Spotlight Trained on Intercompany Accounting

The days of lax accounting for intercompany transactions — those between separate legal entities under a single corporate umbrella — appear to be running out.Several new and pending regulatory initiatives promise to create more standardization for how companies perform intercompany accounting (IC...

By David McCann • Aug. 31, 2016

The Future of Investing?

If an investor regularly chooses the self-checkout line in the grocery store, orders take-out online, or never steps foot inside a bank branch, a new breed of wealth management adviser may suit his lifestyle perfectly. These services ask the investor a series of questions about financial goals, r...

By Keith Button • Aug. 30, 2016

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

Smooth Travels

Not long ago, advances in digital technology threatened to make face-to-face meetings obsolete. They were supposed to replace high-mileage business travel with high-definition videoconferences in which geographically dispersed attendees mingled as 3-D holograms. While that scenario may not have m...

By Josh Hyatt • Aug. 30, 2016

It’s Only a Number

The media pay a lot of attention to millennials but not much to people near retirement age. According to a recent paper, every 10% increase in the share of a U.S. state’s population over the age of 60 reduces per capita growth in gross domestic product by 5.5%. Take our quiz to find out more.1. I...

By CFO Editorial Staff • Aug. 30, 2016

Don’t Let the Climate Change Your Business

As I write this, I’m reading that the death toll has climbed yet again after “thousand-year” rains dumped 6.9 trillion gallons of water on Louisiana in what the Red Cross is calling the country’s worst natural disaster since Hurricane Sandy. I’m reading that 20,000 people have been rescued, 11,00...

By Jeffrey A. Burchill • Aug. 29, 2016

Finance Must Ramp Up Role as Analytics Leader

The fictional crime-solver Sherlock Holmes once referred in a conversation to “the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.” A Scotland Yard detective replied, “The dog did nothing in the night-time.” Holmes retorted, “That was the curious incident.”Tom Davenport In the field of analytics, ...

By Adrian Tay and Thomas H. Davenport • Aug. 26, 2016

CFOs on the Move: Week Ending August 26

Financial holding firm Hilltop Holdings has named William Furr to head internal finance, effective Sept. 1. Most recently, he was community bank CFO at KeyCorp.Glenn David Animal-health company Zoetis has promoted Glenn David, senior vice president of finance operations, to CFO. He takes over for...

By Joan Urdang • Aug. 26, 2016

Top CFOs’ Pay Rises 18.7% to $3.4M Since 2011

The compensation for finance chiefs at America’s top companies has grown 18.7% over the past five years, with performance-based equity significantly increasing its share of the pay package, according to a new survey by Equilar. (See a list of the top-earning CFOs of 2015 at the bottom of this art...

By Matthew Heller • Aug. 25, 2016

Survey Finds Cash Flow Management Lacking

Corporate executives in the U.S. understand the importance of optimizing working capital but more than half of them have yet to implement a strategy to manage the day-to-day cash flow of their organizations, according to a new survey by Crowe Horwath LLP.The consulting firm found that nearly a th...

By Matthew Heller • Aug. 23, 2016

Banking, Tax Regs Eat Into Marijuana Profits

If one looks at the top line, the legal marijuana business may very well be the stuff that entrepreneurial dreams are made of. As of this writing, some 25 states in the U.S. have passed laws that allow for some degree of medical or recreational use of the cannabis plant.This trend toward growing ...

By Ed Zwirn • Aug. 19, 2016

CFOs on the Move: Week Ending August 19

Inder Singh has been promoted to the top finance spot at Unisys, effective Nov. 1. He takes over for Janet Haugen, whose retirement is effective the same day after 16 years as the company’s CFO. Singh is now chief strategy and marketing officer.Doug Hendrickson Wealth manager Aspiriant has appoin...

By Joan Urdang • Aug. 19, 2016

Eyes in the Sky

We have all become rather blasé about the ability to see detailed imagery of the earth’s surface from space. Ever since Google acquired the technology developed by Keyhole in 2004, the use of satellite imagery in business has grown steadily. Today, it’s about more than mapping and navigation (whi...

By John Parkinson • Aug. 16, 2016

How Strategic CFOs Navigate Turbulent Markets

In the business world, nothing is as certain as uncertainty. Markets spike and dip, venture capital flows and slows, and sales can fluctuate. Peaks and valleys are simply part of the game.Tom Bogan, CEO, Adaptive Insights Data integrationFor all CFOs, planning for these conditions is a critical p...

