Good Accounting Isn’t Rocket Science. Or Is It?

By: Rick Telberg

July 28, 2000 (SmartPros) ? Don’t let anyone ever tell you that accounting mistakes don’t matter, that paper losses aren’t real, that paper profits are, or that sound accounting principles don’t matter. Accounting matters. And good accounting makes a difference.

From Wall Street to Hollywood, from Washington to Kosovo, accountants and financial managers are making decisions every day that either obscure or enlighten, that help to make sound business decisions or help to deceive, that aid human progress or hinder it.
On Wall Street, some analysts are complaining that aggressive accounting techniques are making it hard for them to evaluate some companies. And that’s not helping the technology sector in particular.

For instance, Intel’s decision to include one-time investment gains in its quarterly results has frustrated Wall Street insiders. Computer Associates shocked the Street with a warning that they would fall short of expectations. Compuware Corp. followed within a week with its own dismal outlook. Some companies, including Yahoo! Inc. and Nortel Networks, exclude the costs of acquiring other companies, especially if inclusion would show a loss.

“It’s becoming harder to compare apples to apples in the high-tech industry,” analyst Robert Johnson at ABN Amro Inc. in Chicago told the Associated Press. “It’s just a massive problem for investors today in the technology field to compare company to company. Because of the intellectual capital nature of their products, there are so many questions and more room for flexibility on the reporting side than other industries.”

Meanwhile in Hollywood, U.S. Department of Justice investigators have reportedly found that KPMG helped to conceal crooked dealings at Cr?dit Lyonnais, the failed Paris bank.

Forbes magazine says Justice Department investigators in Los Angeles, working in cooperation with French authorities, found embarrassing, if not necessarily criminal, schemes that “could well attract the attention of accounting regulatory groups.” The report focuses on the two firms’ roles in the 1990 acquisition of MGM/UA by Giancarlo Parretti and Florio Fiorini, two Italian businessmen now under arrest in Italy and awaiting extradition to Los Angeles to face U.S. criminal charges. Parretti and Fiorini bribed officials of Cr?dit Lyonnais to get more than $2 billion with which to buy a number of properties, including MGM, from which they subsequently looted millions of dollars, Forbes says. According to the Justice Department report, KPMG and the law firm of White & Case both “played roles in several pivotal transactions involving the misrepresentation by Parretti and Fiorini of how much debt they owed Cr?dit Lyonnais,” which would have had a material affect on the deal.

Also in Hollywood, Vivendi’s planned $34 billion acquisition of Seagram Co. has exposed another accounting scheme worthy of the comic books, not the financial books, according to another Forbes report.

The Universal studio and music business that’s part of Seagram could give Vivendi a one-time write-down on studio assets, which will have the effect of boosting reported earnings in future years. Vivendi would also have the chance to mark up a lot of its acquisition price to “goodwill” rather than to recording label contracts and movie deals. So even if Vivendi winds up with a collection of losing movies, it could still show profit. “Nothing is what it appears to be in Tinsel town,” said the magazine, “especially when it comes to accounting.”

Meanwhile, in war-torn Kosovo, rebuilding the country means more than repairing roads, bridges, homes and utilities. It also means rebuilding an economy based on sound business principles.

That’s where Tony Richings comes in. He’s part of Christian Aid, one of 300 aid groups at work in the country. But he is neither an engineer, nor a sanitation expert, nor a health care professional, according to the Guardian newspaper. He is an accountant. And his presence in Kosovo is evidence of the growing recognition that proper financial management is a vital part of humanitarian relief.

“Sound financial control and administration are key components of successful operations,” Sara Packwood, an emergency program manager for Christian Aid, told the newspaper. “I’ve worked in three different agencies in three very different emergency relief contexts and in each one, qualified accountants were essential for a smooth-running operation.”

Richings was the first accountant placed by a new group, Management Accounting for Non-Governmental Organizations, which helps aid groups handle financial administration issues. MANGO director Alex Jacobs told the newspaper, “Good intentions are not enough any more. People want outcomes.”

And then there’s NASA, which may have made a $590 million bookkeeping error in its 1999 financial report. “I’m deeply disappointed that the agency that could send a man to the moon now can’t even balance its books to the nearest half-billion,” snickered Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R.-Wis.), chairman of the House Science Committee.
“We made a reporting error,” admitted Glen Mahone, a spokesman for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. “It in no way affected operations or the money that was spent,” Mahone told the AP. The agency had claimed a credit of $685 million from an item called “recoveries of prior year obligations,” which usually reflects changes in contracted expenditures. When queried, NASA found the entry should have read $95 million. The error was apparently missed by both NASA and its auditor, Arthur Andersen.

