Capex Numbers Reflect No Expansion

A barometer of capital spending on equipment – the financing of everything from copy machines to commercial aircraft – was up year-over-year in August, but not enough to suggest that businesses are doing anything more than replacing aging assets.The Equipment Leasing and Finance Assn.’s (ELFA) Mo...

By Vincent Ryan • Sept. 27, 2011

Are Your Investors in for the Long Haul?

In his February 1989 letter to shareholders, Warren Buffett wrote, “our favorite holding period is forever.” Are your investors in for the long haul? If they aren’t, how can you make investment decisions with long-term payoffs in the face of short-term pressures from constantly changing sharehold...

By Gregory V. Milano • Sept. 23, 2011

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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

Automate the Selection and Sum of Variable Rows in Excel

Editor’s Note: If you would like Bill Jelen to answer your Excel question in an upcoming column, send an e-mail note to [email protected]. If he chooses your question as a topic for his column, you’ll win a book from CFO and MrExcel.com. Kathleen W. wins a copy of Excel 2007 Miracles Made Easy fo...

By Bill Jelen • Sept. 21, 2011

When Selling Your Receivables Isn’t Taxable

In a letter ruling issued in August, the Internal Revenue Service found that income from factoring receivables is not Subpart F income. It was the first time the IRS ever ruled on the character of income earned when a company sells its invoices at a discount to a third party.That’s important beca...

By Robert Willens • Sept. 19, 2011

What Were the Auditors Thinking?

The financial crisis and the corporate scandals that preceded it have wreaked serious havoc on the credibility of corporate financial statements and the opinions of the auditors who approve them, said participants in a roundtable held by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board on Thursday…....

By David Katz • Sept. 16, 2011

How One CFO Deploys Excess Cash

What should I do with all that cash? With shareholders clamoring for action by the abundance of companies with currently overstuffed balance sheets, many CFOs are laboring to arrive at a logical and articulate answer to that question.In that context, having a well-established ranking of company p...

By David Katz • Sept. 15, 2011

What’s Your Best Excel “Rookie Mistake” Story?

There are 750 million people using Excel worldwide. Some, like you, are quite proficient. Others will say that they are using Excel, and maybe even spend hours a day in the program, yet they never use even simple features, such as formulas. The situation is more common than you might think, which...

By Bill Jelen • Sept. 14, 2011

How to Spice Up Restricted Stock

To lure and retain valuable executive talent, employers – especially emerging companies and start-ups – often feel compelled to issue restricted stock as part of the compensation package.  Those key employees are generally reluctant to pay full price for the stock. They also want to defer income ...

By Gary Q. Michel • Sept. 13, 2011

CFO Optimism Plummets

Optimism among chief financial officers took a nosedive in this quarter’s Duke University/CFO Magazine Global Business Outlook Survey, as economic uncertainty and weak demand continued to worry them. Finance chiefs who had grown more pessimistic compared with last quarter outnumbered those who ha...

By Kate O'Sullivan • Sept. 13, 2011

When Charts Drop to Zero in Excel

Editor’s Note: If you would like Bill Jelen to answer your Excel question in an upcoming column, send an e-mail note to [email protected]. If he chooses your question as a topic for his column, you’ll win a book from CFO and MrExcel.com.Reader Jeff E. sent in this week’s question: “I was sitting ...

By Bill Jelen • Sept. 8, 2011

How Cablevision Spin-off Shifted Debt Without Tax Effect

On June 30, 2011, Cablevision Systems Corp. completed a leveraged spin-off of AMC Networks. Although CSC had compelling reasons for spinning off AMC that had nothing to do with tax, the deal ended up having no tax consequences at all for the cable giant. Because they enable the parent company to ...

By Robert Willens • Sept. 6, 2011

“The CFO Is the Closest Confidant to the CEO.”

In 2004, when Mark Goodburn became vice chairman of KPMG and head of the firm’s Americas Advisory services, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act had been in existence for barely two years, yet it was exerting a strong influence on companies’ priorities. As he says, before the act, companies had become “overbal...

