percent — to 63 IPOS — yea...

By Marielle Segarra • Oct. 4, 2013

SEC Awards Largest Whistleblower Payment Ever

The Securities and Exchange Commission has awarded its largest whistleblower payout ever. The agency is paying more than $14 million to a whistleblower whose information helped the agency recover “substantial investor funds,” the SEC said in a statement released today.Courtesy of Wikimedia user Z...

By Marielle Segarra • Oct. 1, 2013

Standards Setter Pilots Sustainability Reporting Program

Corporations that have struggled with how to account for their sustainability efforts in their financial reporting will soon have more guidance. The Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) plans to develop a corporate pilot program to help companies disclose material environmental, socia...

By Kathy Hoffelder • Oct. 1, 2013