Recruiting

We hate to say how long we have been watching accounting standard-setting, but trust us, it has been a long time. Over those eons, we have been frustrated at the lack of attention granted to the interests of financial statement users and the perennial promotion of the interests of auditors and statement preparers. This imbalance simply does not work for the economy's good, because the capital markets are inefficient if users don't have ready access to the information they need for allocating capital to the right places at the right prices.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board concluded its first International Auditor Regulatory Institute last week.

Appointed to serve as the first executive director of the Center for Audit Quality, Cindy Fornelli is guiding the new organization in its mission to bolster confidence in the audit process, and to aid investors by promoting constructive suggestions for change.Still affiliated with the American Institute of CPAs, the center is the revamped version of the AICPA’s former Center for Public Company Audit Firms. The CAQ Governing Board consists of representatives from the AICPA, the major public company auditing firms and independent public members.

The New York State Society of CPAs will host the 28th Annual New York CPA Business & Technology Show & Conference on May 16 and 17 at the Hilton New York Hotel.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board is soliciting nominations and re-nominations for members of its Standing Advisory Group. Created in 2003, the 31-member SAG assists the audit firm overseer in carrying out its standards-setting responsibilities. The PCAOB is currently seeking nominations and re-nominations annually to fill 15 positions. Appointments are for two-year terms. Nomination forms are available on the PCAOB Web site, www.pcaobus.org. The deadline for submissions is June 15, 2007. Appointments will be announced by the end of October, and the new terms will begin in January 2008. The group, chaired by the PCAOB chief auditor and director of professional standards, Thomas Ray, meets roughly three times a year.

The Center for Audit Quality, the group backed by the profession's six largest audit firms as well as the American Institute of CPAs, has lured aboard a pair of high-level staffers from the Securities and Exchange Commission. Lori Schock, the SEC's acting director of investor education, and general counsel Robert Burns will join the new group in May. Schock will assume the post of director of outreach, while Burns becomes the CAQ's new director of research. The group, which evolved from the AICPA's Center for Public Company Audit Firms, currently has about 800 members. Its executive director, Cindy Fornelli, and director of operations, Jane Cobb, are both former senior-level directors at the SEC. Fornelli served as deputy director of the SEC's investment management division, while Cobb helmed the regulator's legislative affairs office. Fornelli and several of the CAQ board are scheduled to embark on a multi-city "listening tour" to elicit feedback from investors, regulators, academics and business leaders to hone the business reporting model.

The Internal Revenue Service is calling for nominations to its Internal Revenue Service Advisory Council, a group that provides an organized public platform for IRS officials and public representatives to discuss relevant tax issues. Applications will be accepted from May 1, 2007, through June 15, 2007. The IRSAC is comprised of up to 30 members, who are appointed to three-year terms by the commissioner. Nominations are currently being accepted for five to seven appointments that will begin January 2008. IRSAC membership includes representation from the tax professional community such as tax attorneys, CPAs, enrolled agents, enrolled actuaries and appraisers, as well as members of the large and small business communities. More information is available on the tax professional's page at www.irs.gov.

While the jump from controller to CFO may seem like a natural progression, a report from management consultancy Korn/Ferry International suggests that while controllers may posses the technical expertise to gain access to the CFO suite, their leadership skills may be lacking. The study, titled "Navigating the Uncertain Road from Controller to CFO: The Leadership Imperative," said that controllers with designs on the C-suite need to move beyond financial expertise to become "participative leaders." "Controllers can become more attractive CFO candidates by developing a critical set of behavioral skills that characterize the most successful CFOs," said Charles B. Eldridge, co-leader of Korn/Ferry's financial officers practice and co-author of the report. Other key findings of the report include: * Some 33 percent of all CFOs who had been promoted to their jobs came from the post of controller. Treasurers ran a distant second place at 19 percent. * In organizations that recruited their CFO from outside, only four percent of external hires were controllers, while 58 percent were already corporate or divisional CFOs elsewhere. * CFOs focus on "people" issues, as well as on financial ones, while controllers, by contrast, tend to be more task-focused and less inclined to build consensus. To prepare the report, Korn/Ferry's financial officers practice conducted a detailed analysis of the 2006 Fortune 500, examining trends related to the hiring and promotion of their CFOs.

Thomson Tax & Accounting has released "PPC's Guide to Audits of Nonpublic Companies," which helps integrate the requirements of the newly released risk assessment standards that go into effect for financial statement audits beginning on or after Dec. 15, 2006. The new tome fuses two existing products -- "PPC's Guide to Audits of Small Businesses" and "PPC's Guide to Risk-Based Audits" - into a single guide for all nonpublic, non-industry-specific audit engagements. The manual includes checklists, forms and audit programs to help firms transition their audit approach to reflect the new standards. The guide is available in a variety of formats including TTA's proprietary Checkpoint platform. The risk-assessment guide also contains in-depth coverage of new requirements for communicating internal control deficiencies under SAS No. 112 and communicating with those charged with governance under SAS No. 114.

