Buying and Optimizing ERP Software

Enterprise resource planning systems have been labeled the hearts and brains of a company. Translation: when implementing an ERP system, the margin for error is tiny, because mistakes can be costly. The following stories provide advice on how to select an ERP system and manage the migration. For ...

By Vincent Ryan • Aug. 6, 2015

Tesla Reports Lower-Than-Expected Q2 Loss

Tesla Motors on Wednesday released better-than-expected earnings for the second quarter but its shares fell as the auto maker cut its forecast for 2015 deliveries.Tesla’s second-quarter adjusted loss of $61 million, or 48 cents a share, on sales of $1.2 billion beat analysts’ estimates of an adju...

By Matthew Heller • Aug. 5, 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

Free Cash Margins Show Steady, Not Spectacular, Growth

Nonfinancial U.S. companies continue to generate a lot of cash, but other accounting numbers suggest they remain reasonably cautious about the economy and are not preparing for a large acceleration in sales growth.The median free cash flow of a sample of U.S. companies rose 8.50% to $23.22 millio...

By Vincent Ryan • Aug. 4, 2015

Excel Tip: How Does It Look?

User Problem: How do I used Cell Styles in Excel?Solution: Gurus of Microsoft Word have known about using styles for a decade. In Excel 2010, Microsoft promotes styles in Excel, adding a drop-down right on the Home tab offering 42 built-in styles as shown in Figure 1 (below).You can choose which ...

By Bill Jelen • Aug. 3, 2015

Planning in the Face of Tax-Credit Uncertainty

Congress is awhirl in the all-too-familiar cycle for a number of tax provisions: enactment, expiration, and extension.Kathleen King More than 50 corporate and individual tax provisions, including the popular research credit, are not a permanent part of the Internal Revenue Code. Instead, these te...

By Kathleen King • July 31, 2015

Don’t Miss Your Next CFO Job Opportunity

I often get inquiries from senior finance executives that go something like this:“I was speaking with John Smith the other day, and he suggested I contact you. I am looking to potentially make a job change and want to choose a search firm to work with me.”John Touey John ToueyI have a few reactio...

By John Touey • July 30, 2015

Don’t Overlook Data Security Issues In M&A Deals

Deloitte’s 2014 M&A Trends Report says that low interest rates and high cash reserves in addition to a desire for new markets, new products, and cost-saving consolidations have U.S. CEOs frothing to find the right partners quickly. Merger and acquisition deals always involve a balance of spee...

By Mary A. Chaput • July 29, 2015

A Guide to Cutting Health-Care Costs

The cost of employee health insurance seems to surge ever upward. So finance chiefs that want to rein in the cost of health care benefits need to do a lot more than just cross their fingers and wait for next year’s insurance premium quote. New models that upend the traditional provider-payer dyna...

By CFO Editorial Staff • July 24, 2015

Chaffetz Internet Sales Tax Bill Is Too Costly and Complex

Congress is looking for a sensible solution to the dilemma over how to collect Internet Sales Tax in a fair and reasonable way.  But the fatally flawed Remote Transactions Parity Act (RTPA) introduced in June by Rep. Jason Chaffetz, a Utah Republican, is exactly the wrong way to do it.Steve DelBi...

By Steve DelBianco • July 22, 2015

Sales Tax Bills Need to Curb Collection Burdens

The states’ frustration with out-of-state sellers not collecting and remitting sales and use taxes on sales made to those states’ residents is nothing new. There were major cases litigated as far back as the 1930s involving mail order sellers such as Sears and Montgomery Ward. Attempts to address...

By Arthur R. Rosen • July 22, 2015

Asset Capitalization Thresholds Should Be Disclosed

Every well-controlled company has an asset capitalization threshold (ACT) that should be consistently applied. The ACT is the dollar value at which an acquired asset is capitalized rather than expensed. Pretty basic, right?Jonathan Schiff However, there is no FASB or IFRS guidance or disclosure r...

By Jonathan Schiff • July 22, 2015

Should Online Retailers Be Required to Collect State Taxes?

A recent favorable opinion by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy plus increased action in Congress have made it more likely than it has been in 50 years that out-of-state retailers will be forced to collect sales taxes in states where they don’t have a physical presence. Half a century ag...