They say that good accounting isn’t as complicated as rocket science. But then again, maybe it is.

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Posted on July 28, 2000
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The ‘Death Tax’ Won’t Die; Expect Instead a Political Maneuver

By: Rick Telberg

July 26, 2000 (SmartPros) ? Like so much about the United States tax code, the estate tax may be beyond repair. But few except posturing politicians expect it to happen anytime soon.

“I’m adamant about repealing it,” said Gary Iskowitz, a Los Angeles CPA and former assistant chief of the examination division of the Internal Revenue Service. “It’s beyond repair.”

But ever the realist, Iskowitz added, “I think there’s going to be a compromise.”

Under the tax, the first $675,000 of an estate is exempt, rising to $1 million by 2006. The rate schedule begins at 18 percent, but taxable estates are subject to marginal rates of up to 55 percent.

The tax was created for peculiarly American reasons — to thwart the growth of a monied aristocracy. Like other taxes, it was written to engineer social change and manage the economy, not just to raise government receipts.

“The American people feared the rich people would be running the country,” Iskowitz noted, with the trace of a politically savvy snicker.

To an accountant like Iskowitz — and there are many — the horror of the estate tax is the way it warps economic decisions, deprives investors and entrepreneurs of hard-earned savings, and needlessly enriches estate lawyers and life insurance agents.

Take one of Iskowitz’s recent cases for example. An estate with 50 units in a limited partnership spent $500,000 to have the whole partnership appraised, and then another $100,000 to have just the 50 units valued. And then the IRS challenged the discounts. “These cases all end up in Tax Court and going to the Appellate Division,” Iskowitz said. “And the partnership units aren’t liquid, so you can’t even sell the assets to pay the tax.”

Iskowitz expects some minor changes in the levy. For instance, the exemption could be raised to $2 million, rates could be lowered to 44 percent from 55 percent, and the final solution might retain the stepped-up basis provision. Maybe small business might even win an exemption.

Of course, all bets are off next year if Bush wins the election. He’s vowed to kill the estate tax.

Iskowitz makes a lot of money on tax consulting, but he doesn’t like the work any more. He’s moving into business consulting, like helping a client set up a factory in Mexico. “I’ve seen the future,” he said.

And it’s not the death tax.

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Posted on July 26, 2000
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Deloitte Battles for Staff with Pseudo Stock Options

By: Rick Telberg

July 21, 2000 (SmartPros) ? Deloitte & Touche is earmarking $70 million this year and up to a $250 million over the next few years in stock option-like bonuses to battle staff turnover at the firm.

The program is big and ambitious. But it’s very scale speaks to the difficulty firms of all sorts are having keeping and retaining people. It’s especially significant because Deloitte has emerged in the last 10 years as one of the most enlightened and progressive employers in the nation, chosen three years in a row as a Fortune “Best Place to Work.”

The other side of the coin, of course, is that this is a great time to be an accounting professional. Never before have the best of them been so sought-after or so highly prized.

Under the new program at Deloitte, most client service and senior administrative professionals will earn so-called c-shares, short for “career shares,” on top of their regular salaries and benefits. The employees can invest the c-shares in a variety of vehicles. After vesting, the staffers can cash in their c-shares, plus or minus any investment returns. Some 11,000 workers, out of the firm’s total roster of 30,000 in the United States, may be eligible the first year, with the number expanding by 10 percent annually.

The program will be paid out of profits and what the firm calls “retention-related savings.” Deloitte will offer “a variety of investment options available for individual awards — some conservative, others more aggressive — including investment options designed to mirror performance in the burgeoning technology and venture capital arenas.” Significantly, Deloitte says, the program will be tailored “to permit career professionals to share in firm investment opportunities as well.”

It’s the next best thing to stock options in the firm itself; it’s participation in the New Economy ventures the firm is making.

The staffing shortage is a crisis at all firms and companies, but Deloitte deals with it at a massive scale. The firm hires about 9,000 people a year from 100,000 resumes. It pays up to $3,500 per recruiting referral and enters referrers into a contest to win a Jeep or Corvette. Since 1996, the firm has paid out $9 million in cash and given away 14 cars for 3,000 referrals.