By David Katz • Sept. 1, 2011

Excel – Converting State Codes to States

Editor’s Note: To share a tip with other readers, or suggest a topic for Bill Jelen to cover in an upcoming column, send an e-mail note to Bill at [email protected] Raveed K. wins a copy of Learn Excel 2007-2010 from CFO and MrExcel.com for his question: “I need to convert state codes to s...

By Bill Jelen • Aug. 31, 2011

Is Excess Cash a Problem?

Investors are growing restless, and in some cases downright furious, about what they see as the “inefficient balance sheets” of managements who are building large cash balances. They often demand fat share repurchases to disgorge the cash cushions that they claim erode management’s accountability...

By Gregory V. Milano • Aug. 29, 2011

The Four Steps of September Tech Budgeting

Besides the promise of falling leaves, autumn inevitably provides finance chiefs with piles of requests to add project costs to their corporate budgets. Hence September is a good time to put together a game plan for assessing which projects to partly or fully fund, table, or jettison.For many com...

By David Katz • Aug. 25, 2011

Referring to Other Worksheets or Workbooks in an Excel Macro

Editor’s Note: This is the second of two articles focused on Excel macros culled from audience questions asked at last week’s MrExcel Webcast, “Macros for Budgeting & Corporate Accounting.” The first article about using text-to-columns in a macro was the topic of last week’s column.During las...

By Bill Jelen • Aug. 24, 2011

Whistle-blower Rules Give Companies Less Time to React

A new whistle-blower program that went into effect earlier this month may pressure companies into accelerating internal investigations that are prompted by employee tips.By sticking to a tighter time frame, companies could give regulators the impression that corporate officials — and not a whistl...

By Sarah Johnson • Aug. 24, 2011

Courts Rebuffing State Tax Grabs

Strapped for revenue, states have been frequently advancing novel interpretations of the law with a view towards curtailing tax exemptions that taxpayers – particularly out-of-state taxpayers -have historically enjoyed.In most instances, those attempts have failed. The reason is often that the co...

By Robert Willens • Aug. 23, 2011

PCAOB Resurrects Auditor-Rotation Debate

In a move likely to have many finance chiefs groaning, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has put the notion of mandatory rotation of audit firms squarely on the regulatory agenda again. Earlier this week, the PCAOB issued a concept release seeking public comment on how to boost audito...

By David Katz • Aug. 19, 2011

Most Likely to Commit Fraud: Finance Executives

A lot of bad apples work for the corporate finance department, but the number is shrinking, says a new study from KPMG. The report, released this month, says the “typical” corporate fraudster is a senior finance executive, and that of the employees who commit fraud, 32% of them work in corporate ...

By Marie Leone • Aug. 19, 2011

Give Companies the Choice to Adopt IFRS: Accountants

Responding to what it sees as a growing expectation that the Securities and Exchange Commission will put international financial reporting standards (IFRS) on track for incorporation in the United States this fall, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants proposed today that big U.S...

By David Katz • Aug. 17, 2011

Spreadsheets: Using Text-to-Columns in a Macro

Yesterday I conducted an hour-long Webcast, “Macros for Budgeting & Corporate Accounting.” During the session, I covered one simple macro recording example — and then covered the four things you absolutely have to learn to create effective macros.Basically, the Excel macro recorder will never...

By Bill Jelen • Aug. 17, 2011

How to Deduct Success-Based Fees Paid to Investment Bankers

Investment bankers hired in the context of mergers and acquisitions generally get paid only if the deal closes successfully. From an economic perspective, success-based fee structures benefit acquirers and targets. But the nature of the fees has created significant tax uncertainty about whether t...

By Gary Q. Michel • Aug. 16, 2011

Tax Tips on Combining Business and Pleasure

With productivity the top priority at many finance departments — and with smart phones getting ever smarter at tracking down sunbathing executives — it’s getting harder for CFOs to spend some days exclusively at the beach.Now that the dog days of August are nearly upon us, however, it might be a ...

By David Katz • Aug. 15, 2011

CFOs Point the Finger at Washington

The votes are in, and while CFOs are divided about the possibility of a double-dip recession and about whether they will or won’t alter their strategies in the face of this week’s madness, they do agree on one thing: Washington is at fault. Three hundred senior finance executives responded to our...

By Scott Leibs • Aug. 11, 2011