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June 6, 2013 |  BY Ken Tysiac |  Article

Andrew Barbe, CPA, CGMA, wishes he had more time to devote to strategic planning and development as vice president for accounting and senior controller of NorTex Midstream Partners LLC, a natural gas midstream service company. But as the senior manager in charge of finance, accounting, treasury, tax, human resources, information technology, and land management for the Texas company, Barbe spends much of his day dealing with regulatory requirements that he said have grown significantly in the last few years.

June 6, 2013 |  BY Neil Amato |  Article

For much of the past year, U.S. finance executives have been optimistic about their companies’ prospects, but they’ve been somewhat lukewarm on the prospects of the overall economy. That dichotomous view is changing, according to results of the second-quarter AICPA Business & Industry Economic Outlook Survey, which was released Thursday.

June 1, 2013 |  BY David Kuhlman |  Article

Most CPAs promoted to leadership positions get there because of their technical skills and professional prowess. In many cases, however, the same CPAs have not been prepared to act as leaders. The following steps show what employers can do to cultivate leadership skills. Emphasize business acumen, curiosity, and strategic sensibility early in CPAs’ careers and when making promotions.

June 1, 2013 |  BY Jack Hagel |  Article

Fraud poses a serious risk to any business. While progress is evident on some fronts, many organizations still need to improve systems and procedures to prevent, detect, and respond to fraud. Coverage in CGMA Magazine in recent months has highlighted the journey toward better fraud prevention. E-PAYMENT METHODS DECREASE FRAUD Use of electronic payment methods and a range of fraud mitigation strategies have coincided with a drop in payments fraud over the past year, according to a global survey of companies conducted by the Association for Financial Professionals.

June 1, 2013 |  Article

Richard Oliver, CPA, CGMA, is the president of familyowned THORLO Inc. in Statesville, N.C. He got his start in accounting with a fiber-optics company in Hickory, N.C., then went to work as an auditor for Deloitte. He returned to the fiber-optics field after three years, before he was recruited to THORLO in 1992.

May 23, 2013 |  BY Gary Cokins |  Article

As companies face a thinning margin for decision error, the ability to use business analytics effectively—everything from correlation, segmentation, clustering, regression analysis, as well as forecasting and predicting outcomes—is becoming mission-critical. There is now a strong need to gain insights, foresight, and inferences from the treasure chest of raw transactional data, both internal and external, that many organizations store in a digital format, typically referred to as data warehousing.

May 23, 2013 |  BY Neil Amato |  Article

When it comes to budgeting, accountants should stop presenting the numbers and letting others analyze what those numbers mean. If accountants don’t change, warns consultant Steve Player, CPA, CGMA, they’ll lose relevance and possibly lose jobs. “It’s our process that’s broken,” Player said. “We’ve got smart people in finance doing dumb stuff.” Player, founder of management consulting company The Player Group, said traditional budgeting processes don’t work and that organizations must adapt by going to a model of continuous planning and rolling forecasts.

May 23, 2013 |  BY Neil Amato |  Article

Tom Steiner would like to get CFOs to stop thinking so logically all the time. He contends that the world is emotional, not logical, and that “linear, logical people that concern themselves with numbers” are too focused on tasks instead of the people performing those tasks. Steiner, nicknamed “Dr.

May 21, 2013 |  BY Ken Tysiac |  Article

Even as members of the recently created National Commission on Diversity & Inclusion work to improve opportunities for under-represented minorities in the CPA profession, they are reminded of just how much work needs to be done. During a panel discussion of commission members held Monday at the AICPA Council meeting, Ed Ramos, CPA, described being contacted recently by a woman representing a not-for-profit organization trying to hire a CPA firm.

May 15, 2013 |  BY Ken Tysiac |  Article

New developments associated with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) have companies changing their compliance processes more than a decade after the law was enacted, according to a new survey report. Organizations reporting rises in SOX compliance costs and external audit fees in 2012 vastly outnumbered those reporting decreases, according to global consulting firm Protiviti’s 2013 Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance Survey report.