Earlier this year, chairman Jim Copeland laid out the problem this way: “Throughout history, wars have been fought over precious resources - land, water, coal, oil. Today, the battlefield has shifted, and companies everywhere are fighting for what has already become the most precious resource of the New Millennium - talent.”

“The available labor pool simply isn’t keeping pace with job demand,” said Copeland, citing some fresh statistics:

Unemployment is low, and probably will continue to decrease into 2010.
College graduates and knowledge workers are scarcer. Some human resource executives say that every employee in hand is worth 200 resumes in the bush.
Looking ahead, job growth is outpacing workforce growth - and job skills are changing faster than school curriculums.
According to Bureau of Labor statistics, between 1996 and 2006, jobs are expected to grow 19 percent. During the same time period, the workforce is expected to increase 11 percent. Another estimate forecasts a 30-percent shortage of workers.
The annual rate of population growth will continue to decrease into 2010.
Experts project the deepest dip in talent around 2005.
In 15 years, there will be 15 percent fewer employees ages 35 to 45 - often considered the prime age for employees to develop as managers.
The median age of our population will continue to increase steadily.
But the bottom line is the bottom line. Figuring that every turned over position costs the firm 1.5 times the ex-staffer’s salary, Copeland said Deloitte has shaved $100 million off its annual turnover costs since 1995.

Maybe it’s about time some of the savings was put back into the pockets of the staffers.

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Posted on July 21, 2000
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Bar Association Spurns Multi-Disciplinary Practices

By: Rick Telberg

July 19, 2000 (SmartPros) ? By a 3-to-1 margin, the ruling legislature of the American Bar Association last week reaffirmed its strong stance against multidisciplinary practice.

But most long-time observers of both the legal and accounting professions agree that the vote cannot stop accountants or lawyers from working together. The market forces are too strong to resist.

By a vote of 314-106, the ABA House of Delegates sought to “preserve the core values of the profession” by encouraging state bar associations and other regulators to prohibit lawyers from sharing fees with non-lawyers or granting ownership or control over law firms to outsiders.

The vote climaxed at least two years of sometimes vitriolic debate within the legal community. Meanwhile, accountants slowly made inroads into the legal market. In one memorable war cry, Paul Sax, the head of the ABA tax section, called upon his colleagues to man the barricades against CPAs. “We fight, they act. We debate, they hire lawyers,” Sax said. “While we figure out what to do, they are taking over our profession!”

The legal profession may see the vote against MDPs as a blow to the accounting profession. But don’t be so sure.

“They are putting off the inevitable,” said Art Bowman, editor of the Atlanta-based Bowman Accounting Report, a newsletter for top CPA firms. “They are fooling themselves if they think they can control their destiny with this vote.”

MDPs “have been around a long time,” says law firm consultant Phyllis Weiss Haserot in a SmartPros article “MDPs already exist in spirit, if not (legal) form. Some of us don?t find them so revolutionary.”

In fact, law firms have been under attack for years, Haserot points out — from real-estate brokers in property transactions; from banks in trusts-and-estates work; from investment banks in mergers and acquisitions; from insurance and benefits firms in estate planning; and from human resources consultants on employment law.

It wasn’t until the big CPA firms started making inroads that the lawyers started to worry. Now many of them are jumping on the bandwagon. Ernst & Young has launched the law firm of McKee Nelson Ernst & Young in Washington, D.C., the only jurisdiction where it’s allowed. And law firms are forming new alliances with accountants. Morrison & Foerster, Horwood Marcus and Professor Walter Hellerstein have joined the State and Local Tax Network, which includes KPMG. And PricewaterhouseCoopers has a special deal with Miller & Chevallier.

At the local level, many small accounting firms and law firms are, in effect, shacking up without getting married. “Some CPA firms are already there,” said Bowman.

It’s a mistake for the lawyers to fight the economics of the marketplace. Ask the accountants, who for years fought against commissions and non-CPA ownership. “The longer they postpone it,” Bowman said. “The further behind they going to get.”

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Posted on July 19, 2000
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CPA Firms Lead the Way as Business Incubators

By: Rick Telberg

July 12, 2000 (SmartPros) ? Business incubators, those hothouses of entrepreneurial fervor and investment, have been springing up across the nation. But they’re nothing new to many accountants.

In fact, accountants have long been pioneers in making their own firms into test labs for ingenuity.

