Does your company use supplier finance programs to buy goods or services? If so, and if you must adhere to U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), there will be changes starting next year. At that time, you must disclose the full terms of supplier finance programs, including assets pledged to secure the transaction. Here [...]
One of the best ways to tackle financial statement fraud is to conduct periodic surprise audits. In fact, surprise audits were associated with at least a 50% reduction in both median loss and median duration, according to Occupational Fraud 2022: A Report to the Nations published by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) earlier [...]
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Gary Gensler spoke during a recent webcast to commemorate the 20-year anniversary of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Gensler recommended that the SEC take a “fresh look” at its rules on the issue of auditor conflicts of interest. He also asked the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) to add auditor [...]
Accounting Standards Codification Topic 842, Leases, requires organizations to report the full magnitude of their long-term lease obligations on their balance sheets — a historic first. For private companies and nonprofits, the changes take effect this year. Public entities adopted the rules in 2019. While the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) conducts its post-implementation [...]
An interesting tool called Benford’s Law can be effective in detecting fraud. But it also can be used during external auditing procedures to test journal entries for unusual numeric patterns. Here’s what you should know about this statistical technique, including its potential limitations. Random data sets According to Benford’s Law, in sets of random [...]
Your CPA offers a wide menu of services. One flexible offering, known as an “agreed-upon procedures” engagement, provides limited assurance on a specific aspect of an organization’s financial or nonfinancial information. What’s covered? Agreed-upon procedures can cover various items. For example, a CPA could provide a statement about the reliability of a company’s accounts [...]
The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) could have congressional lobbyists nipping at its heels over a “book minimum tax” rule in the newly enacted Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA). This would be the first corporate alternative minimum tax based on financial statement book income since the 1980s. And many in the accounting profession [...]
Risks abound in today’s uncertain marketplace. Nearly two-thirds of senior finance leaders said that the volume and complexity of corporate risks have changed “mostly” or “extensively” in the past five years, according to a new report published by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and North Carolina State University. Surprisingly, this report, [...]
The pandemic and the ensuing economic turmoil have put tremendous stress on businesses. Many companies that appeared healthy on the surface, on their financial statements, quickly realized that they weren’t prepared for the unexpected. A so-called “stress test” of your company’s financial position and its ability to withstand a crisis can help prevent this situation [...]
In the spirit of Independence Day, it’s a good time to review the rules for auditor independence. If you discover potential issues now, there’s still plenty of time to take corrective action before next year’s audit begins. Definition of independence Independence is one of the most important requirements for audit firms. It’s why investors and [...]