Square-Off: What Corporate Tax Rate Is Best?

The ayes have it. Our panel of tax and accounting experts, whose opinionated essays are gathered here, voted 3-1 in favor of a major cut in the federal corporate income tax rate.But whether congressional Republicans will have better luck fashioning a new corporate tax structure than they’ve had c...

By David McCann • July 13, 2017

SEC Chair Says Disclosure Burden Excessive

The new head of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission believes its fundamental regulatory approach is sound but is concerned that disclosure burdens may be deterring some companies from going public.In a speech Wednesday, SEC Chairman Jay Clayton noted that the commission, lawmakers, and ot...

By Matthew Heller • July 12, 2017

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

Creating a Cognitive Audit

It’s likely that over the next several years, substantial portions of public and private company audits will be augmented by cognitive technologies. In fact, much of the audit profession is exploring, experimenting, and moving forward with efforts to use various cognitive technologies in the audi...

By Jon Raphael, Thomas H. Davenport, and Deloitte & Touche • July 12, 2017

PepsiCo Q2 Profit Rises 11%, Beats Estimates

PepsiCo, one of the packaged food industry’s strongest performers, delivered another earnings beat, helped by increased sales of higher-margin healthier foods.For the second quarter, PepsiCo earned $1.50 a share, an 11% gain on a year ago, while revenue climbed 2% to $15.71 billion. Analysts had ...

By Matthew Heller • July 11, 2017

Metric of the Month: Planning, Budgeting, and Forecasting Costs

Today’s organizations are laser-focused on sustainable, profitable growth. To achieve it, they need top-quality business performance management, with a special focus on planning and management accounting. That puts CFOs in the hot seat, as finance and accounting are now expected to deliver strong...

By Michael Hinson • July 11, 2017

The CFO as ‘Chief Commercial Officer’

Like many finance chiefs who work for startups, Lukas Wickart, the CFO of AutoGravity, a fintech firm launched in 2015, must improvise his role, rather than fit himself into some preconceived set of functions.Lukas Wickart “There is no handbook or training on [the job] out there. As a startup, we...

By David Katz • July 10, 2017

Modern Finance Feat: Stay Stable, Be Dynamic

At the recent “CFO of the Future Summit” — an Accenture Strategy-sponsored gathering of 33 CFOs and future CFOs at Harvard University — the increasingly bifurcated aspects of the job came up again and again.Christian CampagnaCFOs are being asked to live simultaneously in the present and the futur...

By Christian Campagna and Accenture • July 10, 2017

Jobs Report Tops Analysts’ Estimates

The Department of Labor said U.S. job growth surged last month as employers increased hours for workers and the labor market showed increased signs of strength.Nonfarm payrolls increased by 222,000 jobs, the DoL said. Revised data for April and May showed 47,000 more jobs created than previously ...

By William Sprouse • July 7, 2017

CBO: Shutdown Looms If Debt Ceiling Isn’t Lifted

Congress has to raise the national debt ceiling by October, or the federal government will run out of money, according to an announcement from the Congressional Budget Office, which said the deadline was approaching quicker than expected, Politico reports.The CBO estimated that the Treasury “will...

By William Sprouse • July 5, 2017

Fire Auditors Early, CFOs Are Advised

CFOs thinking about firing their companies’ independent auditors for legitimate reasons, like dissatisfaction with the firm’s price or quality, might want to cut the cord before the end of their fiscal second quarter, an author of a new study of auditor dismissals advises.Jeff Burks If a company ...

By David Katz • June 30, 2017

CFOs on the Move: Week Ending June 30

James Nickolas has been selected to head finance at Martin Marietta Materials, effective in mid-August. He takes over for Anne Lloyd, who is retiring. Nickolas currently heads corporate development at Caterpillar.James Nickolas Retailer Kohl’s has named Bruce Besanko to the top finance spot, effe...

By Joan Urdang • June 30, 2017

Special Report: Retirement Readiness

Ready? Set? Go!All things considered, companies would prefer to wave good-bye to their most veteran workers. While that sounds harsh, it’s a workplace reality that should be dealt with head-on.That’s a human resources issue, of course. But for most CFOs, employees’ retirement readiness is not a t...

