Audit

We all face numbers, sometimes on a daily basis.

We're drafting this column in January, when many were surely puzzling over Securities and Exchange Commission Chief Accountant Jim Kroeker's December announcement that the commission would not, after all, decide by year end whether the International Accounting Standards Board and International Financial Reporting Standards would replace the Financial Accounting Standards Board and U.S. GAAP.

The American Institute of CPAs and the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants formally launched their Chartered Global Management Accountant designation on Tuesday with a joint event in New York and London.

The Blue Ribbon Panel on Private Company Financial Reporting has recognized that there are many issues in the way private companies and small businesses use GAAP.

Auditor reports are oftentimes misinterpreted, misread or not read at all, according to a new study that calls for significant changes in the reports.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board said Friday they would work together on seeking to reduce the differences in their classification and measurement models for financial instruments.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board has proposed an updated standard on impairment testing of intangible assets with indefinite lives, such as trademarks, licenses and distribution lives.

The National Association of State Boards of Accountancy and the American Institute of CPAs have both given their final approval to a revised set of standards for providers of continuing professional education programs for accountants.

International Accounting Standards Board chairman Hans Hoogervorst told attendees at an accounting conference in Moscow on Monday that he believes the U.S. will ultimately decide to support International Financial Reporting Standards.

The American Institute of CPAs has begun offering a revenue-sharing arrangement to state CPA societies if they help market the new Chartered Global Management Accountant designation to their members.

European Commission plans to bring the European Union into line with the possibly less stringent Sarbanes-Oxley measures to ban audit firms from offering tax and other non-audit services to audit clients are facing controversy as the issue moves to the European Parliament.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board is continuing to prod officials in Washington for the power to make public its disciplinary proceedings against auditing firms and auditors.

The Tax & Accounting business of Thomson Reuters plans to offer a new audit and engagement management application that, starting later this year, will provide advanced trial balance and engagement management functionality for larger firms with sophisticated audit practices.

Olympus has cleared the Japanese affiliates of KPMG and Ernst & Young in a report by an outside panel on the camera and medical device maker’s investigation into its cover-up of $1.7 billion in losses.

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Credit rating agency Fitch Ratings said in a new report that it expects the U.S. will still move forward with plans to incorporate International Financial Reporting Standards into U.S. GAAP, but in a “prolonged, cautious and incremental way.”

What if someone told you that your firm could replace much of the work performed by its audit staff with an affordable, automated system?

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The Financial Accounting Standards Board has made available the 2012 U.S. GAAP Financial Reporting Taxonomy, which can be used to submit XBRL-format financial filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Financial Accounting Standards Board chair Leslie Seidman has been reviewing the suggestions that have been coming in about the proposed Private Company Standards Improvement Council while awaiting a decision on how much authority her board will have over the new council.