Audit

A group of corporate governance and policy organizations is urging audit committees at public companies to strengthen their public disclosures so they can convey key elements of their critical work to investors and stakeholders more effectively.

The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board are expanding their efforts to deter accounting fraud, reaching out to academics, practitioners and others to find ways to better detect accounting fraud.

The International Accounting Standards Board has introduced a new hedge accounting model as a major step forward in the financial instruments project on which it has been collaborating with the Financial Accounting Standards Board.

The Financial Accounting Foundation and the Financial Accounting Standards Board have launched a new section on the FAF Web site that features audio, transcripts and photos from the September’s FASB@40 Conference hosted in New York to commemorate the FASB’s 40th anniversary.

The chairmen of the Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standard Board appeared alongside each other Monday to discuss the status of their efforts to converge accounting standards over the past decade or more and their plans for the future as the convergence effort appears to be running out of steam.

Thomson Reuters has released two new PPC Practice Aid tools for its Thomson Reuters Checkpoint online research service to help practitioners who perform audits of health care entities and broker-dealers.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has added a page to its Web site to provide information to audit firms where quality control problems have been found.

The Private Company Council has voted to finalize an alternative standard for private companies to use when applying variable interest entity guidance to common control leasing arrangements.

Michel Prada, chairman of the IFRS Foundation Board of Trustees, which oversees the International Accounting Standards Board, took countries like the U.S. and Japan to task for taking what he called an “à la carte” approach to accounting standards by not fully embracing International Financial Reporting Standards.

Accounting firms could find value in managing their clients online funding campaigns, according to Xcentric's vice president of marketing Roy Keely.

For the last several years, accounting firms have been merging with or acquiring their peers -- but the shopping spree is bound to come to an end as future leaders head out to create their own practices once the combined firms complete their integration, according to Boomer Consulting shareholder and COO Sandra Wiley.

The Governmental Accounting Standards Board has released a new online toolkit to help preparers and auditors of state and local government pension plans implement new accounting and financial reporting standards.

Accountants face irrelevance if they don't keep up with the continuing changes in technology, according to Jon Baron, managing director of Thomson Reuters' Professional Tax & Accounting.

Ernst & Young has been making a greater effort this Veterans Day and in recent years to increase its outreach to veterans and hire more members of the military to bring their leadership skills to the firm.

Recent calls to get rid of public company audits are way off-base

Habitat for Humanity rehab project, Edge Awards and more...

Check out the digital edition of the November 2013 issue of Accounting Today.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board has issued a proposed accounting standards update to improve financial reporting about public and private development stage entities.

Internal audit departments anticipate more focus on compliance risks and less emphasis on Sarbanes-Oxley, according to a new survey.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has announced sanctions against a New York-based audit firm, its founder, two other partners, and an audit manager for their roles in the failed audits of three China-based companies publicly traded in the U.S.