The New Tax Landscape

If nothing else, the American Taxpayer Relief Act (ATRA), enacted on January 1 and designed to yank the nation back from the brink of the fiscal cliff, has allayed small-business uncertainty about taxes, if not about the spending cuts that Congress punted down the road. Here are some of the act’s...

By David Rosenbaum • March 21, 2013

Easing T&E

Every month a bound volume of credit-card bills lands with a thud on Dan Marchetti’s desk. “I look at every one of them,” says the CFO of Urschel Laboratories, a 100-year-old family business that dominates the industrial food-cutting business. Marchetti estimates that, adding interest and fees, e...

By David Rosenbaum • March 21, 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

Cool Reception for Tax Ideas

President Barack Obama called for a number of solutions to U.S. tax problems in his State of the Union address to Congress in February. In particular, he attempted to appeal to small businesses with a plea for simplicity.“The American people deserve a tax code that helps small businesses spend le...

By Kathy Hoffelder • March 21, 2013

Proposal Could Make S Corp Status More Popular

A proposal last week by House Ways and Means Committee chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) would, if adopted, level the playing field of tax responsibilities between small businesses structured as S Corporations and those considered partnerships, such as hedge funds and law firms.Camp called for the str...

By Kathy Hoffelder • March 20, 2013

CFOs Fill Roles as R&D Traffic Cops

Orlando — Allocating funds for research and development comes naturally to biotech or technology firms. But managing that innovation along with what a firm’s budget can tolerate is a skill that requires constant sharpening, according to CFOs speaking at the CFO Rising East Conference earlier this...

By Kathy Hoffelder • March 7, 2013

Small Auditors Pose Misstatement Risks: PCAOB

While the number of significant audit deficiencies for small domestic auditors has shrunk since the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board issued its last report on this group in 2007, the auditing overseer still believes the number of deficiencies is unacceptable.“Audit deficiencies are still...

By Kathy Hoffelder • Feb. 25, 2013

Obama Tax Plan Bypasses Pass-throughs

President Barack Obama called for a number of solutions to the United States’s tax problems last night in his State of the Union speech to Congress. In particular, he attempted to appeal to small businesses with a plea for simplicity.“The American people deserve a tax code that helps small busine...

By Kathy Hoffelder • Feb. 13, 2013

A Question of Definitions

Distinguishing between debt and equity on a corporation’s balance sheet has been no easy task for CFOs and their staffs over the years. Financial instruments today can have features of both, a situation that can lead to misreporting and dire repercussions for senior management, particularly at mu...

By Kathy Hoffelder • Feb. 7, 2013

When Your Big Customer Wants to Pay Late

It’s the new normal: big companies are paying their bills late, later, and latest.When economic hard times hit in 2007–2008, CFOs and finance departments felt pressure to improve their organizations’ working capital positions. The longer companies could hold on to cash, the more liquid they were,...

By David Rosenbaum • Jan. 28, 2013

Travel-expense Management Tortures Small-Biz CFOs

Every month a bound volume of credit-card bills lands with a thud on Dan Marchetti’s desk. “I look at every one of them,” says the CFO of Urschel Laboratories, a 100-year-old family business that dominates the industrial food-cutting business.However, because Marchetti trusts the managers who sig...

By David Rosenbaum • Jan. 22, 2013

Cliff Notes: Growth Firms Dodge Tax Bullets

If nothing else, the American Taxpayer Relief Act (ATRA), enacted on January 1 and designed to yank the nation back from the brink of the notorious fiscal cliff, has relieved small-business uncertainty about the price of government (the taxes businesses will be paying), if not the goods and servi...

By David Rosenbaum • Jan. 9, 2013

How Small-Biz CFOs Should Deal With the Taxman

The tax audit environment facing midsize businesses has shifted dramatically and unpredictably in recent years.  Facing a revenue shortfall widely believed to be the result of non-compliance by smaller businesses, the Internal Revenue Service has reallocated enforcement resources away from its tr...

By Brad McCormack and Andrew Roberson • Jan. 7, 2013

In Defense of State Tax Incentives

If your company intends to add jobs, state economic-development incentives, which can run the gamut from a straightforward tax break to more complicated programs that provide direct cash subsidies, may present a unique opportunity to offset the cost of expansion.To be sure, the recent changes to ...

