Metric of the Month: Total Cost of the Finance Function

Ask any CFO if his or her role has changed in the last decade, and you’ll likely hear the same answer: Yes, in a big way.Not so long ago, the finance chief was charged primarily with keeping the company legal, allocating financial resources, and measuring how well shareholder capital is used to g...

By Mary C. Driscoll • May 11, 2015

SEC’s Chief Accountant Signals End to Convergence Efforts

Sounding a death knell for the more-than-decade long effort to fully “converge” International Financial Reporting Standards with U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, James Schnurr, the chief accountant of the Securities and Exchange Commission, said that he probably won’t recommend that...

By David Katz • May 8, 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

How to Hate Your Financial System Less

Jeremy Van Ek, CFO, Trisect As indispensable as financials systems are to companies, many of the people who work with them simply hate them. New software implementations are frequent, and the systems industry is littered with horror stories of implementations gone bad.This is particularly frustra...

By Jeremy Van Ek • May 7, 2015

New IRS Unit Targets Refund Cyber Thieves

The tax man cometh for identity thieves who steal data to collect taxpayer refunds. Amid a surge in identity-theft cases, the IRS has set up a new cyber-crime investigation team of about a dozen agents, The Wall Street Journal reports.Identity-theft cases now account for about one quarter of all ...

By Matthew Heller • May 7, 2015

Ex-Wilmington Trust CFO Accused of Disclosure Fraud

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has charged former Wilmington Trust Co. CFO David Gibson, ex-president Robert Harra,, and two other former top executives of the bank with failing to accurately disclose past-due loans during the financial crisis.The civil complaint filed Wednesday is t...

By Matthew Heller • May 7, 2015

Corporate Cash Hoard Hits a Record $1.73 Trillion

U.S. nonfinancial corporations held a record $1.73 million in cash at the end of 2014, but corporate cash growth slowed to 4%, according to a Moody’s Investor Service report.The survey confirmed that corporate America is kicking some of its cash-hoarding habit in favor of spending on capital inve...

By Matthew Heller • May 7, 2015

Global CO2 Levels Reach Ominous Landmark

Carbon dioxide levels in the global atmosphere passed an ominous milestone for climate change in March, exceeding an average concentration of 400 parts per million for the first time ever, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Wednesday.CO2 concentrations are the primary i...

By Matthew Heller • May 6, 2015

Wendy’s Selling 640 Stores

Fast-food chain The Wendy’s Co. reported better-than-expected profit for the first quarter, updated investors on the sale of stores to franchises, and announced the sale of its Ohio bun-making bakery unit.Net income fell 40.6%, to $27.5 million, mainly from year-over-year reductions in gains on t...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • May 6, 2015

Senate Targets Obamacare With Budget Resolution

The Senate on Tuesday passed the first joint budget resolution in more than five years, a nonbinding budget blueprint meant to enable a summer debate over the repeal of Obamacare without a Democrat filibuster, according to an Associated Press article on Yahoo! Finance.While President Barack Obama...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • May 6, 2015

Exceptions for Private Companies Are Damaging the GAAP Brand

When you open a box of Cheerios you know what to expect. For those Cheerios that come in different flavors, it’s clear on the box which flavor you’re getting. This consistency is part of what makes the Cheerios brand valuable.Edward W. Trott Financial statements that comply with generally accepte...

By Edward W. Trott • May 4, 2015

McDonald’s Cooks Up a Turnaround Recipe

McDonald’s on Monday announced plans to restructure its business and refranchise more stores to offset sluggish sales volumes, as well as return more money to shareholders.Beginning July 1, the Oak Brook, Ill.-based company will operate under a new organizational structure with the following mark...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • May 4, 2015

SEC’s Pot Calling the Kettle Black?

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission needs to put its own accounting house in order, according to a government watchdog report that faults the financial regulator for “continuing and new deficiencies” in its financial controls.In auditing the SEC’s fiscal 2014 financial statements, the U.S...

By Matthew Heller • May 1, 2015

The New Morality in Tax Strategies

In recent years, corporate tax strategies have become the focus of some high-profile public debates. Last year, for example, tax inversion deals received scorching criticism from regulators and lawmakers. One prominent critic — President Barack Obama — likely helped spur the Treasury Department t...

