Regulatory actions and programs

President and CEO Ken Bishop shares the latest news from the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy.

The Center for Audit Quality and several corporate governance organizations and companies have created a new online auditor evaluation tool to help the audit committees on corporate boards evaluate their auditing firms.

Cloud-based financials and ERP software provider NetSuite Inc. has released NetSuite Two-Tier ERP for Oracle, powered by a new version of NetSuite OneWorld and SuiteCloud Connectors to Oracle.

The Institute of Internal Auditors has announced that a set of revisions will be made to internal auditing standards, taking effect at the beginning of next year.

Celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act is provoking a retrospective look at the good and bad after-effects of the landmark legislation.

The majority of members of public company boards of directors are opposed to proposals for mandatory audit firm rotation, according to a new survey.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has reached a tentative agreement to begin observing Chinese regulatory authorities during inspections of auditing firms in China as a kind of “trust-building exercise.”

The Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission has released an exposure draft of its Internal Control over External Financial Reporting: Compendium of Approaches and Examples.

Legal and regulatory information provider Bloomberg BNA has launched its new Financial Accounting Resource Center to help accounting professionals keep up with changes in accounting standards.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board is heading to Houston to host its third public meeting on auditor independence and audit firm rotation.

The House held a hearing Thursday to discuss small business perspectives on the tax cliff, hearing testimony from a representative of the American Institute of CPAs and other witnesses.

Check out the digital edition of the September 2012 issue of Accounting Today.

If there’s a shortage of tax preparers for the 2014 season, it won’t be for lack of education providers.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales plans to develop guidance for auditors on providing assurance on interest rate benchmarks in the wake of the outcry over manipulation of the LIBOR, or London Inter-Bank Offered Rate, which cost the jobs of top executives at the British bank Barclays.

The Private Company Council that the Financial Accounting Foundation is setting up is intended to serve as the voice of millions of privately held companies during the standard-setting process.

As we acknowledge the 10th anniversary of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, we are once again in a period of re-examination of the role, relevance and reliability of financial audits in protecting investors and the public interest. This seems to be, in part, a reaction to the financial crisis of the past few years.

Highlights of the previous month in audit and attest

First round of Dodd-Frank-mandated inspections suggests deficiences may be widespread

The Securities and Exchange Commission issued a financial literacy study Thursday confirming earlier studies that U.S. retail investors lack basic financial literacy.