Economy

The American Institute of CPAs and the American Accounting Association's Management Accounting Section are teaming up to research non-financial performance measures.

The American Institute of CPAs will merge the management of its Extensible Business Reporting Language and Enhanced Business Reporting programs.

The new risk assessment standards are all about getting back to basics, said expert Hiriam Hasty while speaking at the New York State Society of CPAs' annual Accounting and Auditing in the Nonpublic Environment Conference.

Victor Hugo once wrote that the one thing more powerful than all the armies on earth was an idea whose time has come.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board and the American Institute of CPAs issued a proposal aimed at improving the financial reporting process for private companies.

CPA2Biz Inc., the online marketing and technology portal for the American Institute of CPAs, announced that it expects to deliver a second year of profitability when its fiscal year closes July 31.Executives for CPA2Biz said that projections show that the Web site's overall revenues should increase by 6 percent this year, to about $15.2 million. Their forecasts call for about $600,000 in net income.

I couldn't believe the number of American Idol votes. The voters couldn't have been just those in their teens and twenties. Perhaps it isn't a coincidence that the votes were being cast as I was flying back from attending the AICPA Spring Council meeting in Salt Lake City.

Calling it a year of "significant transformation" at the American Institute of CPAs, president and chief executive Barry Melancon updated members of the Governing Council on a number of institute initiatives, including progress on the relocation of major AICPA functions to Durham, N.C., advocacy and outreach programs, peer review and the institute's push for private company financial reporting.

The American Institute of CPAs voted to allow non-public members on its Peer Review Board as part of the ongoing restructuring of that senior committee.

While a resident of Arizona in the early 1980s, I heard reams of anecdotes about the benefits of making Southwest Airlines your preferred carrier. I even shared a house with two people who worked for the airline and talked about its colorful founder, Herb Kelleher, in almost reverential terms.

A missing hard drive has led the American Institute of CPAs to issue a warning to all of its approximately 330,000 members, warning them that their names, addresses and Social Security numbers were among the data on the drive.

CPA2Biz Inc., the online marketing and technology portal for the American Institute of CPAs, announced that it expects to deliver a second year of profitability when its fiscal year closes July 31.

In the latest turf battle to come to light between the two groups, the American Institute of CPAs and the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy skirmished over NASBA's interest in the details of public company audit inspection reports.In a recent alert sent out from the AICPA Center for Public Company Audit Firms, director Lillian Ceynowa wrote that member firms were not required to comply with inquiries from some state boards requesting the identities of individuals and companies referred to in Public Company Accounting Oversight Board inspection reports.

The Internal Revenue Service heard from a variety of groups on a proposed rule change that the agency says would strengthen taxpayer control over tax information in the hands of tax preparers or tax software companies.

Louis Matherne, one of the early proponents and pioneers of the Extensible Business Reporting Language format, is leaving his role as the director of the American Institute of CPAs' XBRL program effective April 10.Matherne has accepted a position with the Information Systems Audit and Control Association and its affiliate, the IT Governance Institute. ISACA is a 50,000-member global group dedicated to information technology governance, security and control procedures.

Legal Web site Daubert Tracker will offer discounted access to members of the Business Valuation and Forensic & Litigation Services Section of the American Institute of CPAs.

In the latest turf battle to come to light between the two groups, the American Institute of CPAs and the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy recently squabbled over NASBA's interest in the details of public company audit inspection reports.

The American Institute of CPAs and the American Association of Attorney-CPAs have partnered with the Internal Revenue Service to offer free tax return preparation assistance to some taxpayers impacted by Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma.

Louis Matherne is leaving his role as the director of the American Institute of CPAs' Extensible Business Reporting Language program. Matherne has accepted a position with the Information Systems Audit and Control Association and the IT Governance Institute , effective April 10.

The Auditing Standards Board of the American Institute of CPAs has approved eight new statements on auditing standards, collectively referred to as the risk assessment standards.