Walmart to Hit Suppliers with Hefty Fees

Walmart is trying to compensate for higher labor costs with plans to charge stocking and warehousing fees to nearly all of its suppliers, Reuters said Tuesday.The changes, which also include amended payment terms, will affect 10,000 suppliers to the company’s U.S. stores, according to a letter Wa...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • June 25, 2015

Five Working Capital Management Strategies

The 2015 REL Working Capital Survey reveals that the availability of cheap debt has reduced companies’ incentive to improve working capital management. The survey also reveals what separates top working capital performers from the rest. Want more on how to make working capital more efficient? Rea...

By 10Rule • June 25, 2015

Explore the Trendline➔

Tax policy shifts: What CFOs need to know to stay ahead

Discover how evolving tax policies are creating new opportunities and challenges for CFOs.

By CFO.com staff

Small Exporters Could Lose Big if Export-Import Bank Shuts

Small exporters contend they would lose business to foreign competitors if the U.S. Export-Import Bank loses its operating authority next week, Reuters reported Wednesday.Conservative Republican critics contend that big companies like Boeing and General Electric are on “corporate welfare” courtes...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • June 24, 2015

Metric of the Month: Accounts Payable Process Cost

(A previously published version of this article included three paragraphs containing data that has since been questioned. Those three paragraphs have been removed from this version.)  Benchmarking surveys help CFOs to understand how their various finance processes compare to other organizations i...

By Mary Driscoll • June 24, 2015

Doubts Over Software Growth Hit BlackBerry

BlackBerry shares fell more than 4% on Tuesday amid uncertainty over whether its first-quarter results really showed that its mobile-device-management software business is picking up.The company reported that software and licensing revenues increased more than 150% in the first quarter to $137 mi...

By Matthew Heller • June 23, 2015

May Durable Goods Report Shows Manufacturing Is Stabilizing

Manufacturing is stabilizing, although the lingering effects of lower oil prices and the strong dollar will continue to put a slight damper on activity, according to a new report.New orders for manufactured durable goods in May fell 1.8%, to $228.9 billion, following a 1.5% drop in April, the Com...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • June 23, 2015

British Accounting Watchdog Investigating KPMG

Britain’s Financial Reporting Council Tuesday said that it had launched an investigation into the conduct of KPMG, auditors for The Bank of New York Mellon London branch and The Bank of New York Mellon International.The investigation is in relation to KPMG’s reporting to the U.K. Financial Servic...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • June 23, 2015

Tax Reform Top Priority for Voters: Poll

Tax reform is on the minds of voters on both sides of the aisle, according to a Morning Consult poll published Monday – and corporate tax reform will likely be a key issue in the 2016 presidential election.Seventy-seven percent of the 2, 039 voters responding to the poll last week said that tax r...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • June 23, 2015

Big Four Lead 9% Growth in Consulting Market

The U.S. market for consulting services grew by 9% to over $50 billion last year, with the Big Four accounting firms being the principal beneficiaries, a new report has found.Big Four firms posted growth of 12.8% to $17.5 billion, largely as a result of their acquisition strategies, according to ...

By Matthew Heller • June 22, 2015

EC Stands Behind IASB Accounting Rules

The European Commission has concluded that the International Accounting Standards Board’s accounting rules did not make the 2007-2009 banking crisis worse, saying their benefits outweighed the costs.The International Financial Reporting Standards replaced a patchwork of national regulations for p...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • June 22, 2015

SEC Accuses Microcap CEO, Stock Picker of Fraud

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has charged Texas oil company Norstra Energy, its CEO, and the author of a stock-picking newsletter with misleading investors about the firm’s oil reserves and business prospects.Stock-picker Eric Dany was allegedly hired to help promote Norstra shortly...

By Matthew Heller • June 19, 2015

CFOs on the Move: Week Ending June 19

LendingTree has appointed Gabe Dalporto to lead the finance function. Dalporto, who has been the company’s chief marketing officer since 2011 and president of mortgage since 2013, replaces Alex Mandel.J.D. Carlson has been promoted to finance chief at Penske Automotive Group. He succeeds David Jo...

