Jim Ulvog

CPAs who provide attestation services need to check out the new code of professional conduct. Soon. Seriously, check it out. Before the end of the year.

Leave a Comment / Audits, Compilations & reviews /

Actually you should check out the Code of Professional Conduct in the next four or six weeks so you can make some changes to your engagement letters.

Yesterday I worked through the document in-depth for the first time. Will go into more detail on the code later.

The online version is here. You can download a free copy in PDF format by clicking on this link. That link is in the corner of the landing page for the online version.

A few highlights follow. Just a few.

Update: See added comment on the 12/15/14 effective date.

Identify threats and implement safeguards, then document doing both

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CPAs who provide attestation services need to check out the new code of professional conduct. Soon. Seriously, check it out. Before the end of the year.Read More »

CPAs who provide attestation services need to check out the new code of professional conduct. Soon. Seriously, check it out. Before the end of the year. Read More »

6 CPE courses on FRF for SMEs and 1 on PCC arriving soon

1 Comment / Accounting /

I’ve written another batch of CPE courses for CCH.

Six one-hour modules delve into the Financial Reporting Framework for Small- and Medium-Sized Entities. That’s an entirely new reporting framework separate from GAAP that will allow for simplified reporting by smaller business entities.

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6 CPE courses on FRF for SMEs and 1 on PCC arriving soonRead More »

6 CPE courses on FRF for SMEs and 1 on PCC arriving soon Read More »

Tragedy of Fraud series now available in print as well as e-book formats

Leave a Comment / Books you might enjoy, Fraud /

tragedy-cover   tragedy-cover

 

Both books in my Tragedy of Fraud series are now available in print format from Amazon.

The newest book:

tragedy-cover

Tragedy of Fraud – Insider Trading Edition describes – Scott London’s long fall from Big 4 audit partner to prison inmate.

Click the link for your reading preference:

First book in the series:

tragedy-cover

Tragedy of Fraud – The Ripple Effects from Fraud and the Wages Earned – Consequences of fraud spread far. There is a long list of well-earned wages from fraud that will be paid in full.

Available in your preferred format:

Tragedy of Fraud series now available in print as well as e-book formats Read More »

Ideas to make your writing more understandable. Give it a shot.

Leave a Comment / Other stuff /

The whole purpose of writing things is for other people to understand your ideas. Why then is so much writing bad?

Steven Pinker suggests in The Source of Bad Writing that the issue is

The ‘curse of knowledge’ leads writers to assume their readers know everything they know

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Ideas to make your writing more understandable. Give it a shot.Read More »

Ideas to make your writing more understandable. Give it a shot. Read More »

More good stuff for auditors – 9/25

Leave a Comment / Accounting, Other stuff /

A few links and comments of interest to auditors.

9/14 – The F Student – It’s a Good Hurt – Exercise is boring. Sometimes the stretching after a run is painful. Yet exercise is critical for good health overall. Stretching is imperative (as I understand) to prevent injury next time you run.

Internal controls and all those accounting procedures are the same thing, according to Rumbi Bwerinofa. …

More good stuff for auditors – 9/25Read More »

More good stuff for auditors – 9/25 Read More »

At its core, capitalism is moral

Leave a Comment / Economics, Pondering /

At the most foundational level, capitalism is moral.

The only way to succeed in the long-term is to treat customers well and honestly. That will provide money to the company to continue paying staff and vendors as well as leaving a profit for owners.

If a company does not deliver a quality product or service that customers value with higher utility to them than the cost to provide by the company, then the company won’t be around long.

At the core level, it is moral to satisfy your customers with profit left over.

CPA Ron Baker makes this point more eloquently than me in his LinkedIn article, Are Corporations Socially Responsible?

By the way, the answer is yes.

If a corporation provides value to customers, both the company and customer will be better off after the transaction than before. That is a positive social value.

Doing so, within the framework of the law (as Milton Freidman points out) is the duty of a business and it is also highly socially responsible.

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At its core, capitalism is moralRead More »

At its core, capitalism is moral Read More »

Another view of the devastation caused by a fraudster

1 Comment / Fraud /

Looking closely at a specific fraud case shows the depth of the damage caused by fraud. That also lets us see the horrible impact a fraud has on the fraudster and his or her family.

Take a look at the story of Amy Wilson, who stole $350,000 from her employer. She served four years in prison. She is working to restore her life and has made a lot of progress.

What could you learn from the video?

Listen as she tells of the devastation she caused her dear husband and beloved children.

Listen as she tells of the betrayal she caused her oh so nice employer.

Listen for clues on how you could take steps that might prevent this kind of devastation from shredding your ministry.

 

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8WKz0Happ8&feature=player_embedded]

 

If you want to learn more of her story, you could visit her website: …

Another view of the devastation caused by a fraudsterRead More »

Another view of the devastation caused by a fraudster Read More »

The world’s oldest profession? Fraudster.

Leave a Comment / Fraud, Pondering /

I listened to a CPE class by Sam Antar last week (Crazy Eddie CFO and ex-CPA Sam Antar Shows You How He Cooked the Books). Great class, in case you are looking for 2 hours of CPE. (Cross posted from my other blog, Nonprofit Update.)

