Audit

Conrad Hewitt joined the Securities and Exchange Commission as chief accountant in August 2006. Hewitt is charged with establishing and enforcing accounting and auditing policy to enhance the transparency and relevancy of financial reporting at the SEC. His office also aims to improve the professional performance of public company auditors in order to ensure that financial statements used for investment decisions are presented fairly and have credibility. Lately he has been much involved with planning for the transition from U.S. accounting standards to international standards. WebCPA talked with him and his department's chief legal counsel, Jeff Minton, about the convergence of U.S. generally accepted accounting principles and International Financial Reporting Standards.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board plans to consider adopting rules on succession to a predecessor's registration status. The PCAOB has scheduled an open meeting for Tuesday, July 29, at 9:30 am in the board's open meeting room at 1666 K St. NW, Washington, D.C. The board will consider adopting rules and a corresponding form that govern when a firm would be allowed to succeed to the registration status of a predecessor firm following a merger or other change in the registered firm's legal form. The meeting will be open to the public and Webcast via a link on the PCAOB's Web site (www.pcaobus.org) that will be made available the day of the meeting. The meeting also will be available via podcast later in the day.

It’s no secret that plenty of the 76 million Baby Boomers are tossing and turning every night, trying to calm down and get to sleep. Why? Clearly, they are concerned about whether they will have enough money to retire. But, add to that is the vital question of what they would like to do with their lives after such retirement. Joan Carter is the co-founder of Life Options Institute, an organization that is devoted to helping people plan for retirement life and she has come up with 10 rather interesting and admittedly, non-financial tips for the Boomers. 1. Life's About More than Money. Carter believes that one has to start thinking seriously about retirement some five years before quitting the workforce. 2. Make Life Plans. It’s important to plan for the non-financial aspect of retirement by considering what will make you happy. Carter gives some fascinating examples such as climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro, dog sledding in Alaska, or even having time to write the next great American novel. And then there is the possibility of working part-time. 3. Find a Purpose. She says that one must find something on an ongoing basis that provides joy and structure. This can involve travel, hobbies, or even new career training. 4. Keep Sharp. Many people say they feel the need to replace the intellectual stimulation of work. If so, remarks Carter, try learning a foreign language or musical instrument, or joining a retirement group that offers ongoing educational courses. 5. Volunteer. Getting involved in the community is, of course, a pretty good way to give back, as well as opening an opportunity to interact and meet new people. 6. Develop New Friendships. Carter firmly believes that a measurement of whether people have a successful retirement is the strength of their social network, and that includes family and friends. 7. Spousal Input. Retirement usually means a shared experience, especially if the spouse has retired, as well. Therefore, notes Carter, make time to share your dreams with your spouse. She says that you might be pleasantly surprised to learn that the spouse may want to join you on that Mt. Kilimanjaro climb. 8. Remain Healthy. There's an old adage: a lean horse for a long race. That means eating well, watching your weight, and remaining active. 9. Financial Stability. If you can't afford to a full-time retirement, consider partial retirement, which can include working part-time in your current job or even finding something new from which you can earn some money. 10. What's Next in Your Life? Go to the following aptly-named Web site, http://www.WhatsNextInYourLife.com to locate non-financial retirement planning tools.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board has decided to defer the development of a new accounting model for lessors, saying the project will now only address lessee accounting.

Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu reported that its aggregate member firm revenue increased by 18.6 percent in U.S. dollars, and 13.0 percent in local currencies, to $27.4 billion in fiscal 2008.

The Howard University School of Business’s Center for Accounting Education recently held a weeklong program to improve the retention and advancement of young African American accountants and increase the numbers passing the CPA Exam early in their career.

John Gimigliano, former senior tax counsel of the House Ways and Means Committee and staff director of the Subcommittee on Select Revenue Measures, has joined KPMG.

The Center for Audit Quality capped a 10-city tour focusing on the modernization of financial information with a stop in the nation’s capital.

The Social Security Administration unveiled a new online calculator to help people plan for their retirement.

Inflation at its highest levels in 27 years, screams one headline. Manufacturers pass price increases along to consumers, screams another. “Consumers make changes – but will they last?” asks another recent headline.

Ernst & Young renewed a multi-year licensing agreement with software developer Approva to offer risk controls analytics to clients.

