CPA Horizons 2025 identifies “global and local trends and the steps CPAs can take to plan for the challenges and leverage the opportunities the future will hold.” Get the free instant download.
As busy season ebbs into memory and accounting firms start looking toward the future, top managers will be confronting a host of difficult issues. by Rick Telberg Many of the most pressing issues are close to home — winning a few more big clients, nurturing succession, finding adequate capital to reinvest in the business. Some other issues, however, may seem more abstract. They are, to be sure, no less real. A host of global trends are conspiring to make this year’s retreat season just that much more complicated for accounting firm leaders. Here are 10 top global trends that are rushing headlong toward the American accounting firm industry:
Only 13.5% are getting ready — same as May 2010. via AICPA The key message from the AICPA’s October 2010 IFRS Readiness Survey is that movement within the U.S. accounting profession toward IFRS has been on hold since May 2010. Basic familiarity with IFRS has remained stable at 45 percent and the number of companies and firms actively preparing for adoption or ready for adoption has remained about the same at 13.5 percent. Thirty-eight percent of respondents indicated they are delaying implementation while waiting for SEC action.
Change is coming hard and fast. Paul Stahlin, regional president at Skylands Community Bank in Somerville, N.J., takes over the top spot of the AICPA in October from Bob Harris, a Florida CPA firm owner. In this impromptu 12-minute video, Stahlin outlines his views of the profession’s — and the institute’s — biggest challenges and opportunities. He starts with five hot topics: Some 120 countries are already on IFRS, he notes, suggesting that it’s “critical” U.S. CPAs get up to speed. Private company financial reporting standards (don’t call it “Little GAAP”) could pose a whole new set of complexities for accountants at 29 million U.S. companies. Amidst all the changes of the last decade, it’s time, he says, for the [...]
Intrusive and intimidating IRS initiative. by William Stromsem, CPA, JD CPAs are complaining about an intrusive and intimidating Internal Revenue Service (IRS) initiative that began in early January when the IRS started sending “over 10,000” letters to tax return preparers (commercial and professional), with follow-up visits to “thousands” of letter recipients. This is part of an IRS program to be sure that preparers are “assisting clients appropriately” and part of Commissioner Shulman’s overall effort to increase oversight of return preparers. The IRS may intend this as an encouragement to do a better job, but CPA practitioners see this as poorly timed and intimidating during the busy tax season as they seek to apply the tax law correctly to client situations. [...]
Early results are suggesting that most organizations remain unprepared for the biggest chgange in GAAP in 50 years. After years in the making, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) on Wednesday, July 1, will launch the new GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) codification. That said, today’s results from working CPAs and finance managers are all the more interesting: Online Surveys – Zoomerang.com Don’t be alarmed if you’re only dimly aware of the GAAP codification project. Apparently other CPAs are too. One poll showed only about one in three accountants had looked into it. Another found less than half of all CFOs and senior comptrollers had even heard of the codification project To be sure, GAAP itself isn’t intended to change, [...]
Financial system rules and regs take the spotlight at AICPA 2009 Spring Meeting of Council. “I firmly believe that any sound solution to the severe economic challenges facing our country will require the insights and contributions of the CPAs in this room… and in every corner of our great nation,†AICPA Chairman Ernie Almonte said at the opening of the meeting. The Journal of Accountancy reports today: Mark Peterson, AICPA vice president, governmental and public affairs, said he expects Congress to begin to work through numerous proposals aimed at closing gaps in financial regulation. The various proposals may be pulled together into a larger reform bill, Peterson said. He predicted Congress would then address the idea of a systemic regulator-an [...]
Venture gives Intacct access to millions of small and mid-sized businesses through CPA channel. Cloud computing, software-as-a-service, or web-based software — whatever you call it — has long been evolving as the next step beyond CD platters, downloads and endless versioning. With the AICPA deal, Intacct (a dramatic business story in it’s own right) may get the push it needs to challenge Intuit, Sage or Microsoft among small and medium-sized businesses. But more than that, the AICPA’s imprimatur on a SaaS model could well accelerate adoption of the delivery method, overcoming a common stumbling block — the reluctance of CPAs to be pioneers. With the AICPA behind them, CPAs need no longer feel like trail-blazers in adopting and recommending cloud [...]
AICPA: Madoff’s auditor claimed it didn’t do audits. Ethics probe launched. Friehling & Horowitz, the small New York auditing firm that certified the financial statements of Bernard Madoff Investment Securities, has been telling the AICPA for 15 years that it doesn’t perform audits. By denying it did audits, the firm avoided reviews by the AICPA. New York is one of only six states that doesn’t require accountants to be peer-reviewed. “The plain fact is that this group hasn’t submitted for peer review and appears to have done an audit,” said AICPA spokesman Bill Roberts, noting the Institute has now launched an investigation into the firm. Because of the Madoff scandal, New York State is moving to join the ranks of [...]
Welcome to “The Age of Transparency.” UPDATED: 5:50 pm to add AICPA comments The Securities and Exchange Commission has officially adopted a rule mandating XBRL filings beginning in 2009. With this rule, the SEC is effectively mandating that all public companies, beginning with large cap filers, submit their SEC reports in Interactive Data format, specifically in XBRL. XBRL software, an evolution of XML, the code the Internet was built upon, makes it much easier to
CPA Trendlines Technology Journal of Accountancy
