Audit

The Sustainability Accounting Standards Board has issued provisional standards for seven industries in the financial services sector.

New accounting websites, blogs and more...

Members of the Financial Accounting Standards Board voted at a meeting Wednesday to scale back FASB’s convergence efforts on insurance accounting standards with the International Accounting Standards Board.

The National Association of State Boards of Accountancy has written a letter to the Financial Accounting Foundation, the parent organization of the Financial Accounting Standards Board, questioning the FAF’s recent decision to contribute up to $3 million to the International Financial Reporting Standards Foundation, the parent of the International Accounting Standards Board.

Bloomberg BNA has published a new book examining the history and workings of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board.

More than half of U.S. organizations that experienced fraud in the past two years reported an increase in the number of occurrences, according to a new survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers that also found a rise in accounting fraud, bribery and corruption, with cybercrime moving to the forefront of U.S. companies’ concerns.

The International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board has released a new publication with the goal of raising awareness of the key elements of audit quality.

The Anti-Fraud Collaboration has released a new case study to provide an example of effective financial fraud detection and deterrence.

By any measure, BDO USA had a great 2013 in terms of Securities and Exchange Commission audit clients.

Anniversaries, M&A survey, new partnerships and more…

The American Institute of CPAs’ Auditing Standards Board has released a standard on using the work of internal auditors.

Chinese affiliates of the four largest accounting firms have filed an appeal with U.S. regulators to reverse an administrative judge’s decision to bar them for six months after they stymied investigations of possible accounting fraud.

The Governmental Accounting Standards Board has launched GASB Outlook, a quarterly electronic newsletter designed to keep stakeholders informed about key GASB projects and activities.

The International Accounting Education Standards Board has released a paper on the development and management of written examinations for accountants.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board has excluded credit unions from the definition of “public business entities,” exempting them from certain reporting provisions under GAAP and giving credit unions more latitude to determine what their reporting requirements should be.

During 2013, the scene was set for significant changes in financial reporting for private companies and evolved into a battle between standard-setting bodies. All the changes centered on the desire to simplify, and therefore reduce the cost of accounting for private companies. The question is, however, is simpler good enough?

PricewaterhouseCoopers has just joined the rest of the Big Four firms in officially sponsoring the work of the International Valuation Standards Council, which aims to create globally recognized and accepted valuation standards, particularly for financial instruments, and promote quality within the valuation profession.

The American Institute of CPAs and the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants have proposed a framework with the goal of bringing consistency to management accounting practice across the world.

The Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission has released a new paper examining how frameworks such as the ones it has issued for internal control and enterprise risk management can improve the performance and governance of an organization.

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