PC Market to Continue Slide for Two More Years

The personal computer market will continue its slide for the next couple of years but begin a modest recovery in 2017,  International Data Corp. predicted Wednesday in a new survey.Worldwide PC shipments are expected to fall by 8.7% in 2015 and not stabilize until 2017, according to IDC. A furthe...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • Aug. 26, 2015

Salary Increases Give Way to Variable Pay Hikes

Most people are all too aware that annual salary increases have flattened out since the most recent recession. In fact, following each of the past several recessions, salary hikes normalized at a lower level than they had previously.So it may come as a surprise, to some, that companies’ spending ...

By David McCann • Aug. 26, 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

‘Boomerang’ Auditors Make Better Fraud Detectives, Experiment Shows

“Boomerang” auditors – auditors who spend time as CFOs or controllers and then return to public accounting – are better at sniffing out when and by how much their clients are cheating on their financial reports, a new study finds.Marietta Peytcheva Further, auditors who are psychologically inclin...

By David Katz • Aug. 21, 2015

Intuit to Sell Pioneering Quicken Program

Intuit is planning to sell its Quicken personal finance program and other assets to focus on such core strengths as the TurboTax tax preparation platform.Quicken, a pioneer in desktop accounting software that was launched in 19844, was once Intuit’s core product. The financial software company is...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • Aug. 21, 2015

Sears’ Property Sales Prevent Q2 Loss

Sears’ property sales propped up its second-quarter earnings amid slumping store revenue.The Hoffman Estates, Ill.-based company on Thursday posted net profit of $208 million, or $1.84 a share, versus a loss of $573 million, or $5.39, a year earlier. Excluding the $508 million gain from the sale ...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • Aug. 20, 2015

Boston Bruins Launch Tax Fight Over Meal Expenses

In what could be a precedent-setting tax case for professional sports, the Boston Bruins are facing off with the Internal Revenue Service over whether the NHL team can deduct the full amount of what it spends to feed players on road trips.Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs has filed a petition in U.S. Ta...

By Matthew Heller • Aug. 20, 2015

Companies Purposely Hire Fraudsters: Study

“Psst — hey you. Yeah, you. We’re onto you, you closeted earnings manager. Don’t give us that look. You know what you are.”Three accounting professors from the University of South Carolina have published research that purports to show strong evidence for what accounting academia has long suspecte...

By David McCann • Aug. 19, 2015

Finance Chief Eyes Steady Shift to the Cloud

Talk about a smooth transition to the CFO role.Ashley Vukovits, CFO, Interactive Intelligence Group During the August 3 earnings call of Interactive Intelligence Group, a software and cloud services provider that has long focused on corporate telephone contact centers, new finance chief Ashley Vu...

By David Katz • Aug. 19, 2015

Adobe Completes Swift Business-Model Transformation

In the broad business-model shift that has swept through the software industry over the past decade, has any large company in that field — let alone a publicly held one — pulled off the transition as speedily, thoroughly, and successfully as has Adobe Systems?Almost surely not.In November 2011, t...

By David McCann • Aug. 18, 2015

Walmart Cuts Earnings Projections

Walmart posted lower profits for its second quarter and lowered its outlook for the current quarter and all of 2015, due to paying higher wages and investing more in its U.S. locations.The Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer said second-quarter profit fell to $3.48 billion, or $1.08 a share, from $4...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • Aug. 18, 2015

Accounting and Finance Articles for CFOs from 8.14.2015

This edition of the CFO Daily Roundup has all CFO articles from August 14, 2015…  Ex-SAP Exec Accused of Panama BriberyThe executive arranged large discounts to a corporate partner ‘in order to generate a cash pot to bribe government officials and win business for SAP.’>> Matthew Heller Stu...

By Kerry Maruna • Aug. 17, 2015

Tax Inversions: All My Bags Are Packed

When President Barack Obama said last September that he would get tough on companies that avoid tax through “inversions” — merging with or buying foreign firms so as to shift their domicile abroad — some wondered if this would end a wave of corporate emigration. Some high-profile deals were calle...

