The Value of Sustainability

Clorox, Microsoft, and Coca-Cola are among more than 80 corporations testing out an integrated financial reporting framework that combines tangible financial results with environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors.Unlike more traditional sustainability reporting initiatives, integrated r...

By Kathy Hoffelder • Nov. 15, 2012

Controllers Eye Alternatives to Outsourcing

When chief accounting officers and controllers look to cut costs these days, they typically turn to their shared service centers to see what other transaction-processing or accounts-payable functions can be outsourced. But some are finding that “insourcing” those same tasks can save just as much ...

By Kathy Hoffelder • Nov. 14, 2012

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

Tax Incentive Helps Multinationals Repatriate 20% Less, Study Finds

*Editor’s Note:  The following article corrects descriptions of academic findings in a previously published version. Microsoft used it to defer $14.2 billion in cumulative taxes last year. Hewlett-Packard and others used it to hold more cash in foreign holdings than they had in the United States....

By Kathy Hoffelder • Nov. 12, 2012

Going Concern Is Management’s Job: FASB

The Financial Accounting Standards Board supported the requirement for management to assess whether a public company would be unable to meet its obligations to remain in business as a “going concern” at a board meeting this week. The decision clears up some of the debate in the market over whethe...

By Kathy Hoffelder • Nov. 9, 2012

Marketing Old School: Via E-Mail

When it comes to discussing her budget with her CFO, e-mail marketing manager Carey Marston Kegel says she has it pretty good.“I’m lucky,” says Kegel, who works for online equestrian-supply retailer SmartPak. “It’s so inexpensive to send e-mail, especially compared to some of the other marketing ...

By Taylor Provost • Nov. 8, 2012

Applied to Pensions, Risk Is a Four-Letter Word

Record pension deficits for U.S. corporate pension plans of more than $700 billion are sure to keep the CFOs of plan sponsors small and large, public and private, busier than ever. Market volatility, low interest rates, and an explosion of Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) lawsuits ...

By Susan Mangiero and Nancy G. Ross • Nov. 8, 2012

What the Best Finance Functions Look Like

What does a great finance function do differently? It spends 17% less time collecting data and 25% more time analyzing it. It churns out forecasts and budgets in less time than it takes average finance departments to do so. The best finance functions also cost 40% less than the average (measuring...

By Andrew Sawers • Nov. 7, 2012

Why You Shouldn’t Worry if Your Insurer Fails

During the greatest economic crisis the country has ever known, in response to wave after wave of failed banks, in 1933 Congress and Franklin D. Roosevelt created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC), a government entity that guaranteed deposits of every American.The point, of course, was n...

By Mark Peters • Nov. 2, 2012

Auditors, CFOs Boost Their IQs on QR Codes

How savvy are your accountants about bar codes?“Somewhat.” “Not very.” “Not a lot.” If your answer includes more than a few “nots,” you could be ignoring a key piece of technology that could help make some accounting decisions easier, speed up the time to receive payments, and help your company a...

By Kathy Hoffelder • Nov. 1, 2012

How to Get Fast Insurance Settlements for Hurricane Sandy

Companies dealing with facility closures and property damage — sometimes to multiple locations in the wake of Hurricane Sandy — can avoid headaches and even receive up-front cash from insurers if they are diligent now, claims experts advise.“If you put a good package together that is credible and...

By Caroline McDonald • Oct. 31, 2012

Records Management: More than Just a Convenience

Records management is often viewed simply as a matter of convenience and organization: “proper documentation of records will allow our employees to find them at a moment’s notice.” It is true that when a company is looking to increase efficiency, the value of records management cannot and should ...

By Gregg Bieri • Oct. 25, 2012

Who Cares About Quarterly EPS for Facebook?

Later today, when Facebook executives report on their most recent quarterly financial results, many journalists, analysts, and investors will draw sharp comparisons between the actual earnings per share (EPS) results for the quarter and the consensus analyst expectations of 11 cents per share.The...

By Gregory V. Milano • Oct. 23, 2012

Risk Management, Internal Audit Should Kiss and Make Up

Amid the current corporate drive to cut costs and drive efficiency, insurance-related risk management and internal audit can well be seen as natural enemies, fighting for a diminishing piece of the pie. Both, after all, can lay overlapping claims to risk control, risk finance, data security, frau...

