169 Posts Found

You have to piece together information from different parts of the annual report.

Content: Article | Source: BusinessWeek | Subjects: Accounting, Finance

A new CFO survey suggests why new rules for auditors may be a wise idea.

Content: Article | Author: Andrew Osterland | Source: CFO Publishing | Subjects: Accounting, Finance

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As nervous investors flee from companies with even a hint of murky accounting, the pressure is on CFOs to rein in pro forma reporting, renounce off-balance-sheet maneuvers, and disclose more information. But a new survey on financial reporting by CFO Magazine suggests that many finance execs are unwilling to change their ways, even in the wake of Enron and WorldCom.

Content: Article | Author: Ronald Fink | Source: CFO Publishing | Subjects: Accounting, Finance

Accountancy used to be boring. If only it still were.

Content: Article | Author: Matthew Bishop | Sources: CFO Publishing, The Economist | Subjects: Accounting, Finance

NOTE: The original site seems to have been hacked by some spammers – I am now linking to the archive.org site until that gets settled…

SAB101.org, is a one-stop educational resource for any financial executive facing the challenges of SAB 101 interpretation and compliance. As a well-indexed portal, SAB101.org includes links to resources from more than a dozen sources including the SEC, professional financial and … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Sources: diCarta, SAB101.org | Subjects: Accounting, Finance

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If banks have to come clean about their off-balance-sheet leverage, get ready to pay more for money.

Content: Article | Author: Andrew Osterland | Source: CFO Publishing | Subjects: Accounting, Finance | Industry: Finance / Banking

When Enron collapsed last year amidst allegations of misleading financial statements, it joined a long list of companies that had originally been given clean bills of health by auditors and analysts, only to have that information later discredited. Yet according to analyst and author Howard Schilit, businesses were, in fact, broadcasting their misdeeds long before corporate watchdogs caught on. The problem is that nobody was … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: Accounting, Finance

U.S. and international standard setters are coordinating their efforts to craft a common language for business.

Content: Article | Author: Tim Reason | Source: CFO Publishing | Subjects: Accounting, International

“Intellectual capital has been around for as long as companies have had customers. It’s what makes a company worth more than the sum of its countable parts. As an asset, it has been (inadequately) covered for years by the blanket of goodwill. Unlike accounting goodwill, intellectual capital appreciates.

…

Traditional accounting measures can no longer adequately determine the real value of companies. But if intangible assets cannot … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Barry Brinker | Source: AICPA | Subject: Accounting

MCI introduced Walter Pavlo to a world of armed thugs, duffel bags stuffed with cash and phony accounting. Now, sitting in a South Carolina prison, he points a finger back at his former employer.

Content: Article | Author: Neil Weinberg | Source: Forbes | Subjects: Accounting, Finance

A recent study of US IPOs from 1986 through early 2000, conducted by Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, found that “new economy” firms that promoted the use of non-financial measures did worse when evaluated by those same measures. This compounds their well-documented failure to provide meaningful financial returns and confirms the importance of identifying, measuring, and disclosing appropriate intangible value drivers.

Furthermore, the study found that … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Jon Low | Source: CGE&Y Center for Business Innovation (CBI) | Subjects: Accounting, Finance | Industry: Investment Banking

The Securities and Exchange Commission is concerned with the growing practice of issuing “pro forma” earnings reports that tend to paint a rosy picture of company results.

Pro forma, which means “as if”, has in recent years evolved into “a sophisticated term for lying about your results,” says Wharton accounting professor emeritus Peter H. Knutson. He compares companies that abuse pro forma statements to the husband … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: Accounting, Finance

New merger-accouting rules may sharpen investor views of intangibles, but CFOs should also consider the impact of write-offs.

Content: Article | Authors: Jennifer Caplan, Roy Harris | Source: CFO Publishing | Subjects: Accounting, Finance

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Pressure to meet the numbers is greater than ever. But don’t let your company issue a misleading earnings report. An excerpt from the Harvard Business Review shows how to spot signs of trouble.

Content: Article | Authors: H. David Sherman, S. David Young | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subjects: Accounting, Finance | Industry: Investing

High book-to-market (B-to-M) firms tend to be in poor financial health, as reflected by their low stock prices and poor earnings performance. Yet research consistently shows that a portfolio of these “value” firms outperforms both the overall market and portfolios comprised of low B-to-M “glamour” firms.

The reason for this is because a small number of high B-to-M firms are strong enough to raise the … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Joseph D. Piotroski | Source: Capital Ideas | Subjects: Accounting, Finance | Industry: Investing

The dramatic disintegration of Enron has left a lot of people wondering how this huge, publicly-traded company could have fallen so far so fast. Wharton faculty and others help explain what went on behind the scenes at Enron, where it is now clear that management exploited loopholes in accounting procedures and created questionable partnerships involving top company officials, among other tactics.

Content: Article | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: Accounting, Corporate Governance

The dramatic disintegration of Enron has left a lot of people wondering how this huge, publicly-traded company could have fallen so far so fast. Wharton faculty and others help explain what went on behind the scenes at Enron, where it is now clear that management exploited loopholes in accounting procedures and created questionable partnerships involving top company officials, among other tactics.

Content: Case Study | Sources: Enron, Knowledge@Wharton | Subject: Accounting