Citing a material breach, financial staffing and marketing services concern AccountAbilities has terminated its planned asset purchase and reorganization pact with automotive franchiser Tilden Associates Inc. and TFP Associates, a spinoff company controlled by Tilden chairman Robert Baskind. AccountAbilities said that, among other things, Tilden did not file its annual report on time, which subsequently resulted in Tilden's stock being delisted from the OTC exchange. Under the terms of the pact, Tilden would have acquired the assets of AccountAbilities for 12.5 million shares of its stock -- valued roughly at $18.7 million. Following the close of the deal, there was to be a 1-for-25 reverse stock split, representing about 96 percent of Tilden's shares. Allan Hartley, president of Accountabilities, said that his company would shop around for similar agreements such as the one with Tilden.

Global business intelligence software provider Business Objects S.A., provider of the Crystal Reports series, has agreed to acquire enterprise software publisher Cartesis for about $300 million in cash.

AccountAbilities Inc., a provider of financial personnel staffing services, marketing services and management consulting services, announced that one of its partner firms has acquired a smaller staffing and consulting firm.

A new survey from Deloitte says that there is a strong relationship between work-life balance and positive ethical behaviors at work.

A new report from the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board looks to draw some conclusions out of its inspections of approximately 275 audits of internal controls over financial reporting performed by registered public accounting firms.The report specifically looks at the second year implementation of the board’s Auditing Standard No. 2, “An Audit of Internal Control over Financial Reporting Performed in Conjunction with an Audit of Financial Statements.” Nearly a year ago, the PCAOB announced that during 2006 it would conduct inspections to determine whether auditors were achieving the objectives of the standard with the least expenditure of resources.

Jayne V. Bates is in the home stretch of her one-year term as president of the Association for Accounting Marketing, which will end in July. Bates has served on the association’s board of directors since January 2001.Herself a CPA, Bates is currently the director of marketing for Carter, Belcourt & Atkinson PA CPAs, a firm based in Lakeland and Tampa, Fla. She has been with CBA for nearly 20 years, spending her first eight years with the firm as a professional staff accountant and serving in a marketing capacity during the rest of her tenure.

Recently, a managing partner shared with me his answer to the question, "When does turnover begin?" His reply was, "At the beginning."Duh! Why didn't I think of that? So, if employee turnover begins with the selection process, what steps can we take to improve it? There are many steps in the recruitment and selection process - and as they say, the devil is in the details. Here are some suggestions:

Women can crunch numbers with the best of the big boys. But how many skirts stick around long enough to work their way to the top of the pile of suits, and do they have what it takes to succeed if they make it there? Pose that question in today’s society and the immediate answer may be “Yes” based on political correctness rather than truth. While 57 percent of today’s accounting graduates are women, only 30 percent of managers and 10 to15 percent of partners are female. The average male member of the American Institute of CPAs is 50, while the average female member is 40. So what happens when those older male partners retire and expect to rely on the younger women they hired to take over the reins? Firms looking to train female successors need to teach them certain skills they didn’t learn in school—or CPE classes for that matter. Skills like communication, confidence and building credibility. “We have all these women being drawn out of accounting schools and we’re not developing them and they’re dropping out of the profession. Firms are investing millions of dollars in women and they’re just walking out the door,” says Gale Crosley, CPA, founder and principal of Crosley + Co., which serves as consultants to CPA firms looking for practice development assistance, including establishing programs to help women excel in their careers. “Women aren’t taught to be initiators. You have to be an initiator to be a good rainmaker.” Crosley hesitates to use the word, which Webster’s defines as “a person whose influence can initiate progress or ensure success,” because it is typically associated with men. But she promotes the idea of “making rain” or “getting wet” in her upcoming 2007 Forum for Women in Accounting, whose theme is “Becoming All You Can Be.” The May conference aims to teach potential female rainmakers how to network, take risks, make money and manage the clock without compromising their family life in the process. When assessing firms, Crosley runs into many professional women who feel uncomfortable asking men out to business dinners for fear they will think of it as a date. Guys go out to lunch together and the women don’t participate, and she hears lots of “locker room talk” that makes the women employees uncomfortable. Her job is to help them overcome their fears and uncertainties so they can climb the ranks. “Getting comfortable with how to position and handle yourself is a challenge and always will be,” Crosley says. “A key quality is knowing and understanding the process and what techniques to use and avoid.” When one of her associates was invited to a hockey game with 25 men and complained that she didn’t enjoy the experience, Crosley explained to her that “business development isn’t about cocktailing around and having a bunch of fun.” Rather, it is part of the job description, like learning to play golf to network outside the office. “It’s just another line item on the resume,” she says. And perhaps one that helps place more women on top.

As part of a new branding strategy, Thomson Tax & Accounting, said that it will formally adopt Thomson Tax & Accounting as its public name and use the Thomson Corp. starburst imprint as its primary logo.

The May cover story for Practical Accountant focuses on how a number of firms are using formalized testing to determinate if a potential hire is right for a job. It also explores how testing is extending to other aspects of firms’ operations.

CCH has released a white paper providing insight into what it believes is most important to young accounting professionals in the workplace today.