More than 28 percent of large public companies are not fully meeting disclosure requirements for tax reserve estimates, according to a new report.

The Governmental Accounting Standards Board issued for comment a proposed technical bulletin to help government accountants determine the annual required contribution for post-employment benefits.

Grant Thornton took first place in Public Accounting Report's second-quarter audit rankings, the first time one of the Big Four audit firms didn't get the top spot for the quarterly rankings.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has adopted rules requiring audit firms to submit reports at least once a year on fees, disciplinary actions and other information that will be posted on its Web site.Each of the more than 1,800 public accounting firms registered with the PCAOB must provide basic information about audit reports issued during the year and the disciplinary history of people who have joined the firm during that time. They must also report information about fees billed to audit clients in various categories of services as a percentage of the firm’s total fees billed.

In this third installment in our Mythbusters series (with credit to the Discovery Channel show, MythBusters), we turn to the oft-repeated but seldom-scrutinized notion that reporting values in financial statements creates volatility.This idea has been in the spotlight because of the recent financial crisis, with one myth-monger after another blaming the Financial Accounting Standards Board and anyone but themselves for financial institutions’ crashing stock prices. They say that mark-to-market accounting made it look like these entities were going into the tank. How much better it would be, they said, if the collateralized debt obligations were just carried at their cost so things wouldn’t look so bad. And if they didn’t look so bad, we’d all be better off.

I just came across a rather interesting Web site that I thought I would share with you. It’s called ValueForum.com. It’s an online investment forum geared toward allowing the free-flow of information among investors. The site provides a discussion forum where members can immediately gain access to more than 1,500 other members to talk about individual stocks, mutual funds, market sectors (i.e. energy), economic conditions (i.e. housing market), and any number of other topics that affect the everyday investor. The company says that the members on this site are all screened rigorously to ensure that no one is there to “product push” or gain anything besides knowledge. These members, the company notes, range from experienced individual investors to financial professionals and even those new to investment. The majority of the forum members are between the ages of 55 & 65 while over 20 percent are 65+…retirees, or many who are of retirement age but are still employed. A few of the offerings that ValueForum.com brings to the table are an active discussion forum, where with over 125 discussion topics, members can post a discussion question/topic to create a forum of open and free-flowing discussion. These discussions are listed in chronological order and by topic. There is also what is called shared portfolios whereby users can view the holdings of other ValueForum.com users, or share their own portfolios with the group. Members can also view the latest news on the stocks within each of the shared portfolios. Moreover, they can choose to contribute to the “Community Portfolio Project,” a portfolio built solely on the picks of members who wish to share their portfolios with others. Then too, there is a stock-picking contest where members participate in quarterly or year-long contests in which they choose a handful of stocks and a desired weight. Prizes are then given at the end of each contest period to the members with the highest performing portfolios. And finally, there are group polls by which members can create a poll question to their peers, answer questions posted by other members, and view results of all poll questions posted. ValueForum was formed in 2003 by Adam Menzel, Ben Nobel, and Daniel Pedisich. They created the site with the belief that the power of collaboration leads to better investment decisions. They say that there have always been investment clubs where people physically get together in a room every week, but now there is a way to bring people together from all over the country, and the world, to one spot in order to share their ideas. The benefit, they note, is a collaboration of cultural diversity, different work experiences, and varying investment experiences. The power of “group thinking” benefits those investors managing their own portfolio as well as those managing accounts for clients, says the company. Members immediately gain access to a wealth of knowledge about different industries to help them in their due diligence and analysis on investments, sectors, and the like. Now, in the interests of fair disclosure, I am not advocating or “pushing” this in any way. I simply am imparting information about such a site and you can take it from there.

The KPMG Foundation has granted $410,000 in scholarships to 41 minority doctoral scholarships for the 2008-2009 academic year as part of its effort to increase the number of minority students and professors in business schools.

The Bonadio Group has merged with Dorfman-Robbie and its affiliated companies, the DR Group, to create an accounting firm with annual revenues of nearly $45 million.

Accounting firm J.H. Cohn has combined practices with Frederic Kantor & Co., a Manhattan-based accounting firm serving high-net-worth individuals and families working in entertainment and the creative arts.