Audit

The CPA brand remains “incredibly strong,” according to American Institute of CPAs president and CEO Barry Melancon, but the profession still faces challenges.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board has released a new accounting standard to address some of the problems with financial reporting on repurchase agreements, such as those that contributed to the demise of MF Global.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has made public additional portions of a 2010 inspection report on Ernst & Young and 2008 and 2009 inspections of Grant Thornton because the firms failed to adequately address some of the quality control problems that the PCAOB had identified within a year, although Grant Thornton claims the problems have since been addressed.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board has added two short-term projects to its agenda to simplify U.S. GAAP as part of its initiative to reduce complexity in accounting standards.

After several months of decline, accountants’ confidence in the prospects for economic growth saw a sharp uptick, according to the June edition of Accounting Today’s Accountants Confidence Index.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board adopted a new auditing standard Tuesday, along with amendments to other auditing standards, to require auditors to pay more attention to three critical areas of the audit: related-party transactions, significant unusual transactions, and a company’s financial relationships and transactions with its executive officers.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board issued an accounting standards update Tuesday to improve financial reporting for development-stage entities, eliminating the inception-to-date information and differences in consolidation guidance.

Christopher Cox, the former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman whose support for converging International Financial Reporting Standards with U.S. GAAP was crucial in setting up a “roadmap” for harmonizing the two sets of accounting standards, has reversed course.

RootWorks LLC has announced an expansion of its continuing education programming for the accounting profession with the opening of a new state-of-the-art learning center located in the PNC Center in Indianapolis.

After announcing that it needs to fix three years of financials and that quarterly results won’t meet estimates, car- and equipment-rental company Hertz Global Holdings Inc. tumbled in the stock market.

While firms that are pioneers in adopting technology outpace their peers in other ways, too, accountants don’t necessarily need to be on the cutting edge in all things to grow.

Bloomberg BNA has released “Navigating the New Road to Revenue Recognition,” a detailed overview of the new revenue recognition standard, along with guidance on how companies can prepare for its application.

Thomson Reuters has released a special report on the newly issued accounting standard on revenue recognition from the Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board is continuing to find a high degree of problems in audits of broker-dealers, despite some improvements, according to PCAOB member Jeanette Franzel.

Chinese affiliates of the four largest accounting companies and U.S. regulators have been discussing a settlement in a dispute over access to audit documents belonging to the firms’ clients.

Check out the digital edition of the June 2014 issue of Accounting Today.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board officially announced the formation Tuesday of a Joint Transition Resource Group for Revenue Recognition.

Some of the major accounting firms and the American Institute of CPAs are planning to publish materials to help accountants and companies deal with the new revenue recognition standards.

Public companies have begun filing their first set of reports on so-called “conflict minerals” with the Securities and Exchange Commission to meet a deadline Monday, but advocacy groups are finding the reports are not providing much information so far.

Public Company Accounting Oversight Board Chairman James Doty said in a speech in early May that he is concerned about cuts in audit fees having an impact on the quality of audits as the auditing practice becomes a declining part of the revenue at accounting firms.