Lawsuit insurance
The Audit Committee Handbook
Wiley; $76 (with WebCPA discount)
Gone are the days when serving on a company board required little more than a round or two of golf (or drinks) with the chairman. Now regulators and lawsuit-happy investors are bandying about phrases like "fiduciary duty," and actually expect board members to do something - particularly if they sit on the audit committee. The new edition of Wiley's comprehensive Audit Committee Handbook includes all the latest regulatory developments, as well as all the new thinking and best practices to help audit committees fulfill their responsibilities. It includes new chapters on internal and external audit planning and oversight, fraud risk, and more. Along with D&O insurance, it's a must for the 21st century board member.
More Marks
In God We Trust: Everyone Else Pays Cash
Quicker! Better! Wiser! Publications; $16.95
If, like us, you find Gene Marks' column in our Practice Resources section funny, insightful and stuffed full of valuable business advice, you'll be glad to know that he's recently published a whole collection of his columns, In God We Trust: Everyone Else Pays Cash, and that it's just as funny, insightful and stuffed full of valuable business advice.
Fear of referral
Don't Keep Me a Secret! Proven Tactics to Get More Referrals and Introductions
McGraw-Hill; $16.95
About the most intimate thing you can do in a business relationship is to ask for a referral, which may explain why many accountants don't. According to Don't Keep Me a Secret!, unwillingness to ask for referrals is often driven by fear of seeming desperate, or of being told that you're not worth referring. The book offers hundreds of tips for dealing with the emotional side of referrals, from scripts of referral requests that make you seem confident and valuable, but undemanding, to different types of referral-generating events you can hold, to personalized ways to incentivize your current clients to get referring.
Best and worst
Jimmy Stewart Is Dead: Ending the World's Ongoing Financial Plague with Limited Purpose Banking
Wiley; $27.95
One of the best parts of the recent economic unpleasantness is that it unleashed a flood of stories illustrating countless instances of greed, arrogance and idiocy on the part of our financial markets and the regulators who oversee them. These are often entertaining, frequently provoke a self-satisfying rage, occasionally prove cathartic, and form the best part of well-known economist Laurence Kotlikoff's Jimmy Stewart Is Dead. His diagnosis of the problems of our financial system is fascinating; the worst parts of the book are in his proposed solution, which is exactly what you might expect from an economist: intriguing, verging on elegant, and completely divorced from reality. Take his proposal for a single financial regulator that would "verify, supervise, custody, fully disclose, and oversee the rating and trades of all securities." That's all? What would it do in its spare time?
Nexus once-removed
Current Issues in Attributional and Agency Nexus
Lorman Education Services: $175.20 (with WebCPA discount)
If you encounter drive or creativity in a government agency, chances are it's trying to find revenue. Witness state tax authorities' getting clever with nexus, focusing on third-party and affiliated relationships that can establish a basis to tax a company. This CD and reference manual from a Lorman teleconference discuss the pitfalls to avoid, and the latest legislative and case law developments.
