tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56970302009-06-10T23:03:58.168-04:00Financial Accounting BlogLinks to current items relevant to financial accounting and finance.Dennisnoreply@blogger.comBlogger500125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5697030.post-1166475334075250642006-12-18T15:53:00.000-05:002006-12-18T15:55:34.103-05:00All good things must end. This blog is done.Dennisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5697030.post-1126553431397229212005-09-12T15:29:00.000-04:002005-09-12T15:30:31.406-04:00The Accounting Observer's blog is doing a much better job than this blog as far as reporting interesting items.Dennisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5697030.post-1125283561419096312005-08-28T22:40:00.000-04:002005-08-28T22:47:42.400-04:00"...the agreement is about survivability." The NY Times tries to explain why KPMG sold out some of its partners by admitting to "unlawful conduct" regarding tax shelters.Related story here.Dennisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5697030.post-1125283108494764182005-08-28T22:35:00.000-04:002005-08-28T22:38:28.500-04:00Independence in Appearance. NY TimesPublic documents show that the chief financial officer and head of compliance for the Bayou Group was also a principal in an accounting firm that audited the hedge funds' books. Daniel E. Marino was the No. 2 man at Bayou, a hedge fund company founded in 1996 by Samuel Israel III that appeared to have $411 million in assets at the end of last year. Mr. Marino Dennisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5697030.post-1117478444226432692005-05-30T14:38:00.000-04:002005-05-30T14:41:08.080-04:00It's the Coverup. CFO.com reports that the PCAOB has taken its first action against a CPA firm since the PCAOB was created in 2003.At issue was a violation of the auditor independence rules of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, and as part of the inspection, the regulator's Division of Registration and Inspections directed a request for information and documents to the firm. The board found that in Dennisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5697030.post-1116886093477103742005-05-23T18:08:00.000-04:002005-05-30T14:38:38.946-04:00Was is Worth it? The Economist wonders whether the benefits of Sarbanes-Oxley exceed its costs.Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve, spoke up in defence of the statute this week. It was faint praise. He said he was surprised that a law which had been passed so rapidly had worked as well as it has less of an endorsement than it first seemed, since laws dealing with issues as complex as Dennisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5697030.post-1116525157075413172005-05-19T13:51:00.000-04:002005-05-19T13:54:04.416-04:00Par-value still has meaning. Delta Airlines is reducing the par value on its common stock.Shareholders also approved a Delta proposal doubling to 900 million the number of shares of common stock it is authorized to issue and reducing the par value of the common stock from $1.50 to 1 cent. The airline, which is incorporated in Delaware, believes the proposal gives it greater flexibility in using Dennisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5697030.post-1115239223495068962005-05-04T16:39:00.000-04:002005-05-04T16:40:23.503-04:00Comeback of the 30-year Bond. This article says that the Federal government is considering issuing new 30-year bonds---something it hasn't done since 2001.Dennisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5697030.post-1110050400561638072005-03-05T14:20:00.000-05:002005-03-05T14:23:06.796-05:00Anonymous Letters to Auditors. Newsday reports that an anonymous letter to state auditors led to the uncovering of a massive fraud in a Long Island school district.The Roslyn school scandal unfolded last year after an anonymous letter tipped off authorities that top officials had engaged in systemic misspending for a decade. So far, three former district officials -- Superintendent Frank Tassone,Dennisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5697030.post-1109620103735339642005-02-28T14:48:00.000-05:002005-03-01T11:32:12.006-05:00Banks' Loan Loss Reserves. BW online has a commentary about how banks adjust their loan-loss estimates to manage earnings.Last year the banks had an easy way to juice their profits. All they had to do was allocate a little less money to loan-loss reserves -- the money they set aside to cover bad debt. As the economy has improved and defaults have slowed, many decided they didn't need as much in Dennisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5697030.post-1109003166732995022005-02-21T11:26:00.000-05:002005-02-21T11:27:07.713-05:00Leaking the News. MSNBC reports that there was increased volume in the traded options of P&G and Gillette just prior to the announcement of the merger. Well before the investing public learned of the $57 billion takeover of Gillette by Procter & Gamble, traders apparently got wind of the deal: Options-trading volume in both companies spiked more than fourfold on Jan. 27, before news of the Dennisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5697030.post-1106777349227929872005-01-26T17:09:00.000-05:002005-01-26T17:11:14.456-05:00Stock Options. An article at Law.com quotes a couple of lobbyists as saying that they plan to mount an attack on the FASB's new rule requiring the expensing of the cost of stock options. That's likely to be an uphill battle given thatThe SEC has also thrown its support behind FASB.
Donald Nicolaisen, the SEC's chief accountant, said in a prepared statement that companies should focus their Dennisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5697030.post-1106776821092589082005-01-26T17:00:00.000-05:002005-01-26T17:01:16.086-05:00Conservatism is Back. Wary Auditors, Clients Worry FASB's HerzFinancial Accounting Standards Board chairman Robert Herz told the Financial Times he is concerned that auditors as well as the companies they audit are acting too conservatively when preparing financial reports especially given the Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) endorsement of a principles-based approach.
