What does an Integrated Report look like?

Posted by & filed under Accounting Careers, Financial Reporting and Analysis.

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 »

Canadian Audit Committee Update: Evolving issues for 2010

Posted by & filed under Accounting Careers, Advanced Accounting, Auditing, Financial Accounting, Fraud Accounting, IFRS.

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

Posted by & filed under Accounting Principles, Advanced Accounting, All Articles, Auditing, Cost Accounting, Financial Accounting, Financial Reporting and Analysis, Financial Statement Analysis, Intermediate Accounting, Managerial Accounting.

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

Posted by & filed under Accounting Principles, Advanced Accounting, All Articles, Auditing, Cost Accounting, Financial Accounting, Financial Reporting and Analysis, Financial Statement Analysis, Fraud Accounting, Intermediate Accounting, Managerial Accounting, Video Updates.

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

Posted by & filed under Accounting Principles, Advanced Accounting, All Articles, Auditing, Cost Accounting, Financial Accounting, Financial Reporting and Analysis, Financial Statement Analysis, IFRS, Intermediate Accounting, International Accounting, Managerial Accounting.

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

Posted by & filed under Accounting Principles, Advanced Accounting, All Articles, Auditing, Cost Accounting, Financial Accounting, Financial Reporting and Analysis, Financial Statement Analysis, Fraud Accounting, IFRS, Intermediate Accounting, International Accounting, Managerial Accounting, Video Updates.

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

Posted by & filed under Accounting Principles, Advanced Accounting, All Articles, Auditing, Cost Accounting, Financial Accounting, Financial Reporting and Analysis, Financial Statement Analysis, Fraud Accounting, IFRS, Intermediate Accounting, International Accounting, Managerial Accounting.

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

Posted by & filed under Accounting Principles, Advanced Accounting, All Articles, Auditing, Cost Accounting, Financial Accounting, Financial Reporting and Analysis, Financial Statement Analysis, Fraud Accounting, IFRS, Intermediate Accounting, International Accounting, Managerial Accounting, Video Updates.

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?

Posted by & filed under Accounting Principles, Advanced Accounting, All Articles, Auditing, Financial Accounting, Financial Reporting and Analysis, Financial Statement Analysis, IFRS, Intermediate Accounting, International Accounting, Managerial Accounting.

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

Posted by & filed under Accounting Principles, Advanced Accounting, All Articles, Auditing, Financial Accounting, Financial Reporting and Analysis, Financial Statement Analysis, Intermediate Accounting, Video Updates.

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 »