By David Katz • July 21, 2015

Let States Mandate Tax Collection by Out-of-state Retailers

In my opinion the answer is yes. I believe the current determination of nexus is flawed in an internet world. The idea that a physical presence is a determining factor in sales transactions today is unrealistic and unfair. If a company produces a website offering products for sale on the internet...

By Thomas E. Secor • July 21, 2015

Don’t Let States Make Outside Retailers Collect Sales Taxes

No, states should not be allowed to require tax collection by out-of-state retailers. The  Marketplace Fairness Act (MFA) or the new and dramatically worse Remote Transactions Parity Act (RTPA) are not acceptable solutions to collecting use taxes owed to the states on remote purchases. States alr...

By Rick Smith • July 21, 2015

Metric of the Month: Finance Function Costs

Ever wonder why some CFOs constantly push staff to do more with less? The short answer is that there are still a lot of finance people doing “back-office” administrative tasks. The hint of snobbery in that statement intentionally underlines how some clout-wielding operating managers view finance:...

By Mary Driscoll • July 20, 2015

Sales Drop at IBM for 13th Straight Quarter

IBM reported mixed results for the second quarter on Monday, as declines in software and systems hardware revenue offset growth in cloud computing.The company posted second-quarter adjusted profit of $3.84 per share on $20.81 billion in sales. Both numbers were down 13% from the prior-year period...

By Matthew Heller • July 20, 2015

Auditor Rotation May Actually Inhibit Skepticism

An intricate experiment reported in a leading accounting journal has cast new light on a contentious issue regarding the auditing of financial statements — namely, whether companies should be required to periodically change their auditors.A paper in the new issue of The Accounting Review, an Amer...

By David McCann • July 20, 2015

Would You Have Invoked the Disaster Recovery Plan?

Your IT organization probably has a disaster recovery (DR) plan – but have you really thought through what it would take to implement it if you had to?You may have watched on live TV recently as first United Airlines and then the New York Stock Exchange ground to a halt as a result of computer sy...

By John Parkinson • July 20, 2015

CFOs Frustrated with Return on FP&A Investments

It’s not exactly news that CFOs as a group aren’t satisfied with the quality of their financial planning and analysis functions. That’s been the case for some time. But with investments in FP&A rising as more data becomes available and companies seek to unlock its potential value with top-not...

By David McCann • July 17, 2015

Workers’ Compensation and the Cost of Mistrust

Your employee was just injured at work. The worker is in pain, cannot perform regular job duties, and is unsure how quickly he or she can return to work. The mortgage, medical care, and child’s tuition payments are due next month. It is a vulnerable time, with substantial uncertainty involved.Whe...

By Richard A. Victor • July 17, 2015

Financial Planning and Budgeting: The Finance Executive’s Guide

As finance takes on more and more responsibilities within the organization, its traditional tasks need to be reconfigured to boost efficiency and effectiveness. These articles consider new ideas, tools, and techniques for financial planning, budgeting, and forecasting that just might free up your...

By Alexander Johnson • July 16, 2015

Vive la France!

July 14 marks Bastille Day in France, a national holiday that commemorates the beginning of the French Revolution in 1789. In the 226 years since, France has become one of the world’s major economic powers. Test your knowledge of modern-day France by taking our quiz:1. What is the population of F...

By CFO Editorial Staff • July 16, 2015

The Hidden Risks of Employee Benefit Plan Audits

An employee benefit plan (EBP) that has over 100 participants is required to have an audit to accompany the filing of its Form 5500. Many CFOs consider these audits unnecessary and delegate the audit process to the controller or human resource manager.Adam S. Lilling What many finance chiefs don’...

By Adam S. Lilling • July 16, 2015

Diebold Grows Bold

Two years ago, Diebold was in a slump. After peaking at $3.1 billion in 2008, revenue for the maker of ATMs and electronic security systems had stalled, while gross margin, operating profit, and free cash flow all fell during the same period.In the fall of 2013, under new CEO Andy Mattes, the Nor...

By Edward Teach • July 15, 2015

Beware Stiff Tax Penalties Buried in New Trade Law

Although President Obama’s signing of the Trade Preferences Extension Act of 2015 on June 29 arrived with much fanfare, the potentially large new penalties imposed by the act on employers that err on their tax returns have received almost no attention.The trade preferences act provides job traini...

By David Katz • July 15, 2015