In Nashville, Tenn., for example, Kraft CPAs says only half of the firm’s clients are actually clients of the core CPA firm. The rest buy from the Kraft Technology Group (a computer consultancy), or Second Generation Capital (merchant bankers), or Centennial Valuation Group (for asset and business appraisals), or the Kraft CPAs Employee Benefits Team (for qualified benefit plans). When the units get healthy enough, they get spun off, like the HR Group did last year.

You’d hardly think that the firm is 42 years old. “Everything we do within the firm is to meet the needs of our clients,” Kraft chief Vic Alexander says. “If our clients have these needs and we don’t meet them, the competition will.”

What’s next? Maybe a division to handle eldercare services.

Here’s another example: BDO Seidman is spinning-off its e-business consulting practice as WaveBend Solutions LLC. The unit, which was launched in 1995, saw its revenues grow 51 percent last year. WaveBend’s clients include Barnes & Noble, DaimlerChrysler, and Northrup Grumman. Although a separate entity, WaveBend will continue to deliver e-business services to BDO Seidman clients and will continue to have access to the BDO International consulting practices.

“We believe that by spinning-off the Business and Technology Solutions consulting practice into a separate entity, we can unleash this practice from the constraints that are often associated with traditional accounting firm partnerships,” said Denis Field, chairman and chief executive officer of BDO Seidman.

The entrepreneurial bent at BDO must be working. Field yesterday announced revenue for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2000, of $408 million, a 37 percent increase over last year?s level. The revenue jump was led by growth in the firm?s taxation, technology and specialized services business lines.

Or take Deloitte & Touche: The London branch of the firm has confirmed that it would float its CSL outsourcing subsidiary early next year in an initial public offering worth up to $500 million. A wholly owned subsidiary of Deloitte’s British partnership, CSL had profits last year of about $15 million on revenues of about $250 million, mostly from streamlining government agencies. But it has work in the pipeline of over $1 billion and must go public to make the acquisitions it needs to scale up. Deloitte acquired the unit in 1993 when it was spun off by the government.

Big Five firms are complaining that independence-minded regulators are forcing them to break up their practices. And maybe that’s part of the story. But CPA firms seem today to be merging and de-merging, acquiring and divesting, dissolving and re-forming at a pace unheard-of in the past.

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Posted on July 12, 2000
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Information Age Hazard: A Little Bit of Knowledge in a Non-Accountant’s Hands

Insider: Rick Telberg

By: Rick Telberg

July 10, 2000 (SmartPros) ? Computers and the Internet are arming clients with more information than may be good for them.

Indeed, a little information could be a dangerous thing in an amateur’s hands, according to John A. Tyler, a CPA and head of his own firm in Cambridge, Mass. But that’s also a key opportunity for the professional in taxes and accounting to add value.

Tyler launched his career as a CPA in 1969 after graduating from Yale with an economics degree and he opened his own firm in 1974. His local firm handles a full range of tax, accounting and management issues, but as one of the most tech-savvy practitioners in the business, his views on using technology are all the more useful.

Tyler was thinking about some ideas offered in this space (”Death knell or opportunity? You decide,” and “Fads or Trends? Choose Right and Choose Success”) by Dan Sautner, chairman of the Padgett business-services franchise.

“In the future,” Sautner had said, “If a client has a question, your answer may already be too late. Information, to the customer, will be like a stream — constantly flowing. It will go past newsletters, returning phone calls and personal contact. When the client thinks of the issue, they will start researching. And you want your company to be the first stop.”

Tyler fired off an email. “I agree with this observation, as far as it goes. Still, as we remind our clients, getting the right answer the first time is worth taking a little longer than getting the wrong answer fast, and then having to do the task again. When expressed this way, they accept that special research may be necessary.”

The application of human intellect remains essential. “For any complex issue, just as with an audit or a tax return, the findings of the research person need to be reviewed by someone else in the firm who has similar expertise,” Tyler says.

“At our small firm, we expect our professionals to have skills in multiple domains, including accounting, auditing, taxes, management consulting, computers, and other consulting. This does not mean that everybody knows everything, but it is very common that the staff person who deals with the client with respect to tax matters may also be the person who supports a Peachtree Accounting installation. This makes serving our clients more efficient and helps gain client confidence in our broad skills.”

To Tyler, information technology is a tool for leverage. “Since 1982, we have considered computers a core tool of professional literacy. We have used the leverage that we gained in adopting new procedures using computers in house to serve as a springboard for new consulting competence.”