Herz contends Dennisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5697030.post-1106263359928172462005-01-20T18:22:00.000-05:002005-01-20T18:29:10.183-05:00Restatements. The NY Times reports that the number of restatements was up again in 2004. Although several theories to explain the increase are proposed, I believe the correct one is that auditors don't want to take any chances so are making clients restate items that in the past would have been rolled over into future numbers.Some of the restatements may simply reflect the fact that auditors areDennisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5697030.post-1106262171671974572005-01-20T18:02:00.000-05:002005-01-20T18:04:17.236-05:00Analysts. CFO.com says that fewer companies have analyst coverage than anytime since 1995. Where's the Coverage?Although the number of equity analysts in the United States has climbed 7.5 percent since 2003, up to 3,207 from 2,983 a year earlier, that number is still 9.5 percent lower than it was during 2000...Dennisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5697030.post-1105544189210150442005-01-12T10:36:00.000-05:002005-01-12T10:38:27.203-05:00Managing Earnings. USA Today reports that an independent review of Nortel has concluded that company executives juggled figures to earn bonuses.As the telecom bust spawned layoffs and huge losses at Nortel in 2001 and 2002, there was 'a decline in financial discipline,' the report says.
Dunn and other executives began to 'stretch the judgment' as to when certain charges could be taken, the Dennisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5697030.post-1103150763119555572004-12-15T17:46:00.000-05:002004-12-15T17:47:39.713-05:00New Fences. The PCAOB is proposing that audit firms not be allowed to sell tax shelters to the top executives of their audit clients. Wash Post. The proposed rules would not impose a blanket ban on tax advice, a step that some consumer advocates had advanced two years ago. Auditors still would be able to perform routine tax work, including preparing tax returns for companies. They would also be Dennisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5697030.post-1102004637922036472004-12-02T11:20:00.000-05:002004-12-02T11:29:59.683-05:00Sales Returns. The WSJ published an interesting article about retailers tracking individual's behavior patterns in the returns area. The companies want to cut down on abuse of their liberal returns policies.
According to retail consulting firm KingRogers International, in 2003, the return rate for specialty retailers was 10.6 percent of total sales, higher than the industry average of 8.58 Dennisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5697030.post-1101658774074091612004-11-28T11:17:00.000-05:002004-11-28T11:19:34.076-05:00Where Have All the Chief Financial Officers Gone? The New York Times has this article about CFOs who changed jobs to get away from the pressure of being a CFO."Every C.F.O. has been pushed at times to take something that is clearly black and white and color it a shade of gray," Mr. Goldman, 46, said. "But when the chief executive is shot at, he uses the chief financial officer as a human shield. Dennisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5697030.post-1100791189269050672004-11-18T10:19:00.000-05:002004-11-18T10:24:14.253-05:00Due Diligence. The city of Cincinnati learned a painful lesson about the improtance of due diligence. City mishandled aspects of failed theater project.City officials also apparently did not know that when Pettus-Brown provided financial statements showing assets of '1.6 million,' the assets were listed in yen - not dollars. The amount in dollars would have been about $14,000.Dennisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5697030.post-1100278723086266332004-11-12T11:54:00.000-05:002004-11-16T15:54:22.570-05:00Sampling. Studies show that auditors often make inappropriate conclusions from sample evidence because they fail to take into consideration sampling risk in their measures. The Economist looks at the statistics behind a recently published study that attempted to measure Iraqi deaths from the war. One of the controversial points is the wide confidence interval that results from the researchers' Dennisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5697030.post-1100579175363657542004-11-15T23:26:00.000-05:002004-11-15T23:27:02.536-05:00Embezzlement. The Philly paper reports the story of an accountant whose gambling addiction led him to embezzle $7 million from his employer.Prosecutors said Szagola began stealing in 1996 by drafting company checks in pencil, then erasing the vendor names and substituting his own after the checks had already been reviewed and signed by company executives. Szagola cashed more than 200 Dennisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5697030.post-1100105430244280602004-11-10T11:43:00.000-05:002004-11-10T12:03:50.683-05:00Internal Controls. The WSJ recently published an article about companies' frantic efforts to get their controls sufficiently in-line to prevent receiving a failing grade from their external auditors. Some initial evidence of stock market reaction to announcements of material weaknesses is provided.Click here and go to 2nd article to read the whole thing. Drawing on a sample of 100 companies thatDennisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5697030.post-1098412183725901042004-10-21T22:29:00.000-04:002004-10-21T22:30:40.190-04:00KPMG to Pay $10 Million to Settle Charges Over Gemstar Audits
Regulators said that from September 1999 through March 2002, KPMG and its auditors should have known that Gemstar was improperly booking $152 million in licensing revenue and $60 million in ad revenue. Gemstar, which publishes TV Guide magazine, also sells ads on an 'interactive program guide' that allows TV viewers to navigate and Dennisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5697030.post-1097784271722769142004-10-14T16:02:00.000-04:002004-10-14T16:10:00.756-04:00Confirmation Letters. Part of a standard audit is to have the client's banks send letters directly to the auditor confirming the existence and amounts of client's bank accounts. I haven't followed the Parmalat scandal so this is likely old news but this article states that auditors of Parmalat were fooled by a phony bank confirmation letter. The author of the article questions "Is it too much to Dennisnoreply@blogger.com