By Economist Staff • Aug. 17, 2015

Etsy Avoids Disclosure With Irish Tax Haven

Despite its promise to be a “beacon for transparency,” online crafts marketplace Etsy has created an offshore tax haven that is shielded from public scrutiny, Bloomberg reports.Etsy’s Irish subsidiary is now classified as an unlimited liability company so it no longer has to report publicly how m...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • Aug. 14, 2015

StumbleUpon Planning to Lay Off 70% of Workers

Content discovery firm StumbleUpon plans to lay off about 70% of its workforce by the end of this week after failing to secure additional funding, VentureBeat reports.StumbleUpon’s last injection of funds came in 2011, when investors pumped $17 million into the company. It has struggled to compet...

By Matthew Heller • Aug. 14, 2015

CRE Market May Be Reaching Bubble Territory

Historically low interest rates and “a flood of cash being pumped into economies” by central banks have made commercial real estate look attractive compared with bonds and other assets — causing prices to soar and the global property market to overheat, the Wall Street Journal said Thursday.For e...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • Aug. 13, 2015

Macy’s Has ‘Tough’ Q2 As Sales Fall 2.6%

Macy’s stock fell more than 5% on Wednesday after the retailer released second-quarter earnings that its CEO described as “disappointing.”Macy’s recorded $6.1 billion in second-quarter revenue, down 2.6% year-over-year and below the $6.2 billion Wall Street consensus. Net income for the quarter d...

By Matthew Heller • Aug. 12, 2015

Alibaba’s Torrid Sales Growth Slows to 28%

Nearly a year after its record-breaking, $25 billion IPO, Alibaba on Wednesday reported lower-than-expected second-quarter revenues, sparking a 5% decline in its stock price.The China e-commerce giant’s revenue for the quarter ending June 30 rose 28%, to $3.26 billion—its slowest growth in three ...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • Aug. 12, 2015

New CFO’S Hand Seen in Google Restructuring

Google has announced a major restructuring of its sprawling operations, a surprise move to improve transparency that media observers credited to new CFO Ruth Porat.As part of the reconfiguration, a new parent company named Alphabet Inc. will replace Google as the publicly traded entity, with Goog...

By Matthew Heller • Aug. 11, 2015

China’s Central Bank Devalues Yuan

The People’s Bank of China Monday cut its daily reference rate by 1.9% and said devaluing the yen would help the currency become more aligned with supply and demand in an effort to boost exports, Bloomberg reported.“The announcement suggests policy makers are now placing a greater emphasis on eff...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • Aug. 11, 2015

Budget Deficit May Be Heading to 7-Year Low

The Congressional Budget Office is projecting a U.S. budget deficit of roughly $425 billion for fiscal 2015, 12.5% lower than the $486 billion it forecast in March.If the CBO’s revised estimate for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30 is correct, it would be a seven-year low for the government’s annua...

By Matthew Heller • Aug. 11, 2015

OSG Investors Settle Tax Debt Case for $16.2M

Overseas Shipbuilding Group investors have agreed to $16.25 million in settlements of their class-action claims alleging executives, underwriters and an auditor of the tanker company hid a $435 million tax debt that forced it into bankruptcy.The plaintiffs had previously announced in February tha...

By Matthew Heller • Aug. 10, 2015

Bitcoin Exchanges to Halt Services in New York

Two of the largest bitcoin exchanges have decided to halt services in New York rather than comply with the state’s new licensing requirements.Kraken and Bitfinex joined a chorus of opposition to the controversial regulation, which requires bitcoin businesses to pay $5,000 for a “Bitlicense.” Stat...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • Aug. 10, 2015

Metric of the Month: Close-to-Disclose Cycle Time

When a large public company produces a quarterly financial report, anything less than 100% accuracy can spell disaster. As Gabe Zubizarreta, chief executive of Silicon Valley Accountants, an accounting and consulting firm, says, “Getting your close 96% right is not an ‘A’ or an ‘A+.’ Rather, 96% ...

By Mary Driscoll • Aug. 10, 2015

Scrapping Your ERP Maintenance Contract

Many ERP customers, with their installations getting long in the tooth, are considering canceling their vendor maintenance agreements, some of which can run into the millions or tens of millions of dollars. According to a report from Gartner, although the number of customers that have cancelled t...

By Vincent Ryan • Aug. 10, 2015

Groupon Posts Lower-Than-Expected Earnings

Under pressure from  e-commerce competitors Amazon and eBay, Groupon on Friday posted lower-than-expected second-quarter results and forecast numbers for the third quarter below Wall Street estimates.The Chicago company’s revenue rose 3.1%, to $738.4 million, but analysts were expecting $740.2 mi...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • Aug. 7, 2015