Informed business decisions require accurate financial information and solid internal controls. Whether dealing with an internal audit function, the board of directors, an external audit firm or shareholders, every organization should do what it can to ensure a robust financial reporting process supported by strong controls. Financial systems are the
A funny thing happened to accountants when the U.S. Small Business Administration launched the Paycheck Protection Program. There, amid the chaos of the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, with many of us still juggling the transition to remote work and all of us worried about the uncertainty ahead, accountants
Accounting Today recently reported on the trend of private equity investments in the public accounting profession. How does this work in light of the fact that: (1) Licensed CPA firms must be at least majority-owned (and in some jurisdictions, 100%-owned) by licensed individual CPAs, and (2) Even when non-CPA ownership
I wrote a column earlier this month about the critical issues involved in running a small accounting firm. My column identified four critical issues based on the views of the 11 firms and 17 people attending my two virtual joint retreats. They are: staffing, how owners and partners spent their
The Internal Revenue Service added a new feature Friday to its online portal for the Child Tax Credit allowing parents to update the mailing address where they should receive the monthly payments. The new feature will enable any family that opts to receive their payment through a paper check to
At least $1 billion in commercial donor-advised fund grants went to other commercial DAF sponsors in 2019, according to a new report, rather than being distributed to charity. The report, released Thursday by the Institute for Policy Studies, found that over the five years analyzed from 2015 to 2019, the
My father-in-law is a very successful attorney. One of his great sayings is: “I’m always looking at the clock, and they are looking at the calendar.” What that means is he has very different expectations from his clients about when something should be completed. If you’re a CPA, an attorney,
Nearly 61% of U.S households paid no federal income taxes during pandemic-stricken year of 2020, because of declines in income and boosts to government subsidies that wiped away tax liabilities, according to data from the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. The number of households owing nothing came in at 106.8 million,
Fintechs were almost five times more likely than traditional lenders to be involved with suspicious loans issued through the U.S. government’s Paycheck Protection Program, according to a new study. Nine of the 10 lenders with the highest rates of suspicious loans were financial-technology firms, according to the study released Tuesday
How are we going to get our pricing right in this new world? Accountants work crazy hours and bend over backward to help clients, but many are not charging enough. The profession should be saying goodbye to the billable hour and redefining what their pricing looks like. This becomes more