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Posted on July 10, 2000
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Information Age Hazard: A Little Bit of Knowledge in a Non-Accountant’s Hands

By: Rick Telberg

July 10, 2000 (SmartPros) ? Computers and the Internet are arming clients with more information than may be good for them.

Indeed, a little information could be a dangerous thing in an amateur’s hands, according to John A. Tyler, a CPA and head of his own firm in Cambridge, Mass. But that’s also a key opportunity for the professional in taxes and accounting to add value.

Tyler launched his career as a CPA in 1969 after graduating from Yale with an economics degree and he opened his own firm in 1974. His local firm handles a full range of tax, accounting and management issues, but as one of the most tech-savvy practitioners in the business, his views on using technology are all the more useful.

Tyler was thinking about some ideas offered in this space (”Death knell or opportunity? You decide,” and “Fads or Trends? Choose Right and Choose Success”) by Dan Sautner, chairman of the Padgett business-services franchise.

“In the future,” Sautner had said, “If a client has a question, your answer may already be too late. Information, to the customer, will be like a stream — constantly flowing. It will go past newsletters, returning phone calls and personal contact. When the client thinks of the issue, they will start researching. And you want your company to be the first stop.”

Tyler fired off an email. “I agree with this observation, as far as it goes. Still, as we remind our clients, getting the right answer the first time is worth taking a little longer than getting the wrong answer fast, and then having to do the task again. When expressed this way, they accept that special research may be necessary.”

The application of human intellect remains essential. “For any complex issue, just as with an audit or a tax return, the findings of the research person need to be reviewed by someone else in the firm who has similar expertise,” Tyler says.

“At our small firm, we expect our professionals to have skills in multiple domains, including accounting, auditing, taxes, management consulting, computers, and other consulting. This does not mean that everybody knows everything, but it is very common that the staff person who deals with the client with respect to tax matters may also be the person who supports a Peachtree Accounting installation. This makes serving our clients more efficient and helps gain client confidence in our broad skills.”

To Tyler, information technology is a tool for leverage. “Since 1982, we have considered computers a core tool of professional literacy. We have used the leverage that we gained in adopting new procedures using computers in house to serve as a springboard for new consulting competence.”
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Posted on July 10, 2000
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Accountants Find New Opportunities in Small Business

By: Rick Telberg

July 6, 2000 (SmartPros) ? Accountants are, by nature, problem solvers. But those who can also spot new opportunities for clients, especially in the small business market, are finding a bonanza of new opportunities.

For instance, there’s a controller for a Midwest manufacturing firm who saved her company hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax liabilities by digging into research and development costs. One independent CPA is developing a system to help small business assess strategic business risks. Another is building a unit within his firm to handle the management and succession issues surrounding large local family businesses.

At the same time, small businesses are adopting new technologies and new ways of doing business faster then ever before. The surge has been noticed by the biggest companies, such as IBM, Intuit, Microsoft, and American Express. They are all looking at the same research that small business accountants should be looking at.

One Fortune 500 analyst is keying on four main drivers for growth in the small business sector. They are:

Small businesses are getting smarter about using technology.
Small businesses are feeling the pressures of e-business all around them and wondering what to do; and
Small businesses don’t fear the Internet anymore,
Partly because they are finding more and more uses for the Web as the offerings available online expand exponentially.
In addition, data from Cahners In-Stat shows that, when asked about their weightiest challenges, small business owners worry most about generating revenues, coping with change and finding and keeping employees. But they are also crimped for resources of all sorts: time, money, technological and technical expertise, and staff.

Increasingly, they are turning to technology and the Internet for solutions. When asked what the Web might be best be used for, 52 percent said sales and marketing activities, 40 percent said for finding new customers, 32 percent said coping with change, and 20 percent said finding new staff.

The small business universe is growing, too. This year, some 7.4 million small businesses with at least one employee will be in operation, a net 2 percent gain from last year.

And they are getting wired. The year 2000 opened with 6.4 million of the 7.4 million small businesses using personal computers, up 9 percent from the year before. Of those, 2.5 million were on local area networks, a 15 percent increase; 4.6 million were using the Internet, up 27 percent; 1.7 million had their own Web sites, up 20 percent, and 600,000 were trading in e-commerce, a 24 percent gain.