By Joan Urdang • June 19, 2015

Fitbit CFO’s Heart Is Pumping

At one point on Thursday morning, as his company was proceeding through its initial public offering, Bill Zerella’s heart rate was up to 128, or about the rate he scores when he’s on the treadmill.Bill Zerella Zerella, the 58-year-old CFO of Fitbit, knew that because he had checked the activity t...

By David Katz • June 19, 2015

Gasoline Leads Rise in Consumer Prices

The deflationary trend led by low energy prices appears to have run its course, as U.S. consumer prices rose at a pace not seen in more than two years, boosted by a rebound in gasoline prices.The Labor Dept.’s Consumer Price Index increased 0.4% in May on a seasonally adjusted basis, with the gas...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • June 18, 2015

Know Your SEC

Eighty-one years ago this month, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, which created the Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC is headed by five commissioners serving five-year terms, with one commissioner designated by the president as chairma...

By CFO Editorial Staff • June 17, 2015

CBO Sees U.S. Debt Reaching 107% of GDP in 2040

Driven by growing budget deficits, U.S. government debt held by the public will exceed 100% of GDP in 2040, up from the current 74%, according to a new Congressional Budget Office report.To keep the federal debt-to-GDP ratio at its current level, Congress would have to increase revenues by 6% or ...

By Matthew Heller • June 17, 2015

Sales Tax Bill Seeks to Ease Online Retailer Burdens

A new House bill giving U.S. states the power to require out-of-state retailers to collect taxes from consumers would ease the compliance burdens of CFOs and tax managers of such firms, according to a staffer for Rep. Jason Chaffetz, the Utah Republican who is the lead sponsor of the the bill.Rep...

By David Katz • June 17, 2015

Walmart Has $76B of Assets in Tax Havens: Report

Walmart has $76 billion of assets in overseas tax havens, according to the report, “The Walmart Web: How the World’s Biggest Corporation Secretly Uses Tax Havens to Dodge Taxes,” researched by the United Food & Commercial Workers International Union and published Wednesday by Americans for Ta...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • June 17, 2015

Survey Sees IT Budgets Shifting to Cloud

While information technology operational budgets are rising at the fastest pace since the Great Recession, IT capital spending remains flat, a trend that may signal a shift to cloud computing, according to a new survey.IT operational budgets are up about 3.0% at the median, the IT research firm C...

By Matthew Heller • June 17, 2015

High-Yield Firms’ Cash Falls 9% to $281B

Cash holdings at speculative-grade companies fell 9% to $281 billion in 2014, reflecting growth in capital spending and heavy use of cash to fund dividends and share buybacks, according to a new report from Moody’s Investors Service.Speculative-grade companies spent 397% of their discretionary ca...

By Matthew Heller • June 16, 2015

The Fed’s Interest-Rate Projections: Dotty

Investors obsess over the Federal Reserve’s “dot-plots.” These charts show the rough trajectory that senior Fed officials think its benchmark interest rate should follow over the next few years.Before every second meeting of the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), members say how h...

By Economist Staff • June 16, 2015

Oil Glut May Last Until 2016

The supply of oil has exceeded demand globally for the past five quarters, largely due to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries vying to gain more market share, according to International Energy Agency data.OPEC supply rose 50,000 barrels per day in May, to total 31.33 million barrels...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • June 16, 2015

Gap Closing Stores, Potentially Laying Off Thousands

Retailer Gap Monday announced that it plans to close about 175 stores in North America and some stores in Europe over the next few years to boost profitability, with about 140 closures this year.It did not disclose how many employees in total would be laid off, but the San Francisco-based retaile...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • June 16, 2015

How Artificial Intelligence Can Boost Audit Quality

As a CPA and audit partner, I don’t do robots or self-driving cars.Jon Raphael But a number of my clients do. They are innovating in many fields. Computers have discovered new drugs for treating cancer. Machines can recognize human faces better than, well, humans. The auditing profession can’t co...

By Deloitte & Touche and Jon Raphael • June 15, 2015

Balancing Acts

How hard is it to have a life these days? For CFOs, very hard. Only 12% of finance chiefs manage to strike a 50–50 balance between their work and their personal lives. For the rest, work commands most of their time, energy, and attention. Eighty-five percent of finance chiefs say work takes up at...

By CFO Editorial Staff • June 15, 2015