By David McCann • June 29, 2017

Biotech CFO Pitches Fundamentals, not Financials

“Why Is Ironwood (IRWD) Up 6.9% Since the Last Earnings Report?” That was one of the headlines on the website Zacks, the stock research firm, on June 12.As the headline suggested, the story went on to question the earnings rise, given other less-than-stellar indicators recorded by Ironwood Pharma...

By David Katz • June 28, 2017

New Lease Accounting Rules Pose Challenges, Study Says

Companies are slowly taking steps to adopt new accounting standards for leased assets, according to a report from PricewaterhouseCoopers and CBRE Group. The study found that only 23% of more than 600 finance executives said their companies have yet to begin the initial adoption process of the sta...

By William Sprouse • June 28, 2017

Pret a Manger Shuffles Auditors, Fueling IPO Talk

U.K. sandwich retailer Pret a Manger has replaced its auditing firm, fueling speculation it could be getting ready for an initial public offering in the United States later this year.The company has parted ways with KPMG and hired rival firm Ernst & Young. KPMG did not meet strict U.S. govern...

By William Sprouse • June 27, 2017

This Week is the Biggest of 2017 for IPOs

This week is expected to be the busiest so far this year in the market for new shares, MarketWatch reports.Ten companies are set to list IPOs, according to market intelligence firm Ipreo Capital Markets. Among the companies planning to list are Blue Apron Holdings, the meal-kit delivery service, ...

By William Sprouse • June 27, 2017

Humans, Robots Must Combine in Digital Ecosystem

It is the dawn of a new era for the finance function. This might sound like hyperbole, but it is a reality for a CFO in the midst of digging into masses of data to provide boards with analysis of more complex information while sticking to the existing reporting schedule.Felice Persico Technologie...

By Felice Persico • June 27, 2017

Sales Woes Force BlackBerry Earnings Miss

BlackBerry said an unexpected drop in sales of its high-margin software and professional services caused it to miss analysts’ forecasts for the first quarter. The company said its professional services revenue went from $27 million in the fourth quarter of last year to “almost nothing” in the fir...

By William Sprouse • June 23, 2017

Do You Even Know What Cyber Defense Is?

The days are over when you could simply install software to block cyberattacks. If malware did get through, you just cleaned it and moved on or made sure employees didn’t access the wrong systems. That was information security.Today’s companies are burdened with a task that was formerly that of t...

By Bob Shaker • June 23, 2017

Hain Completes Audit of Revenue Woes

Hain Celestial announced it has completed a review and audit of its accounting practices, ten months after disclosing it discovered potential problems with the time frame in which certain revenue was booked, according to CNBC.Hain, whose brands include Celestial Seasonings, Terra Chips, and Garde...

By William Sprouse • June 22, 2017

M&A Drives Largest Hikes in Audit Fees

The fees companies pay to have their financials audited have stayed fairly flat for the past decade. But each year produces some significant outliers at individual companies.For fiscal 2016, Centene, the big provider of Medicaid and Medicare health plans, saw its audit fees triple (see chart). Th...

By David McCann • June 22, 2017

Robots Help Siemens Cope in Brazil

As part of its operating philosophy, Siemens, the German conglomerate operating in more than 200 countries and regions, applies a yearly target range of 3% to 5% of productivity growth to each of its subsidiaries, to go along with certain cost objectives. Not unexpectedly, Siemens Brazil has had ...

By David Katz • June 22, 2017

Companies Should Learn from Cyber Attacks Against Government

A rash of recent, politically-motivated cyberattacks has thrust cybersecurity and spear phishing into the spotlight. But as we watch this global political drama unfold, we may be distracted from a much more urgent threat within our own organizations. There’s nothing preventing cyber-savvy crimina...

By Markus Jakobsson • June 21, 2017

Banks, Companies Partner on Cyber-Ratings Principles

Big U.S. banks and corporations are partnering to establish principles for setting cybersecurity ratings, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.The companies say having agreed-upon principles for the ratings will allow them to better understand the ratings and to challenge then if necessary, ...

By William Sprouse • June 21, 2017

Choosing a Sound Path Forward for Cybersecurity

Capital market stakeholders across the spectrum are as primed as ever to take action on an issue that affects us all: cybersecurity. Fifty percent of U.S. chief executives say they are “extremely concerned” about cyber threats, according to a recent survey. Boards of directors are engaged on the ...

By Cindy Fornelli • June 19, 2017