He suggested that unlike what has been said for a long time, prostitution is not the world’s oldest profession.

Instead, he suggested that committing fraud is the world’s oldest profession.

How can that be?

Go back to the garden of Eden. The serpent deceived Eve through a knowing misrepresentation of the truth in order to deceive her and take something from her. His intent was to harm her.

Definition of fraud

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The world’s oldest profession? Fraudster.Read More »

The world’s oldest profession? Fraudster. Read More »

Next banking fiasco? Manipulating foreign exchange rates?

1 Comment / Other stuff /

The Wall Street Journal reports ”Flipped” Bankers Aid U.S. in Foreign-Exchange Probe – Criminal Charges Are Expected as Early as Next Month.

Looks like it is time to pay attention to a new fiasco. After manipulating LIBOR comes the foreign exchange rates, or forex.

Article appears to be based on lots of leaks. In a tossup between guessing whether the Justice Department or the banks are leaking most of the info, I’ll guess the slightly higher probability is the feds.

This new fiasco is apparently developed from information obtained during the LIBOR investigations.

Individual enforcement action this time

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Next banking fiasco? Manipulating foreign exchange rates?Read More »

Next banking fiasco? Manipulating foreign exchange rates? Read More »

Mild sanctions on Penn State for covering up child molestation just got milder

2 Comments / Pondering /

Last Monday the NCAA dialed back the already mild sanctions on Penn State for covering up years of child molestation.

The school is now eligible for post-season games after sitting out two years. The initial penalty was a four-year ban.

The school can resume its full amount of allowed scholarships instead of cutting them back just a little bit for four years. They only took a two-year reduction in scholarships.

The Wall Street Journal describes the end of sanctions: NCAA Lifts Penn State’s Postseason Ban.

This post is part of the conversation on this blog on the severity of punishment for egregious behavior. Should there be capital punishment, as with Arthur Andersen? Or should there be cost-of-doing-business punishment, as with the big banks and Penn State.

I discussed this two years ago: On capital punishment of organizations – Arthur Andersen and Penn State – corporate death versus mild sanctions

Let’s walk through the four penalties imposed on Penn State. Let me explain why this was mild and is now milder.

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Mild sanctions on Penn State for covering up child molestation just got milderRead More »

Mild sanctions on Penn State for covering up child molestation just got milder Read More »

Can you live with mission critical applications disappearing for a week?

Leave a Comment / Other stuff /

Consider your vulnerabilities to a software vendor disappearing overnight.

I changed RSS readers for a third time this week. They keep shutting down on me.

As an active blogger, reading a lot of blogs therefore access to news sources is mission critical. Well, I suppose I choose to make it mission critical – it’s a big deal for me.

Substitute your mission critical applications for my reliance on RSS feed and you can think through an assessment of how vulnerable you are to vendors just going away.

(Cross-posted from my other blog, Nonprofit Update. Think about your tax software or audit software as you read this post.)

On Monday Bloglines disappeared. That has been my RSS feed for quite a while. I thought, might be a server problem. Maybe a software upgrade that failed. Down lines somewhere. I can live with that for a little bit.

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Can you live with mission critical applications disappearing for a week?Read More »

Can you live with mission critical applications disappearing for a week? Read More »

Some preliminary thoughts on the Enhancing Audit Quality initiative and some Peer Review implications

Leave a Comment / Peer Review /

The AICPA has launched an initiative they are calling Enhancing Audit Quality, or EAQ. This will be a coordinated effort to improve the overall quality of audits.

Why the initiative?

There are some serious quality issues. More on that momentarily.

This will be the first in a long series of articles on the EAQ initiative. I think this will be a big deal over the next few years and we probably ought to start paying attention.

I previously did a quick read through of the EAQ Discussion Paper. You can find that and lots more on the EAQ home page, which has an easy-to-remember link of aicpa.org/auditquality.

Today I listened to a one-hour webcast. You can find the link here, and since it was not for credit, I’m guessing you may soon be able to watch it on your own.

Why is there a perceived quality issue?

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Some preliminary thoughts on the Enhancing Audit Quality initiative and some Peer Review implicationsRead More »

Some preliminary thoughts on the Enhancing Audit Quality initiative and some Peer Review implications Read More »

More thoughts on the resurrected Andersen brand. Part 3

Leave a Comment / Audits, Pondering /

Here are a few more articles discussing the acquisition of the Andersen brand name by a tax-only accounting firm. My previous articles here and here.

9/8 – re:The Auditors – More on My Reuters Breakingviews Column: The Andersen Tax Name Grab – Francine McKenna brings in more background and other articles on the return of the Andersen brand.

She even quotes the last part of my previous post which said that if a small portion of the worldwide CFOs think the Andersen name denotes quality then there is huge market for the formerly named WTAS firm.

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More thoughts on the resurrected Andersen brand. Part 3Read More »

More thoughts on the resurrected Andersen brand. Part 3 Read More »