Audit & Accounting

Catapult Communications Corporation recently announced that it is changing accounting firms. What was intriguing about the press release was the detailed reason given for changing from a Big Four to a regional firm. It made the change “to significantly reduce its accounting expenses.”

An appeals court has overruled $300,000 in penalties levied against accounting firm Grant Thornton in a case involving the firm's audit of the First National Bank of Keystone.

A study of internal auditors around the world has uncovered similarities and sharp differences within the profession.

The Foundation for Financial Planning has awarded nine new grants totaling $565,272. The grants went to:

Are you feeling overwhelmed by the task of sorting through a multitude of mutual funds to offer clients? Think of narrowing down the appropriate funds as a funneling process.This technique works for Sean Bergin, managing director of Citrin Cooperman Wealth Management Co., based in Philadelphia. For him, the key is to slim the selection down via a handful of requirements.

One dirty little secret of financial reporting is off-balance-sheet financing.

The challenges for creating an effective executive compensation package are many. The executive wants more pay but less taxation, while the company wants incentive-based benefits that bind the executive more closely to the company.The traditional solution for these needs is a nonqualified stock-option program. The executive gets both a potentially high payout and the ability to time the taxation of the payout. The employer likes the program because stock options are a cashless, incentive-based package with vesting restrictions.

Two accounting statements from the Financial Accounting Standards Board could have a large impact on accounting firms and their business clients, said accounting firm BDO Seidman.

The Governmental Accounting Standards Board has a host of complex projects on the docket for 2008. The first half of the year will see a few new documents, while the second half will entail mostly discussions.

A new report finds that the cost of compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley Section 404 internal control audit requirements for smaller public companies is actually about 14 percent lower than originally estimated.