By Tom Bogan • Aug. 15, 2016

CFOs on the Move: Week Ending August 12

Retailer hhgregg has promoted Kevin Kovacs to finance chief. He takes over for Robert Riesbeck, who has been named president and CEO. Kovacs started at the firm in 2009 and formerly served as vice president/controller and director of tax and treasury.Brian Robinson Brian Robinson has been chosen ...

By Joan Urdang • Aug. 12, 2016

Emotional Connection: A Predictive Metric for CFOs

A top-10 financial institution is using emotional connection to unlock cross-sell opportunities. A leading food brand is using emotional connection to drive purchases and capture market share. And an enterprise technology firm is using emotional connection to counter “white box” competition and s...

By Scott Magids • Aug. 11, 2016

ComScore Names New CFO Amid Investigation

Media measurement firm ComScore has reshuffled top management, replacing its chief executive officer and CFO, amid an internal investigation into its accounting.ComScore said in a regulatory filing on Wednesday that its audit committee has identified “areas of potential concern” involving its acc...

By Matthew Heller • Aug. 11, 2016

CEO Pay Ratio: Tricky to Calculate, Communicate

(Editor’s note: this article was originally published as a blog post on Equilar.com.) 335:1.  276:1.  247:1.  71:1.Those figures represent alternative ways to calculate the ratio of CEO pay to worker pay in the United States — a ratio that every public company will be required to report starting ...

By Dan Marcec • Aug. 10, 2016

MF Global Suit Against PwC Cleared for Trial

A jury should decide whether PricewaterhouseCoopers caused the collapse of MF Global by giving bad accounting advice to the futures brokerage, a federal judge has ruled.The decision allows the administrator winding down MF Global to proceed to trial with its $1 billion malpractice suit alleging “...

By Matthew Heller • Aug. 9, 2016

Specialty Drugs Drive Health Care Cost Trend

Were it not for the skyrocketing cost of specialty pharmaceuticals, next year’s rate of increase in health care costs for large companies could be among the lowest since 2000.According to reports released Monday by Willis Towers Watson and Tuesday by the National Business Group on Health (NBGH), ...

By David McCann • Aug. 9, 2016

How Fragmentation is Killing Employee Engagement

Tetris was, in 1984, the first Russian entertainment software to be exported to the United States. The gameplay was simple yet sophisticated: manipulate the random sequence of differently shaped falling tiles and fit them to together to create lines without gaps. Players lose when they can no lon...

By Alexander Van Caeneghem and Jean-Marie Bequevort • Aug. 9, 2016

Tax Lawyers Seek Guidance on Cloud Income

The American Bar Association has asked the U.S. Internal Revenue Service to clarify how cloud transactions should be classified for tax purposes.Citing the growth in cloud computing, the ABA said there is “a pressing need for guidance from tax authorities” on the characterization of cloud transac...

By Matthew Heller • Aug. 9, 2016

Make Your Career ‘Mulligan’ Count

Almost everyone has a section of their job history they wish they could erase. Somewhere in a résumé filled with outstanding accomplishments and experience is that one little spot where things just didn’t quite work out. Between long tenures at Company A and Company C is a one-year Company B that...

By John Touey • Aug. 3, 2016

Robotic Process Automation — Changing the Finance Landscape

As the role of the CFO evolves to focus on operational competitiveness, finance and accounting is no longer considered a back-office-only function; it also delivers end-to-end commercial value streams, e.g., quote to cash. As such, there is an increasing demand to eliminate organizational silos a...

By Shantanu Ghosh • Aug. 2, 2016

Resort Developers Accused of $5.6M Fraud

Three men who were not registered to sell investments have been charged with misappropriating $5.6 million from investors in a real estate project to pay for lavish shopping sprees.The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said Matthew E. White, Rodney A. Zehner and Daniel J. Merandi fraudulent...

By Matthew Heller • July 29, 2016

Private Equity-backed CFOs Face High Expectations

No company is immune to financial challenges arising from marketplace or internal factors — shrinking markets, altered competitive landscapes, cash flow and forecasting difficulties, broken covenants with lenders — which to one degree or another fall on the shoulders of a CFO.However, the expecta...

By Hal Polley • July 29, 2016