Audit

The lease accounting industry desperately needs disruption

Many large privately held companies are more profitable and are growing revenues faster than publicly traded companies in the U.S., according to new data.

The Securities and Exchange Commission voted Wednesday to propose rules to require companies to disclose the relationship between executive compensation and the financial performance of a company.

The International Federation of Accountants has convened the first meeting of a coalition of major accounting firms, civil society groups and international organizations to develop strategies to encourage high-quality public sector financial reporting, greater government transparency and accountability, and empowered citizen engagement.

The requirements in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act for outside audits of internal control may actually be penalizing companies that reveal problems with their controls, according to a new study.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board issued for public comment Wednesday a proposed accounting standards update that would defer the effective date of its new revenue recognition standard by one year.

Members of the International Forum of Independent Audit Regulators agreed in principle on the text of a multilateral arrangement for exchanging information about audit firms during a meeting in Taipei.

The International Accounting Standards Board voted Tuesday to propose a one-year deferral of the revenue recognition standard that the IASB converged last year with the U.S. Financial Accounting Standards Board.

The American Institute of CPAs is pushing to improve the quality of employee benefit plan audits, in part by discouraging unqualified firms from offering the service, in advance of an upcoming report from the U.S. Department of Labor that is expected to find continuing problems with the quality of one-third of the audits.

The American Institute of CPAs has issued a set of questions and answers on the services a practitioner can provide in connection with the American Land Title Association’s Best Practices Framework for real estate settlement.

A Citigroup Inc. unit and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP must face claims they played a part in costing investors more than $1 billion in Bernard Madoff’s massive Ponzi scheme, an appeals court ruled.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board has proposed three accounting standards updates related to employee benefit plans and another update for electricity contracts.

Practical tips for when and what to disclose

Senators Jack Reed, D-R.I., and Chuck Grassley, R-Ia., have re-introduced legislation to make disciplinary proceedings of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board public in order to expose auditing deficiencies at firms or the companies they audit in a timely way and help curb violations.

Chief audit executives in the power and utility industry rank cyber security as the highest risk and biggest concern for their industry, according to a new report from PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The Governmental Accounting Standards Board has voted to begin research on improving the disclosures by state and local governments about going concern and debt.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board has issued a proposed accounting standards update to improve the information provided in not-for-profit financial statements and notes to financial statements that could have major implications for nonprofit organizations.

While the number of financial restatements has leveled off in recent years, there was an increase in restatements by large public companies known as accelerated filers for the fourth consecutive year.

The financial information company Sageworks has introduced two new modules for its Analytical Procedures software that will help accounting firms automate audit work for government entities and financial institutions.

PricewaterhouseCoopers has agreed to pay $65 million to settle claims over its audits of the failed investment company MF Global.