By Josh Hyatt • May 1, 2015

Threat Assessment

In a February editorial about the buildup of cyber attacks between the United States and Iran, The New York Times quoted President Obama’s observation that, compared with conventional weaponry, cyberweapons provide “no clear line between offense and defense.” For example, getting into the enemy’s...

By David Katz • May 1, 2015

Moneyball

When the Major League Baseball season starts on April 5, the seasons of four professional sports leagues — in baseball, basketball, hockey, and soccer — will be in progress. (The National Women’s Soccer League season begins on April 10.) Test your financial knowledge of these leagues by taking ou...

By CFO Editorial Staff • April 30, 2015

GM Places $5.4 Billion Bet on U.S. Expansion

China and Mexico may be the most popular places for global vehicle production these days. But General Motors is making a big bet on the United States, announcing Thursday it will invest $5.4 billion in U.S factories over the next three years.The investment includes $783.5 million for Michigan fac...

By Matthew Heller • April 30, 2015

EC Could Force Apple to Pay Scads of Back Taxes to Ireland

Apple may have to pay back a “material” amount of back taxes to Ireland if the European Commission rules against that country’s 1991 tax deal with the Cupertino, Calif. company, Apple disclosed Tuesday in its quarterly earnings filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.The issue surround...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • April 30, 2015

Firms See Minimal Impact From ACA Mandate

A new survey suggests that concerns about the economic impact of the Affordable Care Act on U.S. businesses may have been overblown.The ACA’s “employer mandate” requires that all businesses with 50 or more full-time equivalent employees provide health insurance to at least 95% of their full-time ...

By Matthew Heller • April 29, 2015

NFL Ending Tax-Exempt Status

The National Football League’s central office is ending its tax-exempt status, a move that will hardly impact its bottom line, will give it a public relations boost, and will shield it from certain public disclosures, according to a Bloomberg story on Tuesday.Commissioner Roger Goodell wrote a le...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • April 28, 2015

Amazon Stock Surges on First-Ever Cloud Results

Amazon.com has for the first time opened up its cloud services division to public scrutiny, reporting that Amazon Web Services’ net sales increased 49% in the first quarter of 2015 while margins remained steady at 16.9%.Amazon’s first breakout of AWS results fueled hopes that the company is heade...

By Matthew Heller • April 27, 2015

AMD’s First-Quarter Earnings Fuel Bankruptcy Fears

The latest earnings report from Advanced Micro Devices has fueled concerns that the chip maker is headed eventually for bankruptcy.For the first quarter, AMD reported a loss of nine cents per share on revenues of $1.03 billion. Analysts polled by Yahoo Finance had expected a loss of five cents pe...

By Matthew Heller • April 27, 2015

IRS Hands Companies $3 Billion in Tax Credits They Didn’t Deserve

The Internal Revenue Service gave $3 billion of erroneous business tax credits to companies that did not qualify for them, according to a report by The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, posted by Forbes Friday.The tax credits were claimed on more than 3,000 electronically filed c...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • April 24, 2015

Firm Settles with SEC for Missing Eight Filings

The Securities and Exchange Commission Wednesday announced that real estate investment firm W2007 Grace Acquisition I has agreed to pay $640,000 to settle charges relating to eight missed filings. The firm is indirectly owned by one or more private equity funds affiliated with Goldman Sachs.The S...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • April 23, 2015

House OKs Bill to Promote Sharing of Hacking Data

The House of Representatives on Wednesday passed the Protecting Cyber Networks Act, aiming to shield companies sharing hacking data with each other from liability — to the chagrin of privacy advocates.Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) said he wrote H.R. 1560 because the threat of cyber attacks has beco...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • April 23, 2015

Deutsche Bank to Pay $2.5B in LIBOR-Rigging Case

Deutsche Bank has agreed to pay $2.5 billion in penalties to settle allegations by U.S. and U.K. authorities that it manipulated the LIBOR interest rate benchmark to benefit its trading positions.The sanctions against Germany’s largest financial institution announced Thursday are the largest to a...

By Matthew Heller • April 23, 2015