Audit & Accounting

Business consulting and internal audit firm Protiviti Inc said it has formed an advisory board to assist its clients with navigating the unstable economic and regulatory environment.

I’m working on our annual women in accounting feature and one question keeps popping up: why, in 2009 are we still discussing the lack of high ranking women in the profession?

The Securities and Exchange Commission has levied a $3 million penalty against Charles Johnson Jr., the former CEO of PurchasePro, a now-defunct business-to-business online exchange company that was involved in an accounting fraud case with AOL.

SEC Chief Accountant Jim Kroeker told a group of CPAs that accounting standard-setters should avoid a “race to the bottom” when working on convergence.

Moss Adams CEO Rick Anderson has written to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner urging him and other world financial leaders at the G-20 meeting next week to act more quickly on global accounting and corporate governance issues.

IMGCAP(1)]It’s easy for managers to overlook risks. Financial risk managers may ignore nonfinancial risks. Business managers responsible for a particular line item (such as costs) may downplay risks unrelated to their particular line item. Firms often manage their risks compartmentally — for example: the treasury department for foreign exchange and interest rates; the procurement department for commodity purchases; and the insurance department for catastrophic risks.

The group overseeing the International Accounting Standards Board has written to President Obama and the other G-20 leaders saying it is following the G-20 recommendations for dealing with fair value accounting for loans, after banking interests charged that it was not.

The banking and insurance industries have been playing arbitrage with the various accounting standards produced by U.S. and international standard-setters.

An organization representing major life and property/casualty insurance and reinsurance companies has criticized a new measurement approach for insurance contracts recommended by the staff of the International Accounting Standards Board.

IMGCAP(1)]On September 4, the President took another important step toward a more open and transparent government by announcing a new policy to voluntarily disclose White House visitor access records.