Audit

Microsoft has launched Microsoft Money Plus, an update to its personal financial software targeted at consumers, entrepreneurs and small businesses.

The future of the accounting profession will be largely determined by its response to escalating talent shortages and other challenges of the post-regulatory-reform era, says a distinguished group of leaders in this field. The Robert Half International Financial Leadership Council recently met and recommended a number of strategies for addressing these issues. It’s all set forth in a new report, Charting the Future of Accounting, Finance and Audit Professions. The Council, which represents a diverse range of leaders from the corporate world, public accounting firms, industry associations, and top accounting universities in the U.S. and Canada, discussed the impact of changing workforce demographics on today’s accounting landscape and the recruitment and retention challenges associated with these shifts. Some of the key findings and recommended solutions are:

Albridge Solutions has added mutual fund and exchange-traded fund research to its Albridge Wealth Reporting software.

BDO Seidman was ordered to pay $170 million in compensation and $350 million in punitive damages by a Florida jury that blamed the accounting firm for negligence in failing to uncover fraud in its audits of a financial services company.

Grant Thornton said that its Business Optimism Index has hit an all-time low, the lowest point since the accounting firm introduced the semiannual confidence measure in May 2002.

Just recently, I was reading an online article in the East Bay Business Times, a California business-to-business newspaper, and I noticed a very effective ad for the San Ramon Valley Conference Center. It linked me to www.sanramonvalleyconferencecenter.com, the Web site for the conference site, where I was able to take a virtual tour of the facilities.

Accounting irregularities caused Beazer Homes to delay its third-quarter financial report after the company said in a financial filing that it had encountered accounting problems.

Linden Lab, creator of the online virtual world Second Life, has begun outsourcing its finance and accounting work to Consero Global Solutions.

Board directors and general counsel are spending more time on enterprise risk management as a result of Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, but they would prefer not to, according to a newly released study.

Grant Thornton named David Auclair as head of the accounting firm's National Tax Office.

I attended a breakfast meeting the other day with executives from The Money Management Institute, which is a national organization for the managed account solutions industry. The Institute represents portfolio manager firms and sponsors of investment consulting programs, and the leading advocate for the industry on regulatory and legislative issues. Its membership list reads like a Who’s Who of firms that offer financial consulting services to individual investors as well as related professional portfolio management companies, among others. Present at the meeting were Christopher Davis, its President, Kevin Hunt, Chairman of the Board of governors and Executive Vice President of Old Mutual U.S. Holdings, Len Reinhart, President of Lockwood, an affiliate of Pershing, and Mary Deatherage, Senior Vice President, Wealth Management, at Smith Barney. It was a fascinating group who discussed various aspects of financial planning for clients including certain case studies and how they were dealt with. I learned that as recently as five years ago, financial planning for clients was pretty much handled by wirehouses for the planning and CPAs for the taxes. That has now changed dramatically, they say. Because of the advent of the Baby Boomers and their needs toward retirement, and the fact that people are retiring at an earlier age (57) than ever before, not to mention the broker/dealer and SEC business going on, CPAs are now replacing wirehouses in dealing with financial planning and investments. In fact, it was mentioned that insurance agents as financial advisors have slid downward somewhat because people simply don’t want to get involved with advisors who take commissions. It looks like it’s a question of trust, and many CPAs who have substantial financial planning practices tell me that clients are rather edgy whenever the CPA raises the specter of an insurance policy or certain investments that appear to have commission-strings attached. So, the CPA who is doing fee-based or fee-only planning is rising rather rapidly, especially fee-only. It is also interesting to note that the managed account solutions market grew at a healthy 6.7 percent to reach $1.34 trillion in assets just in the first quarter of this year alone. According to figures furnished, it outpaced the S&P 500 index, which returned only .64 percent during the same quarter. What also came out of this meeting is the fact that those who use financial planners are more loyal to their advisor than individuals who use full-service brokers or investment advisors and that client loyalty is built on responsiveness and investment returns. According to the Spectrem Group in its Affluent Market Insights for 2007, once advisors have turned a prospect into a client, they must retain that client. “As important as investment returns, low fees and low expenses are, they are not the primary driver of loyalty among the affluent. Simply returning phone calls promptly is the best method for advisors to develop loyalty. It is also important to investors that advisors provide a contact if he or she is not available.” In addition, Spectrem says that “giving “gifts at holidays, remembering birthdays and providing free tickets to special events does not develop loyalty.” Hmmm. How about a box of imported, dark chocolate? Does the trick for me.

Roel Campos, one of the two Democrats on the five-member Securities and Exchange Commission, announced plans to return to the private sector next month, further tipping the balance on the panel as the SEC continues to issue and enforce regulations affecting accountants.

Accounting firm Bush, Ramlow & Shore is joining Firm Foundation, a recently established association for CPA firms that have approximately 10 to 30 full-time employees.

Trintech Group has updated its ReconNet reconciliation and account-balancing software with enhanced workflow features.

Large companies in the United States are getting better at managing potentially critical business risks, according to a new study.

The remaining five defendants in the KPMG tax shelter case are seeking a postponement in the trial until after October.

A majority of financial executives rank data quality and information integrity as the No. 1 priority, according to a new survey.

House lawmakers passed a $16 billion energy tax bill that does away with tax breaks for oil and gas companies and shifts the incentives to alternative energy, despite the threat of a veto from President Bush.

According to a recent press release, a nationwide telephone survey of 1,000 investors conducted for the Center for Audit Quality (CAQ) indicated that 79 percent of those surveyed felt changes brought about by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act bolstered their confidence in financial information presented.

In its second merger of the year, Pittsburgh-based CPA firm Malin, Bergquist and Co. LLP has combined with a firm based in nearby Erie, Pa.: Diefenbach Delio Kearney & DeDionisio.