Audit

The Securities and Exchange Commission convened a roundtable of experts to discuss the controversial topic of fair value measurements in accounting.

Three professional accounting organizations have jointly released new guidelines for combating fraud.

Outsourced accounting company Corefino has snagged $13.6 million in a first round of funding led by Opus Capital Ventures and Bay Partners.

In preparation for the eventual transition to International Financial Reporting Standards, Big Four firm PricewaterhouseCoopers has launched a suite of educational products and services to help accounting students learn IFRS fundamentals.

The Securities and Exchange Commission’s Advisory Committee on Improvements to Financial Reporting released a draft of its final report.

Accounting Today is issuing a call for nominations for its annual Top 100 Most Influential People in Accounting list.

Accounting firm Weaver and Tidwell reported that its net revenues for the 2008 fiscal year ending May 31 reached $51 million, a 28 percent increase over the previous fiscal year.

Accounting firm Reznick Group has partnered with Palladium Pacific on a service to provide help to real estate lenders, investors, builders and developers with their troubled real estate assets.

BDO Seidman has admitted 18 new partners to the firm, effective July 1.

CFOS LACK EXPERIENCE WITH IFRSChicago — Nearly 75 percent of CFOs and senior comptrollers have no experience using International Financial Reporting Standards, while 55 percent are unfamiliar with the Extensible Business Reporting Language, according to a new survey by Grant Thornton.

Business optimism remains at low levels, according to a new survey by Grant Thornton.

John Garrett went from being a CPA to touring the country as a standup comic, but he still regularly entertains audiences with jokes about accounting and taxes.

Accounting firm Weaver and Tidwell has introduced a financial services niche practice aimed at investment companies, including hedge funds and private equity firms.

U.S. corporations and accountants concerned over rising audit costs due to Sarbanes-Oxley requirements may soon have more to worry about — including another spike in audit charges as a result of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board’s proposed new standard for engagement quality review.The stricter standard, which was initially proposed back in February and would apply to audits of public companies performed under PCAOB standards, is risk-based and designed to ease identification and speed correction of audit deficiencies prior to issuing the auditor’s report.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board issued the latest inspection report of Big Four firm Deloitte & Touche, noting problems with nine audits performed by the firm last year.With two unidentified clients, the PCAOB said that Deloitte failed to identify a departure from generally accepted accounting principles that it should have addressed before issuing its audit report. In both cases, the clients incorrectly concluded that interest rate swaps qualified for hedge accounting using the short-cut method in Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 133.

The Governmental Accounting Standards Board has issued a new standard aimed at improving how state and local governments report information about derivative instruments in their financial statements.

Risk management has become a top concern of audit committee members, according to a new report.

Rules and guidance issued last year by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board have made it easier for companies to cut the time they spend on Sarbanes-Oxley compliance.

Deloitte plans to invest approximately $300 million to create a learning and leadership development center in Westlake, Texas.

One of legendary basketball coach John Wooden’s basic tenets of success was an axiom he quoted almost daily to his players, or for that matter, anyone who wanted to listen and learn.