Their technology spending alone is huge. By one calculation, the small businesses with one to four employees represent 12.1 million workers in 3.8 million enterprises, each of which is spending $12,900 a year on hardware, software and soft costs. One level up, at the companies with five to nine employees, there are 1.2 million enterprises with 10.3 million employees spending $21,500 each. At the 10-to-49-employee level, 1.1 million enterprises employing 25.3 million workers are spending $47,000 per company.

In fact, Internet access for small business is fast reaching the saturation point. Today only 10 percent of the remaining small businesses are developing new plans to get on-line, down from 17 percent a year ago. And 19 percent have no plans at all to get on-line, roughly the same as last year’s 22 percent. Dun & Bradstreet has reported that 53 percent of small business said the Web has had “no impact” on their operations, with 30 percent saying it has helped improve their business. The rest don’t know or don’t care.

To the Fortune 500, those statistics suggest small business is ready to take the next step in electronic business, which could involve conducting strategic research, switching to Net-based fax and phone services; handling customer support via the Web, or coordinating projects and collaborating on line.

To the small business accountant, it all suggests a host of opportunities.

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Posted on July 6, 2000
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Accounting Education Gets Blamed for Failing to Stem the Profession’s Brain Drain

By: Rick Telberg

July 3, 2000 (SmartPros) ? Some college accounting professors appear to be poised to recommend that accounting education and recruitment begin in high schools. While none of the supporters of the idea asserts that it’s the only remedy for the profession’s brain drain, it has stirred some passion and debate.

The proposal was aired by W. Steve Albrecht, associate dean at Brigham Young University, in a SmartPros article by Associate Producer Niquette Kelcher, Accounting Education Reform Must Begin in High Schools, Says Top Educator.

Along with professor Robert J. Sack of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Albrecht will present the findings of “Strategic Thinking on Accounting Education for the 21st Century” in August at the American Accounting Association annual meeting in Philadelphia.

“Steve and Bob are correct in the causes of the decline but I don’t like their recommendation at all,” commented Ed Ketz, an outspoken professor at Pennsylvania State University. “One thing they leave out is that academics are mostly Ph.D.s trained in financial economics. Many have no experience. The problem that this causes is that they don’t appreciate the changes in practice. And consequently they don’t care about changing the curriculum. Changing the teaching of accounting in high schools is ridiculous. The vast majority of my accounting students never took accounting in high school, and I suspect that this true for other schools as well. I sure didn’t. The high schoolers tend to be weak students who couldn’t get into college.”

“The issue is the value of the services,” says Bob Elliott, chairman of the American Institute of CPAs, a top executive at KPMG and one of the profession’s true visionaries. “If it doesn’t rise, we can’t charge clients more and therefore can’t pay CPAs enough to attract them away from information systems.”

“Why is the value down relatively?” Elliot asks. And answers:

? “We are functioning at the middle of the information value chain (the production of information), not at the top (the use of information to create wealth), where the high compensation is.” His solution: move up the value chain to consulting services.

? “We are auditing financial statements of declining relevance (backward-looking, annual balance sheets filled with the tangible assets of the industrial revolution, not the intangible assets of the post-industrial world).” His solution: refresh the accounting model. “That’s the FASB’s job, and they’re working on it, though too slowly,” he says. The profession must “move toward more frequent reporting, real-time assurance.”

? “Companies a generation ago lacked the internal capacity to prepare GAAP financial statements. They needed the CPA to do it. Today (through hiring many CPAs from practice, to the extent that CPAs in industry now outnumber those in practice), most companies have internalized all the skills they need. Solution: “Provide value-added services that companies have not yet internalized,” Elliott says.

“If we don’t do these things, the sweetest talking recruiter — whether in high school or college — won’t be able to attract students to accounting.”

“Having said that,” Elliott adds, “I believe that the profession is working on the solutions. I believe that the profession is more attractive (in the sense of opportunities) today than it has been in a long time. But students (like most people) are still laboring under obsolete information and images.”

Irv Gleim, the straight-talking head of the Gleim CPA review based in Gainesville, Fla., is tired of waiting. He says succinctly: “What would you have your child major in, accounting or computer information systems?”

In fact, they are all correct. Solving the profession’s brain drain must begin everywhere at once — in colleges, providing professors with practical experience; in the marketplace, by enhancing the value of the services delivered; and in the high schools, by letting youngsters know that accounting provides a surefooted entr?e into the business world.

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Posted on July 3, 2000
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