Recruiting

Barry Melancon has been leading the American Institute of CPAs since 1995. As president and CEO of the AICPA, he has been keeping busy on a number of fronts this past year. The Institute has been working with Congress on patent reform to keep tax strategy patents from taking hold. Another priority has been CPA mobility, so CPAs face fewer regulatory barriers when practicing across different states. Melancon has also been closely involved with the effort to move toward Extensible Business Reporting Language for financial statements, spearheading an initiative to assign data tags to generally accepted accounting principles. He was recently named co-vice chair of the Center for Audit Quality and to a position on the Treasury Department's new Advisory Committee on the Audit Profession. Melancon is also a member of the AICPA's delegation to the International Federation of Accountants. His accounting career began in 1979 at Bergeron & Co. in Louisiana. Before joining the AICPA, he served for eight years as executive director of the Society of Louisiana CPAs.

Employers around the world are worried about the shortage of accounting and finance talent, according to a newly released survey.

What happens when you're a female partner who enjoys golfing, but instead of being invited to a golf foursome with important clients, your husband - who's not even with your firm - is asked to go instead?Is this intentional, or just an oversight?

"We were stretching our ranks much too thin and we simply couldn't hire people fast enough to keep up with such a rapid growth. I felt the substantial growth was causing us to get away from our culture to have a solid work/life balance. If we had kept letting market conditions run their course on our firm without taking action, we could have lost what made us great--our employees. So we slowed down this rapid escalation and staffed up to provide employees with a good work/life balance."

Accounting firm Silver, Lerner, Schwartz & Fertel announced a merger with Phyllis Malitz & Associates, increasing the size of SLSF to 35.

Quantum Simulations said it has begun field-testing artificial intelligence software for tutoring accounting students.

CPAs have received a blessing in disguise with the annual continuing professional education requirements that force them to learn something new.

Hiring of accounting and finance employees is anticipated to increase in the fourth quarter, according to a newly released survey of CFOs in the United States.

Job cuts in the mortgage industry are prompting many workers to turn to the accounting industry for work, according to one staffing company.

Deloitte & Touche debuted a Deloitte Film Festival featuring short films submitted by teams of Deloitte employees from around the U.S.

You might ask in return, "What the heck is off-ramping?" I didn't know either until I read a new report issued by the AICPA Work/Life and Women's Initiatives Executive Committee.

CFOs are worried about the availability of future finance talent and don't feel their companies are doing enough to make finance an attractive career option, according to a new survey.

With a wave of senior partners graying and a shortage of younger CPA professionals ready to take their place, the importance of creating - and maintaining - a succession plan for a firm's future is becoming more urgent than ever.It may seem obvious to design a plan to keep the business of a firm going strong, but according to a 2006 survey conducted by the Private Companies Practice Section of the American Institute of CPAs and the Texas Society of CPAs' National Management of an Accounting Practice, 76 percent of the 1,842 participating firms reported that they had no documented succession plans.

Financial services firm Braver said it was merging with Nelson, Adam & Dickson, an accounting firm based in Concord, Mass.

KPMG's Canadian arm found itself on the receiving end of a class-action lawsuit, claiming that the firm did not properly compensate employees for their overtime work or denied them overtime compensation altogether.

Accounting firm Aronson & Co. has launched a video contest to attract accounting and finance students with a prize of a $2,500 "professional makeover" that includes services such as clothing consultations and resume preparation help.

It’s nice to see that CPAs and their firms are doing very well. According to the just-released 2007 Rosenberg MAP Survey, firms with net fees over $2 million enjoyed annual net fee growth of 11.4 percent in 2006, compared to 9.7 percent in 2005. The average income for partners in these firms, according to the survey, is $350,000.

The American Institute of CPAs introduced a guidebook to help accounting firms set up "off-ramping" programs to help women transition out of demanding full-time accounting careers, while maintaining a relationship so the off-ramped employees can assist the firm when needed.

More than half of undergraduate accounting students admitted to cheating, a proportion roughly comparable to that of other business majors, according to a newly released academic study.

Virginia CPA firm Yount, Hyde & Barbour has established a $2,500 annual scholarship for accounting students through the Virginia Society of CPAs Educational Foundation, making a $50,000 gift to the foundation so the scholarship can launch next year.