Audit

The Financial Accounting Standards Board and the Private Company Council voted Tuesday to finalize the Private Company Decision-Making Framework, which outlines criteria they intend to use for determining whether and under what circumstances it is appropriate to adjust financial reporting requirements for private companies following U.S. GAAP.

The cost of the transition to International Financial Reporting Standards was significant for many companies, but generally around the same amount they had budgeted or less than they expected, according to a new study.

With the formal release of the 2013 AICPA Guide, Valuation of Privately-Held Company Equity Securities Issued as Compensation, there are two valuation concepts that are new to the updated guide, but are already in fairly wide use.

The global consulting firm Protiviti has published a new study on how the internal audit function is changing at companies around the world as internal audit teams collaborate with more parts of the organization while also trying to maintain their independence.

CPA firms are predicting they will face challenges in gaining acceptance of the American Institute of CPAs’ recently introduced Financial Reporting Framework for Small and Medium-sized Entities, according to a new survey.

M&A surveys, OSCPA’s Women’s Initiative and more…

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has conducted a review of safety and security procedures for employees traveling abroad in light of recent incidents of violence around the world, such as the killing of four Americans at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, last year.

China will for the first time give audit records for a Chinese company to U.S. authorities after regulators reached an agreement in May to allow each other access to companies’ documents.

Only 14 percent of capital markets executives at leading investment banks believe the JOBS Act is having a positive impact on increasing the number of IPOs on U.S. exchanges, according to a new survey by BDO USA.

The House has approved a bill that prohibits the Public Company Accounting and Oversight Board from forcing public companies to automatically change or rotate their independent auditing firms.

The Securities and Exchange Commission’s custody rule governing investment advisors’ custody of client assets imposes various requirements and, in turn, costs on investment advisors, according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office.

IT, accounting and finance administrative processes dominate the future outsourcing plans of major companies, according to a new survey by KPMG.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board is issuing a new accounting standards update on Monday that defers indefinitely certain disclosures about investments held by nonpublic employee benefit plans in their plan sponsors’ own nonpublic equity securities.

The Government Accountability Office recommended in a new report that the Securities and Exchange Commission should consider requiring public companies where applicable to explicitly disclose whether they obtained an auditor attestation of their internal controls.

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The Governmental Accounting Standards Board has issued for public comment a proposed statement regarding the transition provisions of GASB’s new pension standards for state and local governments with the goal of eliminating a potential source of understatement of restated beginning net position and expense in a government’s first year of implementing GASB’s new pension accounting standards.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board plan to host a series of joint public roundtable meetings on different continents to discuss their revised joint proposals on leasing standards that were published in May.

The Securities and Exchange Commission’s enforcement division is launching three new initiatives to combat financial reporting and microcap fraud and enhance its risk analysis capabilities with the use of sophisticated analytical technology.

A former senior KPMG LLP partner, Scott London, pleaded guilty to leaking confidential information about the audit firm’s clients to a friend who made more than $1 million trading on the inside information.