Integrated Reporting One of the distinguishing features of Integrated Reporting is that in contrast to compliance based reporting, there can be no model report – every report must be built around the unique business model of the preparer. The typical Annual Report: The typical Annual Report includes the Financial Statements, Corporate Responsibility , The Management… Read more »
Posts Tagged: Supplemental Financial Reporting
Canadian Audit Committee Update: Evolving issues for 2010
Audit Committee Evolving Issues focuses on communicating to stakeholders about the impact of adopting IFRS. Today’s changing business and economic conditions provide an opportunity for the audit committee to reassess its priorities and refocus its agenda. The purpose of the Audit Committee is to strengthen the integrity of the financial reporting process and the quality… Read more »
New Revenue Recognition Standards on the Way for Contractors
Contractors should be educating themselves on the impact of the new proposed revenue recognition standards and the recently published (June 24, 2010) exposure draft pertaining to revenue from contracts with customers. Public comments are due October 22, 2010, and it is expected the standards will be finalized in 2011. Questions: 1. What are some of… Read more »
Bank of America: It Depends On How You Define Materiality
Bank of America incorrectly classified as much as $10.7 billion in short-term lending and repurchase deals for mortgage securities as sales. This claim surfaced in a May 13 letter to the SEC where the banking corporation alleges that the transactions were immaterial and that it would be beefing up its internal accounting controls. This letter… Read more »
Risky Medicine for Hospital Financing
In a last-minute change to the financial reforms bill, Congress allowed Wall Street to continue to sell interest-rate swaps directly, rather than isolating these derivatives in separate units. The thinking behind this move is that the interest-rate securities are benign, or at least less dangerous than credit default swaps, which the legislation requires banks to… Read more »
Scrushy Back in the News
The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered a new review of the convictions in the government corruption case against former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman and ex-HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy. Questions: 1. What is the “honest services” fraud law? 2. What is a “quid pro quo” agreement? 3. A judge issued a $2.9 billion civil judgment… Read more »
Supreme Court Rules on Constitutionality of the PCAOB
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on June 28, 2010, that the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) violates the U.S. Constitution’s separation of powers principle because board members are not appointed by the president. In a 5-4 decision, the Court stated that the president must have more power to remove PCAOB members. The five-member board… Read more »
Small Discrepancies Grow Into a Giant Fraud
Satyam Computer Services, a leading Indian outsourcing company that served more than a third of the Fortune 500 companies, was at the heart of a huge 2009 fraud perpetrated through the significant inflation of earnings and falsification of accounts and assets for a number of years. Chairman, Ramalinga Raju, resigned in January 2009 after revealing that… Read more »
Research and Development (R & D): Does This Indicate a Crack in the Foundation of IFRS Convergence?
When the IASB and FASB began the convergence process in 2002, they considered R & D as a high-priority project, where differences between US GAAP and IFRS were seen as particularly straightforward. However, as this article notes, still no consensus has been reached because IASB’s R&D treatment appears to defeat comparability in the eyes of… Read more »
Donated Inventory
Over the next five years, Wal-Mart plans to donate about 1.1 billion pounds of food to food banks and provide $250 million to help them buy refrigerated trucks, improve storage and develop better logistics. The plan to contribute $2 billion in cash and food to the nation’s food banks is considered to be one of… Read more »