By Kristina Narvaez and John Bugalla • Oct. 22, 2012

Finance Execs Balk at Mandatory Rotation of Audit Firms

While the debate over mandatory audit-firm rotation rages, CFOs and controllers at a Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) meeting yesterday in Houston hoped their dissenting voices rang out loud enough.Tenet Healthcare’s CFO, Daniel Cancelmi, for one, said requiring companies to rota...

By Kathy Hoffelder • Oct. 19, 2012

Now Is the Best Time for an ESOP

Owners of small and midsize companies who want to take equity out of the business will save a lot of money if they do it before year-end, when the tax rate on long-term capital gains (which applies to assets held for more than a year) is scheduled to leap.Under a sunset provision that is an eleme...

By David McCann • Oct. 19, 2012

Google’s Big “Oops” Moment

Google accidentally released an incomplete version of its third-quarter earnings report ahead of schedule on Thursday, and Google shares plummeted when the earnings numbers missed analysts’ expectations.Trading in Google shares on Nasdaq was halted around 1:40 p.m. Eastern time, at Google’s reque...

By Vincent Ryan • Oct. 18, 2012

Some CFOs Still Find Cloud Ominous

A survey of 350 CFOs conducted last summer by software-as-a-service (SaaS) cash-flow operations firm Bill.com found that when CFOs automate their accounts-payable process in the cloud, the AP department cuts its work time by more than half, and slashes the cost per invoice by up to 70%.But 73% of...

By Taylor Provost • Oct. 18, 2012

Advocates Overrating the Benefits of Buybacks

When companies consider capital-deployment alternatives, the benefits of buybacks are often overestimated. Too often, a company’s earnings per share (EPS) is viewed in isolation without taking into account that investors tend to put more value on operating EPS growth over the long haul. A 2010 ac...

By John R. Cryan and Gregory V. Milano • Oct. 17, 2012

Your Pre-Debate Guide for Small Business

In the first Presidential debate, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney spent a lot of time arguing about which of them would do more to help small business. (The phrase “small business” was repeated 26 times in the debate.) And as the economy still holds center stage in the campaign, the theme of what ea...

By David Rosenbaum • Oct. 15, 2012

In His Fourth Industry, Red Hat CFO Enjoys the View

No CFO can, on his or her own, spur a company to massive growth. But Red Hat’s Charlie Peters is comfortable with how the numbers have trended during his eight-year tenure as finance chief for the leading open-source software company.Upon his arrival in 2004, the company had 700 employees and ann...

By David McCann • Oct. 12, 2012

Internal Audit: a Dead-end Job?

The internal-audit profession may be in need of an overhaul — at least in the eyes of entry-level employees.A new academic working paper from accounting professors at Brigham Young University suggests that accounting students have significant negative perceptions about the internal-audit professi...

By Kathy Hoffelder • Oct. 12, 2012

China Agrees to “Observational Visits” by PCAOB

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) moved closer to having more access to audits of U.S. listed companies in China. The auditing overseer made an agreement with the Chinese government to have “observational visits in China,” according to a PCAOB spokesperson this week.The agreem...

By Kathy Hoffelder • Oct. 11, 2012

The Case for Private Insurance Exchanges

This second installment in a three-part series on private health-insurance exchanges describes their value proposition, drawbacks, and some CFO points of view. Part 1 introduced the private-exchange concept. Part 3 will address the vendors in the market and their products.Employee health benefits...

By David McCann • Oct. 9, 2012

Social Media Carries Regulatory Risks

Voltaire wrote that with great power comes great responsibility, and CFOs are slowly but surely catching on that social media can be an immeasurably powerful tool to businesses large and small. But communication through social channels also has the potential to wreak havoc on companies’ carefully...

By Taylor Provost • Oct. 9, 2012

The Fuss over Budgets

Most of the challenges faced by the companies in your article “Freed from the Budget” (September) are not inherently budgeting issues. Inability to set hard targets, overuse of spreadsheets, and trying to use the budget for analytics are management, process, or technical issues. In our experience...

By CFO Readers • Oct. 8, 2012