By Scott M. Susko • Jan. 7, 2013

Verbal Clarity Could Ease IFRS Reporting

Distinguishing between debt and equity on a corporation’s balance sheet has been no easy task for CFOs and their staffs over the years. Financial instruments today can have features of both: a situation that can lead to misreporting and dire repercussions for senior management. But clearer defini...

By Kathy Hoffelder • Dec. 28, 2012

For the 12 Days of Christmas, 12 New (and Useful) Excel 2013 Features

I’ve explored every pixel of Excel 2013 while writing four books about it. I know that the marketing team at Microsoft will be promoting newbie features such asFlash Fill, Quick Analysis, and Recommended Charts. Here’s a list of the best features for accounting and finance.Excel on dual monitors....

By Bill Jelen • Dec. 18, 2012

Revenue Revival

Revenues of nonfinancial companies surpassed prerecession levels for the first time in the second quarter, according to a study by Cash Flow Analytics of almost 2,900 nonfinancial publicly traded firms with market caps of at least $50 million.Median revenues for the 12 months ending in June rose ...

By Kathy Hoffelder • Dec. 15, 2012

How to Buddy-Up with Your Bank

Lending to small businesses reportedly declined a little more than 1% in 2012, which may not seem like a lot unless it’s your business that needs a loan and you can’t get one.According to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, “total business loans under $1 million held by small U.S. banks co...

By David Rosenbaum • Dec. 14, 2012

Advice for New SEC Chair: Keep It Simple

The incoming Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Elisse Walter has a unique opportunity to implement a mandate suggested by the recent Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act—namely to simplify the voluminous maze of regulatory disclosure requirements that currently overwhelm the most mat...

By Edwin L. Miller Jr. and Howard E. Berkenblit • Dec. 13, 2012

Five End-of-Year Small-Biz Tax Tips

“Pretty much anything that’s good is going away,” sums up Bradford Carlson, director of tax at accounting firm Gray, Gray, & Gray, taking a doleful look at the tax-code changes that most likely will roll out in 2013, no matter how that little matter of the big Fiscal Cliff is ultimately resol...

By David Rosenbaum • Dec. 12, 2012

Repair Rules Could Cut Tax Recoveries from Sandy

A complication in claiming a casualty loss from superstorm Sandy could leave commercial property owners in worse financial shape than before, thanks to a wrinkle in the tax code involving repairs. The casualty-loss rule in new temporary repair regulations put in place by the Treasury Dept. last D...

By Kathy Hoffelder • Nov. 27, 2012

How Small-Biz CFOs Can Manage Uncertainty

Business today seems to be in a state of collective stasis.  Given continued economic volatility, small businesses are having difficulty seeing their next move and, understandably, are reluctant to start anything they’re not sure they can finish.  But temporizing is just as (if not more) detrimen...

By Ryan Padilla • Nov. 26, 2012

Small Private Firms Getting Their Own Accounting Standards

Privately owned small and medium-size entities (SMEs) not required to report their financials according to generally accepted accounting principles got their own proposed batch of financial-reporting standards in the form of a proposed framework by the American Institute of Certified Public Accou...

By Kathy Hoffelder • Nov. 2, 2012

We’re Back: Revenues Beat Recession Levels

Revenues of nonfinancial companies surpassed recession levels for the first time in the second quarter, according to a study of almost 2,900 nonfinancial publicly traded firms with market caps of $50 million, according to Cash Flow Analytics data.Median revenues rose 18.9%, from $633.57 million i...

By Kathy Hoffelder • Oct. 26, 2012

New Guidance Could Add Teeth to Internal Audit

Internal auditors will have a louder voice in their company come January 1, 2013 — that’s when new revisions to internal-auditor standards drawn up by the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) will go into effect.The standards will give internal auditors, particularly the chief audit executive (CA...

By Kathy Hoffelder • Oct. 24, 2012

Fraudsters: Catch Them If You Can

Frank Abagnale, the ex–con man made famous in the Hollywood movie Catch Me If You Can, is known more for how he committed fraud than how he prevents it. But small businesses can learn a thing or two about preventing check fraud from the now-respected consultant who frequently works with the FBI.A...

By Kathy Hoffelder • Oct. 18, 2012